Activities and Cases

 

Directions: Read each scenario and answer the following questions about the ethical or unethical implications.

Choosing Tools for Doing the Right Thing

• Is the action you are considering legal?
• How would you see the problem if you were on the opposite side?
• What are the alternative solutions? Consider all dimensions of other options.
• Can you discuss the problem with someone whose opinion you value?
• How would you feel if your family, friends, employer, or coworkers learned of your action?

Career Application:

(a) Is the action legal?

(b) How would you see the problem if you were on the opposite side?

(c) What are alternate solutions?

(d) Can you discuss the problem with someone whose opinion you value?

(e) How would you feel if your family, friends, employer, or coworkers learned of your action?

1. Recruiting. Although it is not illegal, it is unethical to mislead job candidates. If you were a job candidate, you would not like to be misled about the job climate. If you were on the other side, you might, however, see the untenable position of the recruiter. Does the recruiter tell the truth and lose the candidate, or does he do his job and sell the company? Alternate solutions might be for the recruiter to give his own (hopefully positive) reaction to working conditions or to tell the job candidate that he or she should ask such questions of his hiring manager. By all means, discuss the problem with someone whose opinion you value. You might also consider removing yourself from this situation because you can't be a good recruiter if you can't answer truthfully.

2.Training Program.Participating in a company's training program when you plan to leave a company is clearly unethical, although perhaps not illegal. If you were in the company's shoes, you would not want to waste your training funds on people who planned to leave. Alternate solution: pay for the trip to Hawaii yourself.

3 Thievery.Firing an employee for an inconsistency in his records is probably illegal and certainly is unethical. Alternate solutions: If the employee is stealing, the organization should be able to find ways to prove it and fire the employee on those grounds. Firing him for other reasons does not punish him, if he is guilty, and means that he could go to other jobs to repeat his thievery.

4. Downsizing.This common practice seems to be endemic in today's markets. It's not illegal, and some might argue that it's not even unethical. Alternate solution: Raise prices.