8/20/2019 Ethics of the White Lie

1/3

This material is part of the Giving Voice to Values curriculum collection (www.GivingVoiceToValues.org).The Aspen Institute was founding partner, along with the Yale School of Management, and incubator for  Giving Voice to Values (GVV).

Now Funded by Babson College.Do not alter or distribute without permission.   © Mary C. Gentile, 2010

1

Better Wrong than Right? Delivering the “Bad”

Market Research News (A)1

Under most circumstances Larry Rogers, Product Marketing Manager, would not have asked his product

marketing team to change their market research results before reporting them to Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sean Morrison. But these were not “normal” times. Global Personal Technologies’ “Hands-

On” personal digital assistant (PDA) product line had taken off and there was pressure from above to

expand sales even more. Senior leadership wanted to move aggressively on one of two product line

enhancements: they expected the first of them to have a shorter time to market and a higher profit

margin but the other would deliver a better quality user experience. The market research results were

suggesting that consumers preferred the latter product line extension. Larry knew this was not what

leadership and in particular Sean Morrison, wanted to see. All Larry needed was a slight shift in the data preference points on the consumer map that he would present to senior management. Sean would behappy and Larry and his team would not have to withstand Sean’s likely intense questioning and

criticism.

Larry Rogers had joined Global Personal Technologies (GPT) shortly after receiving his MBA. An

engineer by training, he wanted to bring together his technical background with a passion he had

developed in his MBA program for marketing. GPT turned out to be a very good fit for Larry and within

6 years, he had moved through the ranks of his division to take a leadership role as Product Marketing

Manager with responsibility for their PDA product line.

Larry never expected the PDA product line to explode as it did. A product that had been selling about

3,000 units a month sold 75,000 units in the first month after launching GPT’s new entry – the “Hands-

On,” so named because it was the first GPT PDA to be truly compact, with a price point that put it in

direct competition with the product leaders. Great pricing, combined with a premium quality product

that perfectly filled a consumer need, sent monthly sales of the Hands-On soaring and within two years,the division was selling millions of units each month.

1 This case was inspired by interviews and observations of actual experiences but names and other situational

details have been changed for confidentiality and teaching purposes.

[These cases were prepared for the  Giving Voice to Values program by Professor Jerry Goodstein, Washington State

University, and Mary C. Gentile, Ph.D.]

8/20/2019 Ethics of the White Lie

2/3

8/20/2019 Ethics of the White Lie

3/3

This material is part of the Giving Voice to Values curriculum collection (www.GivingVoiceToValues.org).The Aspen Institute was founding partner, along with the Yale School of Management, and incubator for  Giving Voice to Values (GVV).

Now Funded by Babson College.Do not alter or distribute without permission.   © Mary C. Gentile, 2010

3

Thanks!” He stood up and walked off briskly to take his next call, feeling both uncomfortable at whathad just transpired and relieved for an excuse to escape.

The three managers looked after him for a moment and then turned to face each other. Although themarket research manager had nodded assent to Larry’s suggestion, the two product managers were not

comfortable with the idea of falsifying data. After all, what’s the point of doing rigorous research if one

could just “fictionalize” the results to suit pre-existing preferences? And frankly, they felt all the more

strongly precisely because they had observed and learned from Larry’s own commitment to treating data

with integrity.

They had observed and understood the pressures on Larry, as well as the team, as a result of the phenomenal success of their product. They wanted to believe his suggestion was due to the very real

stress that they all felt whenever they met with Sean. Apparently, Larry would do many things to avoid

yet another confrontation with the irascible senior vice-president but they felt convinced that his latestrequest was not a reflection of his true values. What could they say to make this point? What arguments

could they make and what support could they offer Larry that would enable him to change his direction?

Last Revised: 03/01/2010