Ethics Cases

Free Air Travel Tickets The company sends an employee to a conference that is attended by over 2,000 persons. Conference attendees are invited to participate in a drawing for several door prizes. Your company employee wins two round-trip airline tickets to any destination in the United States. What should the employee do with the tickets?

Answers? Since it is obvious they are worth more than the ‘perceived $25 value gift acceptance limitation’, they should not be accepted. Since the employee was traveling on company business, she should turn the tickets in to the travel office so that the company can use them for business travel. Since the conference was attended by a number of companies with all attendees having an equal chance to win, use the tickets to take her spouse to Hawaii on vacation. She should try to get the airline to write the ticket in her brother-in-law's name so that they can't be traced back to her.

Good Deal or Bad Idea? A Modular Home company had a contract with FEMA, and sold them 4,000 modulars at a discounted price. 1 year later FEMA came to them asking if they would be willing to buy them back for 50 cents on the dollar. What should the company do? Is it illegal? Is it ethical? What would people think? What obligation does the company have to stockholders? To stakeholders? What are reasons to do it? What are reasons against it? Which of these reasons are ethically-based?

Speak up or Shut up? In a department meeting, your supervisor takes credit for some excellent work of a colleague who is absent. What do you do?

Answers? Put the word out to your fellow workers as to who really did the work Seek a private meeting with the supervisor in order to make sure your colleague gets credit, at least in the supervisor's head. During a meeting with "the big boss" inadvertently let it slip that your colleague did not get the credit he deserved on a recent project. Inform your colleague as to what took place and let him take whatever action he desires.

A Friend in Need… Sally is an administrative assistant in the Human Resources Department. Her good friend Michael, is applying for a job with the company and she has agreed to serve as a reference for him. Michael approaches her for advice on preparing for the interview. Sally has the actual interview questions asked of all applicants and considers making him a copy of the list so he can adequately prepare.

Charity close to home Emily works in Quality Control. Once a year, her supervisor gives away the refurbished computers to the local elementary school. No specific records are kept of this type of transaction and Emily really needs a computer for her son who is in college. Her supervisor asks her to deliver 12 computer systems to the school.

Sue is the secretary in the Facilities Management Department Sue is the secretary in the Facilities Management Department. She has just received a new computer and wants to try it out. Though her supervisor has a strict policy about computer use for business purposes only, she wants to learn the e-mail software more thoroughly than her training can provide. One good way to do this, she figures, is to write e-mail messages to her friends and relatives until she gets the knack of it. She is caught up on all her work and only has 30 minutes left to work today. Her supervisor left early.

Mother or Worker? 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, Jason, 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.