Farhana Khondokar
AMM 101
Pro: Harrel
Chapter- 5
10/30/08
1. Evaluate this situation from the viewpoint of David Edmondson’s ethical
leadership. What could Radio shake have done differently?
Answer: Mr. David Edmondson, who joined Radio shake in 1994 and gets promoted as a
CEO of the Radio shake in 2007 for his continuously nice performance. But during this
year he had done lots of unethical occurrences, which did not fit with his position such as
Edmondson had been charged with driving while intoxicated for two times. On the other
hand he lied about his educational background. Nor the less, after being CEO he could
not run the company successfully. All these behavior proved that he could not maintain
the ethical leadership in the company because Leadership is not a value free. To become
a successful leader, manager has to be ethical and honest and being a role model for
employee. So that employees could follow him to have the work done for the company.
The managers also have a social responsibility which goes beyond the making of profit to
include protesting and improving society’s well fare. If leader doses not follow honesty,
employees will take a chance being unethical. I think Mr. Edmondson had done very
unethical and dishonest performance for the company and the society as well and
company could take a law full decision for being lied and not to apologies for his work.
Company could fire him instead of saying he resigned and should not give him severance
package ether.
2. What stakeholder might be impacted by this situation? What concern might each
stakeholders have had? Were any of the stakeholder’s concerns in conflict with
each other? Explain what impact might this have had on employee?
Answer: Stakeholders might feel incurred by this situation, because stakeholders is a kind
of constituencies in the organizations environment that are affected by the organization’s
decision and action. They have investment in the company so it must be a big loses for
them when the company will straggled with felt sale. They were also might concerned
about the company’s reputation because Mr. Edmondson unwrapped by the press and at
the same time company’s sale felt down. I think the conflict was the responsible
performance that Mr. Edmondson had done for the company during those years, in
comparing what he had done others unethical occurrence which was undoubtedly socially
irresponsible. Mr. Edmondson’s performance could influence on other employees in the
company in future. They might lie about their educational background and also could
unaware about social responsibility.
3. Do you think the board decision to fire Edmondson was “tough” as Len Robert
suggested? Why or why not? Why do you think Mr. Roberts would have
described this decision as such?
Answer: I don’t think that companies should have any problem to take this decision
because from the first time when Mr. Edmondson had joined the radio shake he lied
about his educational background so he did not fulfill the company’s requirements.
Though he did pretty good performance during 1994 to 2006, after being CEO he failed
to keep the company’s sales rate. There for when he asked to apologies for his work he
disagreed to do this. The company’s stoke market share price was falling to a 3 years law
only for him. On the other hand every company has certain value and as an employee of
the company everybody has to maintain those right or wrong characteristics. Mr. Robert
had described that it is a tough decision because they comparing Mr. Edmondson’s both
performance that he had done as the CEO of the Radio shakes and also out side of the
company. Of course it is tough to deicide that which has more influenced on the company
his good or bad work.
4. What impact do you think the company’s severance package to Mr. Edmondson
might have?
Answer: I think the company did a lot for him and also the severance package is a lot
more consider his unethical behavior. Company could take any kind of legal set step
against him but they did not do that. More over the company paid at least $1.03 million in
addition to payments for accrued and unpaid vacation and salary. I think that might be
good enough to survive him self unlit to get a new job.
5. Could any organization ever prevent a situation like this from happing? Why or
why not? What could they do? How could the company’s code of ethics play a
role?
Answer: I think yes, they could prevent this kind of situation but they have to be very
strict about the background survey of an applicant. I believed the Radio shake did not
check MR. Edmondson’s certificate properly because, if he did not graduated, he should
not have the certificate. Company should develop human resources center to check the
back ground of applicants. They could develop software to check the educational
background survey for an employee. Company could increase their training program for
their employee, though ethics, morality, value all these characteristics depends on persons
mentality. In this circumstance I think company’s code of ethics pay a significant role to
prevent this unethical situation. Company could make strong their code of ethics policy
by adding legal action for unethical behavior which will also help to follow the rule and
guide the managers to hit the company’s goal.
6. In the March 2004 issue of wired magazine, it reported that 44 percent of
Americans lie about their work history. What’s your reaction about this statistic?
What problem can lying on a resume create for an organization?
Answer: I think that’s huge percentage of unethical activities and a dangerous step for the
company who hires these employees. First of all, they don’t fulfill the company’s
requirements for applicants and also might not well train for the position. Secondly, this
kind of personality might create other problem in future for company. Finally, it could
affect on the company’s reputation and the share market, the sale could be felt down, and
company could lay behind form the competition. It also effect on company’s code of
ethics, other employees in the company and social responsibility. An organization could
get problem to hire those people who are lying on their resume. The employee might not
understand his/her responsibility well enough and also unaware about the company’s
code of ethics which might be a dangerous affect on company’s reputation.