Accounting
Anthropology
Archaeology
Art History
Banking
Biology & Life Science
Business
Business Communication
Business Development
Business Ethics
Business Law
Chemistry
Communication
Computer Science
Counseling
Criminal Law
Curriculum & Instruction
Design
Earth Science
Economic
Education
Engineering
Finance
History & Theory
Humanities
Human Resource
International Business
Investments & Securities
Journalism
Law
Management
Marketing
Medicine
Medicine & Health Science
Nursing
Philosophy
Physic
Psychology
Real Estate
Science
Social Science
Sociology
Special Education
Speech
Visual Arts
Business Law
Q:
Your company has several outdated computers sitting in a storage closet that no one is using. You have taken one home and set it up for personal use. This is unethical conduct.
Q:
You are a building inspector for the county. A friend of yours is a plumbing contractor. Under county regulations, all steps in plumbing construction from the initial dig to the final installation of sink and bathroom fixtures requires an inspection sign-off. Your plumbing contractor friend has just called and wants to take you to dinner for your birthday at a five-star restaurant. Because you are friends anyway, the dinner presents no ethical problems.
Q:
Accepting gifts from suppliers and vendors is not a problem so long as no bid decisions are pending.
Q:
A supplier has just been awarded a large contract by your company. As an employee in purchasing, you were largely responsible for awarding that supplier the contract. The supplier's sales representative has just called and would like to take you to lunch to thank you for the support. Going to lunch with the sale representative does not present any ethical problems.
Q:
Attending a class on company time would be unethical.
Q:
With respect to #55, using your work computer and paper to complete the case analyses would be unethical.
Q:
You are taking a graduate level course in management that will help you in performing your duties at work. Each week you must submit case analyses to your professor. Using work time to complete the analyses would be unethical.
Q:
Your company's policy on company vehicles is that no family members may use them or ride in them. It would be unethical to use a company car to drive you and your spouse to a movie.
Q:
If my supervisor asked me to cover for him by lying about his whereabouts, I should agree to do it but remind him that I can't make it a habit.
Q:
If I discovered that I unintentionally violated a federal environmental regulation, I should just wait and see if anything happens before taking any action.
Q:
If I discover that a fellow employee is reporting falsely his overtime hours, it is best for me to say nothing and ignore the situation.
Q:
If I worked in purchasing in my company, it would be unethical for me to accept season tickets for my city's NBA team from the company that has supplied catering for the company's training sessions.
Q:
Long-term relationships create ethical and legal obligations between the parties through conduct and accommodations.
Q:
The failure to disclose relevant information about a product or service is unethical.
Q:
Taking advantage of a party in a contract situation due to the party's inexperience, and not due to any lack of disclosure on your part, is ethical.
Q:
Ethical choices often prove costly to firms in the short term.
Q:
A company executive exerting pressure on a scientist and her university to delay disclosure of study results harmful to the company and its products would be unethical.
Q:
Labeling infertility surgery as "diagnostic surgery" in order to allow the patient to recover the costs from an insurer is unethical.
Q:
"The lawyers have okayed this," is a signal that the decision/action is legal and ethical.
Q:
"Everyone else does it," is a signal of an ethical pitfall.
Q:
The failure to speak out when an ethical or legal lapse occurs within your firm is in itself an ethical violation.
Q:
Taking information from a confidential file accidentally left on your desk is not unethical.
Q:
The failure to disclose that your college degree was withheld because of outstanding parking fines and violations is unethical.
Q:
Payments of royalties from drug sales by a pharmaceutical firm to the university where a researcher conducting studies has validated the firm's claims is a conflict of interest.
Q:
Purchasing agents accepting a pleasure trip from a supplier when no bids are pending is still an ethical violation.
Q:
Having loan applicants pay for the expenses of bank officer travel for purposes of evaluating collateral is not a conflict of interest.
Q:
A major donation by one of your long-term suppliers to a non-profit organization run by your spouse should not create perception problems so long as your purchasing decisions are based on the merits.
Q:
Giving preferential treatment in contract bidding to the daughter of a member of the company board is not a conflict of interest.
Q:
A physical fitness expert retained by a fitness magazine to evaluate walking shoes has a conflict of interest if she has an endorsement contract with one of the shoe companies that manufactures the shoes she will be evaluating.
Q:
A physician conducting a study on a new prescription drug manufactured by a firm in which he is a 10% shareholder does not have a conflict of interest so long as his stock ownership is disclosed in his report on the drug.
Q:
A member of the city council who is employed by a waste management firm would have a conflict of interest in voting on the city's award of a contract for the handling of the city's waste.
Q:
A commercial broker who accepts fees from both the seller and the buyer of the business without disclosure to either has not committed an ethical violation if both parties are happy with the transaction.
Q:
A real estate agent who recommends a management firm to an apartment complex buyer without disclosing that the agent owns 50% of the firm has committed an ethical violation.
Q:
An agreement by an agent to accept a 10% commission from a seller who will sell goods to the agent's employer is ethical so long as the agent would have chosen that seller anyway.
Q:
A valid ethical barometer is the reaction of family and friends outside the business setting to your proposed decision.
Q:
The element of balance in the Blanchard/Peale ethical model requires an examination of the issue from the perspective of the affected party.
Q:
Using positive law as an ethical standard means simply compliance with the law.
Q:
An illegal act is an unethical act.
Q:
A conflict of interest is unethical only if those involved actually change their decision based on the benefits to be derived.
Q:
It is plagiarism to rewrite the phrasing of another source and not use quotes or a footnote.
Q:
It is not plagiarism to use facts obtained from several sources that are footnoted or listed as sources.
Q:
Laura Nash provides tools for examining how a company got into an ethical dilemma.
Q:
Hank Greenberg was ousted from his position as CEO of AIG.
Q:
Hank Greenberg's ability to find a way around rules was evident from his conduct as a soldier in London.
Q:
"We all don"t share the same ethics" fails to consider common values that do exist in business.
Q:
"It's a gray area," is an example of ethical analysis.
Q:
Robert Solomon is a proponent of virtue ethics.
Q:
Third-trimester abortions would be supported under a Rights Theory.
Q:
Robert Nozick is the leading thinker for utilitarianism.
Q:
The Rights Theory is generally associated with Plato and Aristotle.
Q:
What are the values in conflict in the enhanced CIA interrogation case?
Q:
Locke and Rawls are contractarians.
Q:
Locke and Rawls develop their ethical theory on the basis of a tabula rasa.
Q:
Explain who is affected when dog walkers don't scoop up after their dogs.
Q:
Kant and Rand do not agree on the importance of self-interest in ethical theory.
Q:
Discuss norm shifting and speeding.
Q:
Kant is part of the utilitarian school of thought on ethics.
Q:
In November 2009, world-class golfer Tiger Woods crashed his escalade into a tree near his Florida home. One of the windows in his Escalade had been smashed with a golf club. Mr. Woods' wife pulled him from the car and he was taken to the hospital, treated for injuries, and released. A sordid tale emerged over the next few days of a pattern of extra-marital affairs by Mr. Woods with a resulting separation from his wife and their eventual divorce. Following these public disclosures, sports writers, golf pros, country club staff members, and even CEOs of companies said that they were all aware of Mr. Woods' infidelity and that it was the best kept widely known secret among and between those who were golf players and/or fans. One said, "We just had a pact of silence." When the news of Mr. Woods' serial infidelity made international news, some of his sponsors dropped him and others continued with him as a spokesperson. Are there any ethical issues here? Who faces them? Discuss whether you would have gone along with the pact.
Q:
Kant would label paying lower wages in developing countries than the wages paid in developed economies as unethical.
Q:
Applying ethical theories, discuss why you would not take food out in your pockets from an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Q:
Ethical egoism is selfishness.
Q:
Former-President George W. Bush has proposed reforming Social Security by asking those from ages 18-40 to forego their social security and invest their own funds in a retirement/pension plan. What ethical theory most applies to this proposal?
Q:
Self-interest is the same as selfishness.
Q:
Stanford University medical researchers conducted a study on the correlation between the use of fertility drugs and ovarian cancer. Their study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, concludes that the use of the fertility drugs, Pergonal and Serophene, may increase the risk of ovarian cancer by three times. The lead author of the studies, Professor Alice Whittemore, stated, "Our finding in regard to fertility drugs is by no means certain. It is based on very small numbers and is really very tenuous."
FDA Commissioner David Kessler would like the infertility drug manufacturers to disclose the study findings and offer a warning on the drug packages. He notes, "Even though the epidemiology study is still preliminary, women have a right to know what is known. We're not looking to make more of this than there is."
If you were a manufacturer of one of the drugs, would you voluntarily disclose the study information?
Q:
Unwritten rules of conduct are part of our normative standards.
Q:
Althea Caldwell is the director of Arizona's Department of Health Services (DHS). DHS is charged the administration of the state's behavioral health system and is responsible for contracting with private providers for millions of dollars of mental health care each year for eligible patients.
Ms. Caldwell accepted a $20,000 per year director position for a hospital group corporation. One of the hospitals in the group was one to which state contracts for mental health treatment had been awarded.
One month after accepting the position, Ms. Caldwell asked the state's attorney general for an opinion as to whether she had a conflict of interest.
Does Ms. Caldwell have a conflict of interest?
Q:
An ethical breach is not necessarily a violation of the law.
Q:
In 1991, James McElveen fell 30 feet from a waterfall and broke his back. He was employed by a small business and had no medical insurance. His lifetime friend, Benny Milligan, was with him when the fall occurred. Benny took James to the emergency room. Moved by his friend's severe injuries and pain and suffering and realizing that James did not have insurance, Benny switched IDs with James in the hospital emergency room. James required surgery to fuse his back to avoid what doctors said would have been certain paralysis. The cost of the surgery and hospitalization was $41,107.45. Neither James, employed as a mechanic, nor Benny, employed as a painter, could have paid for the surgery and follow-up care. Benny's employer's insurance paid for the surgery because the hospital took the information from Benny's ID found in James' pockets.
While Benny was contemplating telling his employer, someone notified the insurance company of the switch. Benny, James, and Benny's wife, Tammy Milligan, were charged and convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. Tammy, because of the Milligans' three young daughters, is serving her sentence through home confinement, Benny is serving 9 months and James is serving 7 months. All three will serve three years on probation and pay restitution.
Benny states, "I know what I did was wrong. But I look back on it, and I feel that I had to do it at the time. I don't feel like I'm a criminal in the sense of rapers, muggers and murderers." Benny said he did not understand that a hospital has an obligation to treat someone who is dying. Friends testified that as they were racing James to the hospital they told Benny that hospitals in the area had routinely refused to provide medical treatment.
Benny said he wanted to tell his employer, but he was afraid he would be fired and then be stuck with the bill. Tammy adds that the government is right to demand restitution but wrong to imprison them. James asked the judge if he could go to prison for all three of them, "I would be lost without my friendship with Benny. I probably would be dead."
a. Benny and James committed an illegal act. Was it unethical?
b. What punishment is appropriate in the case?
c. If you were Benny's employer, what would you have done?
Q:
Part of a credo includes a list of lines you would never cross to be successful.
Q:
Henry Rauzi, the controller for Sunbeam, issued an offer to Linda Croce for an entry-level accounting position at Sunbeam at a salary of $34,000 per year. Ms. Croce accepted the offer and gave notice to her employer. When then-CEO of Sunbeam, Paul Kazarian, was informed of the offer, he demanded that Mr. Rauzi rescind it because Kazarian had not approved it prior to it being made. Mr. Rauzi called Ms. Croce at 10:00 P.M. three days before she was scheduled to being work and told her of Mr. Kazarian's action. Ms. Croce had no job and remained unemployed for several months while she searched for a new job.
Evaluate the legality and ethics of Sunbeam's officer's actions with respect to Ms. Croce.
Q:
A credo consists of how you define yourself by job title and income.
Q:
Susan Wade is the president of the Illinois Hospice Organization (IHO). IHO is a state organization affiliated with a national non-profit organization, the National Hospice Organization. Both the state and national organizations have members from both for-profit and non-profits hospices. Susan Wade is the director of a non-profit hospice in Illinois.
A Chicago newspaper has printed a story about hospices and what they do. Susan was interviewed extensively for the piece. In one quote in the article, Susan expressed her concerns about for-profit hospices. "It has become the sort of franchise of the decade. They're not all bad, but I think the original spirit of hospice is becoming very adulterated. There's one time in a person's life when he shouldn't be looked at as a number, as a piece of an actuarial problem. If your first and last priority is making money, it flies in the face of what hospice is all about. It's the end of the health-care chain. It's the place of last hope for patients. Dollars should not be the issue here."
A chief operating officer of a for-profit hospice has written to Susan complaining that her remarks are libelous and misinform the public about for-profit hospices.
a. Does Ms. Wade have a conflict of interest?
b. Is Ms. Wade properly executing her role as the president of the state organization?
Q:
Dr. Phil Hayes has received an offer of full funding for his research on a new drug manufactured by Eli Mentin. The drug would be a competitor for Prozac without the questioned side-effects of possible violent behavior. Eli Mentin has, however, attached a condition to the funding. That condition is that Dr. Hayes may not publish his findings until Eli Mentin executives and its attorneys have had the opportunity to review them.
List the ethical issues Dr. Hayes faces with this offer.
Q:
List those who are affected by wi-fi piggybacking.
Q:
Define wi-fi piggybacking and explain why it is an ethical issue.
Q:
List those affected when employees cheat on their travel expenses.
Q:
List the six steps you should follow for analyzing an ethical dilemma.
Q:
Give a description of the simple tests that can be used to resolve ethical dilemmas.
Q:
Give the ways we avoid facing ethical dilemmas.
Q:
List the categories of ethical dilemmas.