Chapter 8: Managing and Controling Ellies Programs 269 RESOLVING ETHICAL BUSINESS CHALLENGES" Charles worked at Butterfly Corporation for two years involved as well, especially their customers Charles was after graduating from the University of Texas. He liked interested in assessing the overall corporate culture of his job but the firm was going through some rough the firm. Because Charles knew his data analysis skills times Because the firm was losing money, Douglas, were not good, he recommended bringing in a commit- the CEO, set increasingly rigorous performance goals. tee of competent coworkers who had been in the orga- Charles noticed a lot of employees were grumbling about nization for years and knew the system inaide and out. these unrealistic expectations, He also heard rumors of He also developed a list of organizations Butterfly could quality control incidents and other problems. hire to verily the results once data was collected and One day Charles was called into Douglas's office. analyzed. "Hello, Doug. You wanted to see me?" Charles asked. The next day, Charles turned in his report and "You, Charles. Come in," Doug looked grim. After waited while Doug read through it. When finished, he Charles sat down, he began to speak, "Look, you know looked up at Charles and frowned. about the tough times we are in. We are losing money "Charles, I can see you put a lot of work into this. left and right. So far I've been able to keep this company However, what you have recommended is not going to afloat by drastically making cuts and speeding up pro- sait our needs" duction. I guess in all this cost-calling, there have been "What do you mean?" Charles asked. problems that have come up. A lot of people have called First off, I already told you, I don't want to remove the hotline to complain about ethical problems, such as people from their jobs to work on this. We're behind employees cutting corners to make their quotas. Now schedule as it is. Also, focus groups of employees and I've got the board on my back." customer feedback! That's going to take up time and "I'm really sorry, Doug. How can I help?" Charles resources we can't afford to lose. You also propose hir- asked. ing an independent third party? We're supposed to be "Well, the board requested we perform an ethics cutting costs, not throwing money at some organization andit to make sare everyone is complying with company simply to check our results." regulations, As if we don't have enough to worry about. "So what would you like me to do them?" Charles This is only going to increase our costs. Anyway, I want asked. you to lead the audit" Doug sighed. "That's why I made you the person in Charles was stunned, "Mot But Doug, I've only been charge of the project. You make the decisions. Just make here for two years. Shouldn't you choose a more experi sure it's something that won't cost a lot of money. I want enced manager to lead this?" this process to go as quickly as possible so we satisfy the Doug shook his head. "We need all our marktigers to board and get back to work. Maybe you could survey a continue doing their Jobs, I don't have the time to pull low employees and get It over with. Just remember to one of them away from their responsibilities just because make us look good." the board wants us to do an ethics andir." Doug handed back Charles's proposal. "Revise this Charles agreed to lead the audit process, That and bring it back to me tomorrow," he said. night he researched how to conduct an ethics audit. He promised to have a rudimentary plan outlining how the ethics andit should be conducted on Doug's desk for QUESTIONS | EXERCISES approval the next day. As be researched on the Inter- 1. What is a key component of a successful auditing net, he became more excited. He spent hours forming process missing from this situation? objectives for the audit, determining the audit's scope. 2. How would you describe the corporate culture of and defining what he thought should be the firm's ethi- Butterfly? cal priorities. He created a plan for using focus groups What steps would you recommend Charles take? of employees to see what the greatest concerns were. "This case is strictly hypothetical; any reserablence to real persors, If time permitted, he wanted to get other stakeholders companies, er situations as coincidental