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Discuss in teams the same case study that was introduced in Seminar One. Preserve these notes for comparison with their analysis of the same ethical dilemma at the beginning of the module. Take personal journal notes of their revised impressions and feelings about the case. Preparation for Seminar N.B.: Make sure that you attend the seminar with a print out of the Seminar Brief and The Case Study. We Want you to reanalyze the ethical dilemma ease.
This will include the thoughts and ideas of others in your team. Use the theory and frameworks that you have encountered during the module (the seminar laminates are your starting point). This exercise can be contrasted and compared with the notes that you made in Seminar One. You will be able to reflect upon working in your seminar teams and how increasing your appreciation of the course content has enabled you to be better prepared for future ethical dilemmas you might encounter in your career. Team Tasks: 1 . Reconsider the ethical dilemmas you identified in Seminar One. . Can you find any more in the case? . Are you satisfied that your original answers were right? 4. Work through each dilemma that you have identified and a. Identify the normative ethical theories that inform the character’s dilemma b. Identify the descriptive ethical frameworks that can be used to explain the character’s dilemma 5. Team spokespersons will present conclusions to the seminar in plenary session. 6. Make notes of where your peer discussion highlights similarities and differences from your own thinking. Writing the assignment Portfolio Appendix B (after the seminar) Read the SMILES Assignment Brief carefully.
Briefly mention all the dilemmas discovered in the case. Select one of the dilemmas in the Holiday Case for full ethical analysis using the normative ethical theories and descriptive ethical frameworks taught on this module. Contribution to Portfolio Appendix C After Seminar Five you will have “before” and “after” journal notes concerning your analysis of this case. You can compare your ability to analyses in your team (with the benefit of having learnt and applied this module content), against your lone attempt to do this without any applied business ethics knowledge.
This can help you to reflect upon team-working in portfolio Appendix C. Directed Reading Crane A and Matter D (2010) Business Ethics PUP Chapters 1 -4 CASE STUDY (REVISITED) The Case of the Holiday (based on actual events) This case concerns a young medium sized advertising agency in Germany. It had had grown rapidly in the four years since it was founded and had just opened a new office in the US. The company operates in a highly competitive arrest in which failure to meet customers’ deadlines incurs substantial penalties.
Work is almost exclusively project-based, in a high pressure but largely informal environment where teams predominate and hierarchy is little in evidence. The company pays well, and its employees are highly skilled, overwhelmingly graduates and equally overwhelmingly young with over 35 year-olds a rarity. Employees work an average of 50 hours a week and when deadlines are tight some arrive as early as 5 a. M. And leave as late as 1 a. M. If there is a personnel ‘problem’ it is that turnover is high.
Employees tend either to be dismissed quickly after their unsuitability emerges or leave voluntarily after only two or three years. While there however, involvement and ‘ownership’ of tasks is evident and employees enjoy a culture which emphasizes working hard and playing hard. Much of the employees’ social time is spent, unsurprisingly, with other employees and strong bonds of friendship have developed between staff. The company is privately owned by its two founders who work from their German Head Office. Employees are not represented by a trade union. Like publicly limited and/or government organizations where a variety of stakeholder organizations can be identified and corporate governance may be contested (by shareholders, government, regulatory authorities, consumer associations, trade unions, pressure groups and so on), internal relations here are far clearer and the voices that count are those of management and customers. The incident that forms the focus for this case concerns an Account Executive, Berries, who was due to go on holiday in a month’s time for two weeks at his girlfriend’s home in Hong Kong.
This was an important holiday, especially because Berries only took one week’s holiday throughout the previous year and because his girlfriend See Lana would be returning to Germany immediately after the holiday to continue her studies. This was therefore an opportunity for Berries to meet See Élan’s parents and to experience her environment for the first time. About a month before the holiday Boride’s manager called him in for a meeting and told him the news that one of Boride’s clients had to bring forward their product launch as they had heard that a rival was launching in he week that was originally scheduled.
The new product launch would be in the middle of Boride’s holiday period. Work would need to be brought forward on the design of advertisements, campaign roll out, viral marketing, web support and so on. The manager at no point suggested that Sorrier would face sanctions for taking his holiday, nor was his right to it contested but the manager did emphasize the importance of the client and the high regard they had for Boride’s work If this launch was a success then they would likely generate further contracts.
After a difficult conversation with See Can, who told Berries that her parents would be very upset not to meet him for at least another year, Berries cancelled his holiday. The company reimbursed his costs in full. It was only then that Boride’s friends from the company found out what had happened. Berries could not believe their reaction. They argued that he was wrong to give up his holiday. His friend Marcus said: “Berries, you are a coward. They had no right to ask you to do this and you were too weak to say no. You have jeopardized your relationship with See Lana and let us down.
How are any of us going to be able to say no if we are asked to give up our holidays now? You are supposed to be a friend. You have given so much to this company, the least they could do is to get someone else to cover your work. ” Berries replied: ‘l was just trying to do my best. I have been working on that account for a long time so how can I leave it at the end of the project? Don’t you understand have to balance what is right for the company and the client against what is right for everyone else and in this case giving up my holiday is better than letting down the client. So get off my back. ”