Rob recently opened a business hosting VR parties in people's homes. His first several events were extremely successful. His customers were happy and they told Rob that they'd use his services again in the future. Rob knew that promoting his business is important, so Rob would ask his customers to leave a positive review of his business on Yelp (www.yelp.ca). Rob also printed this request at the bottom of invoices for his clients, as an additional reminder for them to help him out by leaving a positive Yelp review. Websites such as Yelp are helpful for small businesses because customers can leave reviews that potential future customers might read. Positive Yelp reviews have generated good publicity for Rob's business. At least one customer has told Rob that they hired him because of positive Yelp reviews that they had read regarding his business. Unfortunately, after three months of hosting successful VR party events, Rob encountered his first unhappy client. A well-known disadvantage of VR is that it can cause nausea for some users. This is because a person's brain perceives that they are moving around in their virtual environment, even though their body is physically unmoving. VR experiences such as virtual roller coasters can produce feelings of motion sickness for some people. Rob makes sure to advise customers to take a break and remove the VR headgear for a few minutes if they start to feel nauseous. A few weeks ago, Rob hosted a party and a customer complained about feeling nauseous during a VR space walking experience. Rob reminded the customer (whose name was Jen) to take a break, but Jen ignored him and kept the VR headset on. A few minutes later, Jen vomited. The mess was so bad, the VR party ended early. Rob was sympathetic to Jen's situation, but he declined to give her a refund because he had warned her to take a break but she ignored him. Until Jen became sick, everyone at the party was enjoying themselves and making full use of the VR equipment. During the next few weeks after the disastrous party, business seemed to slow down substantially for Rob. He wasn't sure why, until he checked Yelp.ca and discovered that someone had left a very negative review about his business a few weeks earlier. The reviewer complained that Rob gave very poor customer service and his inferior equipment made people ill. The reviewer added that Rob's VR experiences were unsatisfactory and that Rob refused to give refunds. The reviewer concluded that Rob had poor professionalism and the reviewer regretted spending money for Rob's VR party hosting service. Rob's stomach plummeted as he read the negative review. He immediately realized that Jen had posted the review. All of his other customers were extremely satisfied with his services - they told him so. The more he thought of the unfair review, the more upset he became. Impulsively, he created an account on Yelp.ca and posted several extremely positive (anonymous) reviews about his business, pretending to be a customer. All of his new positive (and fake) reviews outnumbered the very negative review from Jen, so his average Yelp rating improved substantially. Rob was relieved about that, but he soon began to wonder if he had made a bad decision when he impulsively posted several fake reviews about his business on Yelp. He considered what he should do next.

Answer the following questions.

1. Identify four stakeholders in this case. Explain their roles - how/why are they stakeholders in this dilemma?
2. What are Rob's possible courses of action? (Identify four different and reasonable things that Rob might decide to do.)
3. Briefly describe one advantage and one disadvantage of each alternative you identified in Question 3
4. In your opinion, which alternative should Rob choose?