ORGL 4113

Ethics and Organizations

Ronda Hamman

Case Study 1-4

Case Study 1

1.) Which of the “obstacles” to moral behavior do you see at work: In Aaron Beam’s behavior

and thinking? Lying to other people by the manner of creating false contents inside the details

of the financial reports. Not following the law by covering up lost money by entering fictitious

revenue entries to fill in the gaps of what was missing. In Scrushy’s behavior and thinking?

Condoning fraudulent behavior as well as law breaking by putting a great amount of pressure on

Beam by forcing him to do whatever he could to make the financial reports look better than they

actually were.

2.) Explain how Aaron Beam might have used the “loyal agent’s argument” to defend his

actions. The loyal agent’s argument states that a manager’s most important obligation is loyalty

to the company regardless of ethics. Laws and Moral are different things. Do you think that

Aaron Beam’s situation the “loyal agent’s argument” might have been valid? I do not think

that Aaron Beam was protected in the “loyal agent’s argument”. Explain? He stated that he felt

what he was doing was right and called it aggressive accounting. However when he said that he

thought it was justified within bounds of the accounting rules. He in fact knew that was incorrect.

What he was choosing to do involved a serious of wrongs and it was based on impartial

consideration. He was not taking into consideration what would happen years down the road

when he was way too far ahead of himself. I am also certain he did not believe it would end in

him retiring, being sentenced, and starting a lawn business.

3.) In terms of Kohlberg’s views on moral development, at what stage of moral development

would you place Aaron Beam? Level Two Conventional. Explain? It was wrong to choose to

continuously move cost from expenses to investments altering funds and in the end he left

assuming that eventually improved after all that had happened. He knew what was morally right

but he said he felt pressured and awed by Richard Scrushy so he stayed loyal to him. He decide

to look at the terms of what was right and wrong through someone else’s eyes instead of his own

taking on the point of view of Richards and disregarding his own. At what stage would you

place Richard Scrushy? Level One Preconventional. Even though the company was doing

reasonably well he ignored what was right and requested what was wrong out of another. He was

not looking at what his choice of action would do. His actions where self-centered.

Case study 2

1.) Utilitarianism might provide a defense for Roche because they believed for China their

actions where correct and gave them hope in providing a medicine that would help many

people’s lives by preventing post-transplant organ rejection and that it reduced suffering by

saving thousands of patients lives. Rights based ethics which was the most powerful and

persuasive approach is on the opposite end of the spectrum may however condemn Roche’s drug

trials in China by saying that the negative out ways the positive rights in this situation because

even though the subjects that were having their organs taken where prisoners they were still

human beings and it is not ethical to take organs from them by tricking or against their will of

even willingly for that matter.

2.) I do not believe it is ethical for Roche to continue testing cellcept on its Chinese transplant

patients. Roche used prisoner’s organs and took them both with and without their consent. Roche

was responsible for deaths caused in order to take organs to test cell-cept on people who are

receiving organs and it is neither the right nor the moral thing to do in almost any society. I

believe there is good that comes from lifesaving medicine but in this instance there just needs to

be a more ethical way of testing the cell-cept products.

Case Study 3

1.) How would Locke, Smith, and Marx evaluate the various events in this case? Locke would

handle the case in such a way of stating it was unfair that GM was being favored in being

granted the bailout loans that they obtained. They should have been held responsible for their

own decision making to not sell the hybrid cars and only SUV's and they lend themselves to their

own downfall. With no equity and justice system they have to take ownership of making poor

decisions that led them to lose their rights to their company going bankrupt. Utilitarian argument

of free market and private and private property smith would disagree with the government’s

involvement when bush stepped in to help and would say that it was diminishing the welfare of

the people. In a believe system that with low prices little resources are used up and are misled by

public welfare. He would argue that the workers at GM had no clue what they were working

towards and didn’t know what would happen in their own futures. They were somewhat blindly

being led. The urge to want to sell what was popular at the time the SUV was viewed as a good

idea and serving society’s needs let to their downfall competition led them. Mark free marked

and free trade exploited the effects cause by industry. In Marx opinion it would be perfectly fine

and justifiable that GM ended up in the governments hands and was turned into the General

Motors Company. The small 10% that the old GM received would be justified and the 17% that

was sent to the retiree and health benefits would be considered reasonable. The 61% that became

government owned would also be ok. He would state this was a symptom of inequality caused by

capitalism. Although the workers after a lifetime of commitment to GM became poor and were

left with next to nothing it is just a part of capitalism. They were controlled by someone else

from the day they signed on to be a part of GM. Even the owner who was the other side of the

workers ended up losing his job and walking away from GM in the end result.

2.) Explain the ideologies implied by the statements of the letter to the U.S. Congress signed by

100 leading economists, Joseph Stiglitz, Bob Corker, the Republican solution on the bailouts,

Robert Higgs, and Michael Winther. Senator Bob Corker thought this created a huge message

about free enterprise. There were moving free market economy in the wrong direction and

heading to fast market economy in the wrong direction and heading towards socialism. Joseph

Stiglitz said the evstate capitalism socializes losses privatized profits and it’s doomed to failure.

Robert Higgs thought the government is resorting to outright socialism by taking on the positions

in these rescued firms. Michael Winther says there are two systems free market and socialism the

bailout could be considered a super socialism since it has every possible component of socialism.

The federal government isn’t content to regulate it wants to own private companies.

3.) In your view should the GM bailouts have been done? Explain why or why not. Was the

bailout ethical in terms of utilitarianism, justice, rights, and caring? I do not believe GM bail outs

should have taken place. The company’s made these poor decisions and they should have had to

deal with it on their own terms regardless of the ever changing economy. I believe the bailout

was ethically right because the workers had to have some recovery from the damage that was

done to GM. I also believe however that it was the true and caring way to do what was right for

the employees regardless of the poor management and their choices. I do not think the employees

were thought about enough when coming to these critical decisions and how their lives and

retirements would be affected by the decisions being made. I think that care was put into it but

the outcome didn’t show care in a positive way. I also do not believe that the ones that were

employees by GM had much justice in the end because they were the ones that were left high and

dry.

Case Study 4

1.) In your judgment is Intel a “monopoly”? Did Intel use monopoly like power; in other words,

did Intel achieve its objectives by relying on power that it had due to its control of a large portion

of the market? Explain: Yes Intel acted as a monopoly and used their power to manipulate the

situation on every level. Intel got mad that AMD could legally make an x 86 microprocessor.

Intel created Itanium in hopes of taking over the entire market and it required an emulation

program that could imitate the x 86 microprocessor. This caused old software and data to not

work well. AMD’s new processor Athlon world great, it also used less electricity, and it cost less

than Itanium. In the year 2004 Athlon virtually became just a part of history. Intel used its

monopoly of power to pay Japanese companies in rebates to keep them from buying AMDS

products and that’s only when Intel would pay them. AMD claimed Intel made threats to stop

supplying. Intel replied with said AMD chips didn’t run fast with large amounts of microchips

and that they had lousy parts. Some people defended Intel’s rebates but AMD began to raise

awareness into investigating them. Intel ended up being in violation of antitrust laws. FTC fount

out further that Intel had changed its compliers and codes causing them to not work well on

AMDs processors and inserted bugs to trip up programs on AMD microchips. Intel met with Dell

and increased its financial offer but after many years of being loyal to Intel, Dell finally changed

its mind, and made the choice to no longer be loyal to Intel. Intel also bullied HP and IBM but

they unlike Dell dint take the bait. Without going to court Intel agreed to settle and could no

longer withhold benefits from computer makers. I think Intel achieved its objectives by relying

on power it had form its control of Dell.

2.) In your judgment, were Intel’s rebates ethical or unethical? Explain: In my judgment they

were unethical even though it seemed logical to be able to control their own corporation and

business affairs the company was not running an ethical business. Intel continuously tried to

bully other companies three of which it talked about. Intel also installed malicious software to

intentionally hurt their competitors AMD. The rebates were more viewed as a type of bribe to

me. I do not think what they did was at all ethically justified and I did not agree with multiple

things that they decided to do as a company.