Making Ethical Decisions: Keep these points in mind when you complete this assig

Question

Making Ethical Decisions:

Keep these points in mind when you complete this assignment:

Identify the ethical issue or problem.

List the facts that have the most bearing on the decision.

Identify anyone who might be affected by your decision and how.

Explain what each affected person would want you to do about the issue.

List three alternative actions and identify the best and worst case scenario for each alternative, anyone who may be negatively impacted by the choice, and any values that would be compromised by selecting the choice.

Determine a course of action.

Assignment - address how you would handle this scenario:

Scenario 1: Jennie was recently hired to work as a receptionist for the front lobby. As receptionist, she is responsible for making copies for the associates. Her son, Bruce, comes in and needs some copies for a school project. He brought his own paper and needs 300 copies for his class. If he doesn’t bring the copies with him, he will fail the project. The company copier does not require a security key nor do they keep track of copies made by departments. What could or should Jennie do? What way could this be handled ethically?

Explanation / Answer

Ethics is more of a behaviour and existing characteristic of an individual's personality, rather than and application to an issue or problem which may arise randomly. It is inherent inbuilt acquired moral values which form the basis of regular decision making rather than how we handle crisis situations. Major scams like enron and worldcom may have raised issue of ethics within a business environment but ethics is something which every individual applies on a daily basis in various situations encountered at a personal or professional level.

The ethical issue Jennie is facing at the moment, is whether it is correct for her to utilise the office copier for making personal copies for her son's school project.

If she does not use the office copier to make the copies for her son, he is likely to fail the project and this is likely to have the maximum bearing on her decision. She has been recently hired and this new to the company and in case of action of utilising the office copier for personal use becomes known she may stand to lose the trust of her employers or the job itself. She is likely to be consumed by guilt if she breaches the trust of employees which they have placed in her by providing responsibility through absolute access to the copier without presence of monitoring and control measures.

Jennie would want to take the ethical decision of not using the office copier but definitely not at the cost of her son failing the school project, as it would amount to negligence of her duties as a mother. Her son would be greatly impacted if you failed the school project where else the office and employers would not face any major loss. However, this would essentially compromise ethical integrity as an employee and also set a bad example to her son.

The employers would be impacted by the decision as the trust the have placed in an employee would be breached, even though the financial impact may be minimal, it may greatly impact the attitude of the employees towards all other employees and cause them to question their honesty and integrity.

An alternative would be to explain to her son why she cannot make the copies for him as the copy of belongs to the company and she cannot utilise it for her personal work as that would amount to cheating the company. This would result in Hassan failing the project but it would provide for the satisfaction of having set a good example to Hassan on application and adherence to ethics in life. Such a decision does not impact the employees as they are unaware of the scenario and having no way been impacted by the decision Jennie has taken.

The third option would be to approach her immediate employer, explain the situation to him, and ask for permission to use the copier for getting the copies and offer to pay for the cost as a deduction from her salary. This according to me, is the best course of action as it fulfills both her responsibilities, as an employee as well as a mother, without in anyway causing her to take an unethical stance. It also ensures that nobody suffers any harm as her son can complete his project and employers can appreciate that she takes her responsibility seriously, and are sufficiently compensated for any financial loss that may be caused to them.

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