Busi 20: Ethical Dilemmas
1) You sell very expensive bicycles to independently owned cycling retailers around the country. You need to sell 50 more bicycles at $1,000 each to hit goal for the year and earn yourself a $5,000 year end bonus. This bonus pays all
$5,000 at goal, and pays nothing if you fall even $1.00 short. It is 11:45pm on the last day of the year. You’ve tried calling everyone you can think of; you’ve made plenty of special deals, and can’t make anymore. Too many customers are worried about slow sales in the coming fall and winter months. They are not all that financially stable and they might suffer financial hardship if they overbuy.
You have just enough time in the day to enter orders for 1 $1,000 bike each for your top 50 customers and ship them without their permission. Your boss thinks this is a good idea (apparently she gets a bonus too?). You are dreading the relationship straining calls you will be getting next week from your target customers when they get their surprise “accidental shipments”.
The assignment:
What options do you have? Think of more than two.
Who is affected by each option?
What are the positive and negative results from each option? Consider short- term and long-term outcomes.
How well do these options measure up on the four ethical norms to all parties concerned?
Which norm is the most important in your decision?
Which option would you select & WHY?
What post-decision steps (policy changes?) might you take to lead to a more optimal result in the future?

Busi 20: Ethical Dilemmas
2) You are a Regional Manager at a High-end stereo manufacture. Your company has built strong relationships with high-service, specialty retails across the country. The company’s mission stresses the importance of loyalty, customer satisfaction, and integrity in relationships. Your company has just enough inventory of a super-scarce new product line to satisfy your best, longest-term customers’ needs. Your boss tells you to hold back shipping the product to the best customers and instead ship it all to his nephew’s discount internet sales business. His nephew’s business is a not doing so well, and is known to provide poor service to customers resulting in low customer satisfaction with the brands sold through the business.
The assignment:
What options do you have? Think of more than two.
Who is affected by each option?
What are the positive and negative results from each option? Consider short- term and long-term outcomes.
How well do these options measure up on the four ethical norms to all parties concerned?
Which norm is the most important in your decision?
Which option would you select & WHY?
What post-decision steps (policy changes?) might you take to lead to a more optimal result in the future?

Busi 20: Ethical Dilemmas
3) You are the manager of the local branch of a National chain of restaurants.
You’ve discovered that your employees haven’t been properly cleaning the ice cream dispenser every night. It should be disassembled and cleaned with hot water and bleach, a process that takes your minimum wage employees about one hour at the end of the night after serving stops. They’ve simply been running hot water though it until it seems clean so they can get out of there without staying too late. This process is not formally approved by your company. The ice cream machine company warns that rinsing alone does not remove harmful bacteria.
You are under strict orders to control employee hours, especially overtime hours.
Your results are compared weekly to historical averages for this restaurant – compared against previous management that has been taking the shortcut all along. Company policy requires that no fewer than three employees be clocked in at all times, so this extra hour after closing is very expensive against your hourly wage goals.
The assignment:
What options do you have? Think of more than two.
Who is affected by each option?
What are the positive and negative results from each option? Consider short- term and long-term outcomes.
How well do these options measure up on the four ethical norms to all parties concerned?
Which norm is the most important in your decision?
Which option would you select & WHY?
What post-decision steps (policy changes?) might you take to lead to a more optimal result in the future?

Busi 20: Ethical Dilemmas
4) You are the close friend of Vice President of the surfboard division in the company where you are the Controller (lead accountant). The surfboard division regularly shows much higher profitability than the diving board division. You discover that the costs for the extensive design, testing, and expensive manufacturing of the surfboards are being split evenly between the surfboard and diving board division. In reality, the more complex surfboards cause almost all of those expenses and the simple never-changing diving boards are much cheaper to make than the rest of the company thinks. Unbeknownst to the rest of the firm, the surfboards are REALLY losing money and the diving boards are actually the most profitable product! You share your findings with your friend, and he offers you the use of his summer house on the lake complete with his speedboat and fully stocked bar as long as the issue goes unnoticed.
The assignment:
What options do you have? Think of more than two.
Who is affected by each option?
What are the positive and negative results from each option? Consider short- term and long-term outcomes.
How well do these options measure up on the four ethical norms to all parties concerned?
Which norm is the most important in your decision?
Which option would you select & WHY?
What post-decision steps (policy changes?) might you take to lead to a more optimal result in the future?

Busi 20: Ethical Dilemmas
5) You run an well known organic farming company, growing highly profitable, yet delicate, organic butter lettuce. Your field foreman just spotted the first sign of a rare weevil species highly destructive to your crop. He suggests applying a highly toxic and illegal (but extremely effective!) pesticide right away. This pesticide will likely go undetected because the foreman is personal friends with the agricultural inspector, and can easily assist the inspector in testing another part of the field. “Besides”, says your foreman, “this stuff doesn’t even cause cancer unless the consumer eats it everyday for a month!” There is no safe & effective method for killing the pests without killing the plants.
The assignment:
What options do you have? Think of more than two.
Who is affected by each option?
What are the positive and negative results from each option? Consider short- term and long-term outcomes.
How well do these options measure up on the four ethical norms to all parties concerned?
Which norm is the most important in your decision?
Which option would you select & WHY?
What post-decision steps (policy changes?) might you take to lead to a more optimal result in the future?