You have recently been hired to oversee the strategic direction of a bio-medical company located in Denton, Texas called Pioneering Technologies ("PT"). PT recently designed and developed a bionic eye that is better able to focus on distant objects than comparable bionic eyes in certain situations. Namely, it works best in bright, sunny conditions and works only on par with a real eye when it is cloudy outside. They want to called this product line - Owl Vision.

After analyzing Owl Vision in more detail, the company is unable to determine the cause of the fall off due to changing conditions. It is believed to be a design problem, but the scientists are unsure.

PT does have a fairly diverse base of employees and has a reputation as a very conscientious company. Their Corporate Code of Conduct is very clear in specifying that they will not attempt to mislead their customers in any way and will always try to act in the most ethical manner possible. To this end, the mission statement says that the company expects its employees to make decisions in accordance with the images of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Honest" Abe Lincoln, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Based on your early experience with the company you believe that PT's upper management is serious about this and will act consistently with this goal.

In your role, you meet with an outside advertiser who has created an ad campaign complete with commercials and online advertisements. The central focus of the campaign is that Owl Vision represents a huge leap forward in bionic eye technology and no other product comes close to matching its distant focus capabilities.

No mention is made of the fall-off in performance that occurs in sub-optimal conditions anywhere in the advertising campaign. Instead, the campaign stresses that Owl Vision represents the most advanced technology out there for distance vision.

You discuss the failure to disclose the performance deterioration with the advertiser and they tell you that, based on their experience and values, this advertising campaign is completely fine and they are comfortable with it. Based on their past experiences, they think that marketing Owl Vision this way will result in double the profits than if they make a full disclosure of its capabilities in the commercials and online ads. They ask for your final approval to run the campaign.

While you are internally debating approving the advertising campaign, you receive a letter from the lawyers of a direct competitor - Eagle Eye Technologies ("EET"). EET is not an ethical company and somehow obtained an advance mock-up of the full advertising campaign. They are threatening to stop PT from misleading the public with its advertising campaign.

PT has not yet sold a single product from the Owl Vision line to anyone and no one in the public has seen any of the ads from the proposed ad campaign yet.

You try to think back to your carefree days in your master's program in deciding what decision to make.

With that background, please answer the following questions:

1. Explain what Ethical Framework is most consistent with PT's corporate culture? (Please provide a brief overview of this framework in your response and justify your answer.)
2. Under the ethical framework that you identified, should PT proceed with the advertising campaign as is, or should you request that changes be made? (Please explain your answer.)
3. What mechanism found in the text does EET have to try and stop the advertisement campaign if you authorize it as is? What would they have to do in order to win? Do you think that they could ultimately win, or is this an empty threat? (Please explain your answer.)
4. Assume Owl Vision is launched and immediately a consumer gets involved in a serious motor vehicle accident that they claim resulted from a drop off in performance due to cloudy weather. If the consumer decides to sue PT, do you think they can allege a cause of action for Product Liability and why?