Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity & Social Responsibility 5th Edition by Laura

This case also provides an occasion to reflect on the role of external stakeholders, including the press and government agencies.

 
 

End of Chapter Questions, Projects, and Exercises
 
Other than ethical values, what values might a business manager use in reaching decisions?  Are there classes in your college curriculum, other than ethics, which advise you about proper and correct ways to act and decide?
Challenge the students to integrate knowledge and material from their other courses. In particular, challenge them to articulate any behavioral norms that are implicit in such classes as finance, accounting, economics. Ask students to explain how the norms embedded in these classes differ from ethical norms.
 
Why might legal rules be insufficient for fulfilling one’s ethical responsibilities? Can you think of cases in which a businessperson has done something legally right, but ethically wrong? What about the opposite – are there situations in which a businessperson might have acted in a way that was legally wrong but ethically right? 
Direct students to discussion about ethics and the law. This question can also be used to draw parallels between legal and ethical distinctions between what is “required/obligatory” and what is “permitted.”
 
What might be some benefits and costs of acting unethically in business? Distinguish between benefits and harms to the individual and benefits and harms to the firm. 
Students may need to be challenged to move beyond economic and financial benefits and harms.
 
Review the distinction between personal morality and matters of social ethics.  Can you think of cases in which some decisions would be valuable as a matter of social policy, but bad as a matter of personal ethics? Something good as a matter of personal ethics and bad as a matter of social policy?
Lead a class discussion about the nature of personal morality and matters of social ethics based on relevant current events or leaders.  Again, consider the hypothetical case of the HR manager mentioned at II.d.5 as a means to highlight this distinction.   Other cases might involve individuals who are charged with certain professional responsibilities—lawyers, auditors, physicians.
 
As described in this chapter, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires firms to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities. Consider such conditions as obesity, depression, dyslexia, arthritis, hearing loss, high blood pressure, facial scars, and the fear of heights.  Imagine that you are a business manager and an employee comes to you asking that accommodations be made for these conditions. Under what circumstances might these conditions be serious enough impairments to deserve legal protection under the ADA? What factors would you consider in answering this question?  After making these decisions, reflect on whether your decision was more a legal or ethical decision.
Refer students to the relevant section in the chapter on the Americans with Disabilities Act. In order for circumstances such as obesity, depression, dyslexia, arthritis, hearing loss, high blood pressure, facial scars, and the fear of heights to be serious enough impairments to deserve legal protection under the ADA, the impairment must substantially limit one or more major life activities.   When the law is ambiguous, as is always so in case law, any decision will be made in part on the basis of personal values.  Such examples help counter the misleading view that many students adopt that the law is a set of rules that provide unambiguous guidance. In turn, this helps instructors move students beyond the perspective that all one needs do is “obey the law.”
 
Do an Internet search for recent news stories about oil spills. Do any of those stories report behaviors that seem especially wise or unwise on the part of the oil companies involved? Do you think that controversies over big pipeline projects like the Keystone Pipeline alter how people evaluate the ethics of oil-spill cleanups?
Students can find information about the risks Enbridge’s pipelines still pose in this news article:
“Great Lakes at Risk of Major Oil spill, Report Warns” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 18, 2012, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-18/great-lakes-at-risk-of-major-oil-spill-report-warns
For an overview of some issues raised by advocates and critics of the Keystone Pipeline, students can be directed to the following resources:
“Where’s the Noise? Keystone XL: The Forgotten Controversy,” Columbia Business Law Review, September 26, 2012, http://cblr.columbia.edu/archives/12292
“Why the $7 Billion Keystone XL Pipeline is the Most Controversial Business Venture in America,” Business Insider, November 8, 2011, http://www.businessinsider.com/keystone-xl-project-controversy-2011-11?op=1