You are purchasing agent for a medium-sized company, Zircon Delivery Services. Zircon is about to make a major upgrade of its computing facilities, and you have the responsibility for choosing among about ten potential suppliers. You are already sifting through their preliminary bids, and some are quite clearly superior to others.

Among the poorer bids is one from Computer-Whiz. They are fairly competitive in price, but the equipment and service are distinctly inferior to what some of the other suppliers are offering. However, the Computer-Whiz sales rep comes to you with a very attractive offer: a vacation for you and your family in the Bahamas. Nothing is said about the impending purchase. The vacation offer, according to the rep, is just a way of building a relationship with a customer.

You are very tempted to take the offer. You are quite certain that it will not influence your decision. That is, you will definitely not award the sale to Computer-Whiz unless they considerably sweeten their offer to Zircon. And you probably will not give them the sale under any circumstances, because you are just not that impressed with the company. But why shouldnt you take advantage of the offer? If Computer-Whiz feels cheated when someone else gets the sale, it serves them right.

One other consideration which might be taken into account is that your predecessor, who is now your boss, often took rather substantial gifts from suppliers. You are not sure of whether this affected his decisions to any extent. And youre unsure of whether his bosses knew about it.

Would it be all right for you to accept the vacation offer?You are purchasing agent for a medium-sized company, Zircon Delivery Services. Zircon is about to make a major upgrade of its computing facilities, and you have the responsibility for choosing among about ten potential suppliers. You are already sifting through their preliminary bids, and some are quite clearly superior to others.

Among the poorer bids is one from Computer-Whiz. They are fairly competitive in price, but the equipment and service are distinctly inferior to what some of the other suppliers are offering. However, the Computer-Whiz sales rep comes to you with a very attractive offer: a vacation for you and your family in the Bahamas. Nothing is said about the impending purchase. The vacation offer, according to the rep, is just a way of building a relationship with a customer.

You are very tempted to take the offer. You are quite certain that it will not influence your decision. That is, you will definitely not award the sale to Computer-Whiz unless they considerably sweeten their offer to Zircon. And you probably will not give them the sale under any circumstances, because you are just not that impressed with the company. But why shouldnt you take advantage of the offer? If Computer-Whiz feels cheated when someone else gets the sale, it serves them right.

One other consideration which might be taken into account is that your predecessor, who is now your boss, often took rather substantial gifts from suppliers. You are not sure of whether this affected his decisions to any extent. And youre unsure of whether his bosses knew about it.

Would it be all right for you to accept the vacation offer?