5 “ ethically dubious conduct ” brenda franklin B u s i n e s s F i n a n c e

Case Analysis

Case 10.5 “Ethically Dubious Conduct”

Brenda Franklin has worked at Allied Tech for nearly eight years. One day she tacked a list on the bulletin board outside her office entitled, “Ethically Dubious Employee Conduct.” She could not have imagined the attention that it received from her coworkers (Shaw, 2017, p. 398).

1. Review each item on Brenda’s list and assess the conduct in question. Do you find it morally acceptable, morally unacceptable, or somewhere in between? Explain.
2. Examine Brenda’s list from both the utilitarian and the Kantian perspectives. What arguments can be given for and against the conduct on her list? Is the rightness or wrongness of some items a matter of degree? Can an action (such as taking a pad of paper) be both trivial and wrong?
3. Someone might argue that some of the things listed as ethically dubious are really employee entitlements. Assess this contention.
4. How would you respond to the argument that if the company doesn’t do anything to stop the conduct on Brenda’s list, then it has only itself to blame? What about the argument that none of the things on the list is wrong unless the company has an explicit rule against it?
5. What obligations do employees have to their employers? Do companies have moral rights that employees can violate? What moral difference, if any, is there between taking something that belongs to an individual and taking something that belongs to a company?
6. What, if anything, can we learn about an employee’s character based on whether he or she does or does not do the things on Brenda’s list? Would you admire someone who scrupulously avoids doing any of these ethically dubious things, or would you think the person is a pig?
7. What should Brenda do when she finds a fellow employee engaging in what she considers ethically dubious conduct?

Paper Details:

• 2-3 pages, not including title or reference pages.
• APA writing style must be used for all formatting. (Double-spacing required)
• Please see the “Case Analysis Rubric” below for specific grading details.