Business Ethics: Case Studies and Selected Readings, Tenth Edition
By Marianne M Jennings
Contents:
Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xxvii
Unit 1 Ethical Theory, Philosophical Foundations, Our Reasoning Flaws,
Types of Ethical Dilemmas, and You
Section A
Understanding Ourselves and Ethical Lapses 3
Reading 1.1 You, That First Step, the Slippery Slope, and a Credo 3
Reading 1.2 What Did You Do in the Past Year That Bothered You? How That Question
Can Change Lives and Cultures 10
Section B
Ethical Theory and Philosophical Foundations 14
Reading 1.3 What Are Ethics? From Line-Cutting to Kant 14
Section C
The Types of Ethical Dilemmas 23
Reading 1.4 The Types of Ethical Dilemmas: From Truth to Honesty to Conflicts 23
Section D
Our Reasoning Flaws 33
Reading 1.5 On Rationalizing and Labeling: The Things We Do That Make Us
Uncomfortable, but We Do Them Anyway 33
Case 1.6 “They Made Me Do It”: Following Orders and Legalities: Volkswagen
and the Fake Emissions Tests 43
Reading 1.7 The University of North Carolina: How Do I Know When an Ethical
Reading 1.10 A State of the Union on Cheating: Recognizing the Types and Scope
of Cheating—Plagiarism 59
Case 1.11 The Little Teacher Who Could: Piper, Kansas, and Term Papers 60
Reading 1.12 A State of the Union on Cheating: Academic Data and Examples 62
Case 1.13 Dad, the Actuary, and the Stats Class 64
Case 1.14 Cheating: Culture of Excellence 65
Reading 1.15 A State of the Union on Cheating: Puffing on Your Résumé and Job
Application and in Your Job Interviews 66
Reading 1.16 Résumés and the Ethics of Using Analytics 71
Case 1.17 Moving from School to Life: Do Cheaters Prosper? 75
Case 1.18 Cheating in Real Life: Wi-Fi Piggybacking and the Tragedy
of the Commons 75
Case 1.19 Cheating in the Carpool Lane: Define Car Pool 76
Case 1.20 Cheating in Real Life: The Pack of Gum 76
Case 1.21 Mylan and Its CEO’s Ethical Standards: Does Academic
Cheating Matter in Real Life? 76
Unit 2 Solving Ethical Dilemmas in Business
Section A
Business, Ethics, and Individuals: How Do They Work Together? 84
Reading 2.1 The Layers of Ethical Issues and the Ethical Mind 84
Reading 2.2 What’s Different About Business Ethics? 88
Reading 2.3 The Ethics of Responsibility 90
Reading 2.4 Is Business Bluffing Ethical? 91
Section B
What Gets in the Way of Ethical Decisions in Business? 101
Reading 2.5 How Leaders Lose Their Way: The Bathsheba Syndrome
and What Price Hubris? 101
Reading 2.6 Moral Relativism and the Either/or Conundrum 104
Reading 2.7 P = f (x) The Probability of an Ethical Outcome Is a Function
of the Amount of Money Involved: Pressure 105
Case 2.8 BP and the Deepwater Horizon Explosion: Safety First 106
Lapse Begins? 45
Section E
Analyzing and Resolving Ethical Dilemmas 48
Reading 1.8 Some Simple Tests for Resolving Ethical Dilemmas 48
Reading 1.9 Some Steps for Analyzing Ethical Dilemmas 58
Section C
Resolving Ethical Dilemmas in Business 120
Reading 2.9 Framing Issues Carefully: A Structured Approach for Solving Ethical
Dilemmas and Trying Out Your Ethical Skills on an Example 120
Case 2.10 Penn State: Framing Ethical Issues 121
Case 2.11 How About Those Astros? 135
Case 2.12 Boeing: Decades of Major Ethical Setbacks from Lockheed
Document Heists to the 737 MAX 137
Unit 3 Business, Stakeholders, Social Responsibility, and Sustainability
Section A
Business and Society: The Tough Issues of Economics, Social Responsibility,
Stakeholders, and Business 153
Reading 3.1 The History and Components of Social Responsibility 153
Case 3.2 Uber and Its Regulatory Cycles 166
Case 3.3 The NFL, Colin Kaepernick, and Taking a Knee 167
Reading 3.4 Components of Social Responsibility: Stakeholder Theory 169
Reading 3.5 Measuring Social Responsibility 174
Reading 3.6 The Lack of Virtue/Aristotelian Standards in CSR/ESG
Evaluations and Surveys 179
Reading 3.7 Business with a Soul: A Reexamination of What Counts in Business Ethics 181
Reading 3.8 Appeasing Stakeholders with Public Relations 183
Reading 3.9 Conscious Capitalism: Creating a New Paradigm for Business 186
Reading 3.10 Marjorie Kelly and the Divine Right of Capital 187
Section B
Applying Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Theory 189
Case 3.11 Fannie, Freddie, Wall Street, Main Street, and the Subprime Mortgage
Market: of Moral Hazards 189
Case 3.12 Pharmaceuticals: A Tale of 4,834% Price Increases and Regulatory Cycles 201
Case 3.13 The Social, Political, Economic, and Emotional Issue of the Minimum Wage 208
Case 3.14 Ice-T, the Body Count Album, and Shareholder Uprisings 211
Case 3.15 Cancel Culture 214
Case 3.16 Ashley Madison: The Affair Website 216
Section C
Social Responsibility and Sustainability 218
Case 3.17 Biofuels and Food Shortages in Guatemala 218
Case 3.18 Herman Miller and Its Rain Forest Chairs 219
Case 3.19 The Nonsustainability of the EV/Alt-Fuel and Troubled Truck Industry 223
Section D
Government as a Stakeholder 227
Case 3.20 The Government Mattresses at the Border 227
Case 3.21 Public Policy and COVID-19 in Nursing Homes 228
Unit 4 Ethics and Company Culture
Section A
Temptation at Work for Individual Gain and That Credo 231
Reading 4.1 The Moving Line 231
Reading 4.2 Not All Employees Are Equal When It Comes to Ethical Development 232
Case 4.3 Bob Baffert: The Winningest Horse Trainer in History 236
Section B
The Organizational Behavior Factors 240
Reading 4.4 The Preparation for a Defining Ethical Moment 240
Case 4.5 Swiping Oreos at Work: Is It a Big Deal? 242
Reading 4.6 The Effects of Compensation Systems: Incentives, Bonuses,
Pay, and Ethics 243
Reading 4.7 Measures, Metrics, and Gaming—Part A 247
Case 4.8 VA: The Patient Queues 248
Case 4.9 The Atlanta Public School System: High Test Scores,
Low Knowledge Levels 253
Case 4.10 The Wells Way 257
Reading 4.11 Measures, Metrics, and Gaming—Part B 266
Section C
Accounting and Governance Factors 271
Reading 4.12 A Primer on Accounting Issues and Ethics and Earnings Management 271
Reading 4.13 Prevention Tools for the Layers of Ethical Issues: Individual,
Organization, Industry, and Society 283
Case 4.14 FINOVA and the Loan Write-Off 292
Case 4.15 Organizational Pressures in the Academy: Those Rankings 296
Case 4.16 Organizational Pressures in the Academy and Parental Pressure Outside:
Operation Varsity Blues 299
Section D
The Structural Factors: Governance, Example, and Leadership 305
Reading 4.17 The Things Leaders Do, Unwittingly, and Otherwise, That Harm Ethical Culture 305
Reading 4.18 Re: A Primer on Sarbanes–Oxley and Dodd–Frank 312
Case 4.19 Accountants and PCAOB: How Are They Doing? 316
Case 4.20 WorldCom: The Little Company That Couldn’t After All 319
Case 4.21 The Upper West Branch Mining Disaster, the CEO, and the Faxed
Production Reports 335
Section E
The Industry Practices and Legal Factors 340
Reading 4.22 The Subprime Saga: Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill, and CDOs 340
Case 4.23 Enron: The CFO, Conflicts, and Cooking the Books with Natural
Gas and Electricity 348
Case 4.24 Arthur Andersen: A Fallen Giant 360
Section F
The Fear-and-Silence Factors 366
Case 4.25 HealthSouth: The Scrushy Way 366
Case 4.26 Dennis Kozlowski: Tyco and the $6,000 Shower Curtain 373
Reading 4.27 A Primer on Speaking Up and Whistleblowing 383
Case 4.28 NASA and the Space Shuttle Booster Rockets 387
Section G
The Culture of Goodness 390
Case 4.29 New Era: If It Sounds Too Good to Be True, It Is Too Good to Be True 390
Case 4.30 Giving and Spending the United Way 393
Case 4.31 The Baptist Foundation: Funds of the Faithful 395
Unit 5 Ethics and Contracts
Section A
Contract Negotiations: All Is Fair and Conflicting Interests 399
Case 5.1 Johnny Depp and His Lawyer’s $30 Million in Percentage Earnings 399
Case 5.2 The Governor and His Wife: Product Endorsement and a Rolex 400
Case 5.3 Descriptive Honesty and Social Media Hype: An 11-Inch Subway
- a Footlong Subway and Tuna vs. Tuna 410
Case 5.4 Sears, High-Cost Auto Repairs, and Its Ethical and Financial Collapse 412
Case 5.5 Kardashian Tweets: Regulated Ads or Fun? 417
Case 5.6 Political Misrepresentation: When Is It a Lie? 418
Section B
Promises, Performance, and Reality 419
Case 5.7 The Ethics of Walking Away and No Eviction During Pandemics 419
Case 5.8 Pension Promises, Payments, and Bankruptcy: Companies, Cities, Towns,
and States 421
Case 5.9 “I Only Used It Once”: Returning Goods 426
Case 5.10 When Corporations Pull Promises Made to Government 427
Case 5.11 Intel and the Chips: When You Have Made a Mistake 428
Case 5.12 GoFundME!!! 432
Case 5.13 Scarlett Johansson and Disney: Payments for Black Widow 433
Unit 6 Ethics in International Business
Section A
Conflicts Between the Corporation’s Ethics and Business Practices in Foreign Countries 437
Reading 6.1 Why an International Code of Ethics Would Be Good for Business 437
Case 6.2 The Tennis Player with COVID Visa Problems 444
Case 6.3 The Former Soviet Union: A Study of Three Companies and
Values in Conflict 446
Reading 6.4 International Production: Risks, Benefits, and That Supply Chain 448
Case 6.5 Bhopal: When Safety Standards Differ 456
Case 6.6 Product Dumping 457
Case 6.7 Nestlé: Products That Don’t Fit Cultures 458
Case 6.8 Doing Business in China: The NBA and Ethical Minefields 461
Section B
Bribes, Grease Payments, and “When in Rome. . . .” 465
Reading 6.9 A Primer on the FCPA 465
Case 6.10 FIFA: The Kick of Bribery 469
Case 6.11 Siemens and Bribery, Everywhere 473
Case 6.12 Walmart in Mexico 475
Case 6.13 GlaxoSmithKline in China 478
Unit 7 Ethics, Business Operations, and Rights
Section A
Workplace Safety 481
Reading 7.1 Using Two Sets of Books for One Set of Data 481
Case 7.2 Cintas and the Production Line 484
Case 7.3 Theranos: The Lab That Wasn’t Safe or Real and Fake the Numbers
Until You Make It 485
Section B
Workplace Loyalty 489
Case 7.4 Aaron Feuerstein and Malden Mills 489
Case 7.5 JCPenney and Its Wealthy Buyer 491
Case 7.6 The Trading Desk, Perks, and “Dwarf Tossing” 492
Case 7.7 The Analyst Who Needed a Preschool 494
Case 7.8 Nissan and Carlos Ghosn: Corporate Resources vs. Personal Spending 496
Case 7.9 Kodak, the Appraiser, and the Assessor: Lots of Backscratching on Valuation 499
Section C
Workplace Diversity and Atmosphere 501
Case 7.10 English-Only Workplaces 501
Case 7.11 Ban-the-Box and Fair Chance: Do You Have Any Criminal Convictions? 503
Case 7.12 The NFL and Its Rooney Diversity Rule: Coach Flores and the Mix-Up on Texts 504
Case 7.13 On-the-Job Fetal Injuries 505
Case 7.14 Political Views in the Workplace 507
Case 7.15 Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Employer Tracking 509
Section D
Tough Issues and Confrontation in the Workplace 512
Reading 7.16 The Ethics of Confrontation 512
Case 7.17 Office Romances and Me Too: McDonald’s et al. 516
Case 7.18 Examples of Other Organizations with Atmospheres of Harassment 518
Reading 7.19 Creating a Culture Free From Sexual Pressures, Harassment,
and Favoritism: Codes, Policies, Investigations, and Confrontation 520
Reading 7.20 The Ethics of Performance Evaluations 522
Case 7.21 Ann Hopkins and Price Waterhouse 524
Case 7.22 The Glowing Recommendation 529
Unit 8 Ethics and Products
Section A
Advertising Content 533
Case 8.1 Elon Musk and Puffing 533
Case 8.2 Burger King and the Impossible Vegan Burger 536
Case 8.3 About Returning That Rental Car and the Gas Tank: Contract Terms 537
Section B
Product Safety 538
Reading 8.4 A Primer on Product Liability 538
Case 8.5 Peanut Corporation of America: Salmonella and Indicted Leaders 541
Case 8.6 Tylenol: The Product Safety Issues 543
Case 8.7 Ford, GM, and Chrysler: The Repeating Design and Sales Issues 548
Case 8.8 The Beginning of Liability: Games, Fitness, Fun, and Injuries 556
Case 8.9 E. Coli, Jack-in-the-Box, and Cooking Temperatures 558
Case 8.10 PGE: Electricity, Fires, and Liability 559
Section C
Product Sales 562
Case 8.11 Chase: Selling Your Own Products for Higher Commissions 562
Case 8.12 The Mess at Marsh McLennan 563
Case 8.13 The Opioid Pandemic 565
Case 8.14 Frozen Coke and Burger King and the Richmond Rigging 570
Case 8.15 Adidas and the Intercollegiate Bribery Problems 573
Case 8.16 Beech-Nut and the No-Apple-Juice Apple Juice 575
Unit 9 Ethics and Competition
Section A
Covenants Not to Compete 581
Reading 9.1 A Primer on Covenants Not to Compete: Are They Valid? 581
Case 9.2 Sabotaging Your Employer’s Information Lists before You Leave
to Work for a Competitor 583
Case 9.3 The Hallmark Channel and Countdown to Christmas 584
Case 9.4 Bimbo Bakery and the Nooks & Crannies 584
Case 9.5 Starwood, Hilton, and the Suspiciously Similar New Hotel Designs 586
Section B
All’s Fair, or Is It? 589
Reading 9.6 Adam Smith: An Excerpt from the Theory of Moral Sentiments 589
Case 9.7 The Battle of the Guardrail Manufacturers 590
Case 9.8 Bad-Mouthing the Competition: Where’s the Line? 594
Case 9.9 Online Pricing Differentials and Customer Questions 594
Case 9.10 Brighton Collectibles: Terminating Distributors for Discounting Prices 595
Case 9.11 Park City Mountain: When a Competitor Forgets 596
Case 9.12 Electronic Books and the Apple versus Amazon War 596
Case 9.13 Martha vs. Macy’s and JCPenney 598
Case 9.14 Mattel and the Bratz Doll 599
Section C
Intellectual Property and Ethics 602
Case 9.15 Louis Vuitton and The Hangover 602
Case 9.16 Forcing Farmers to the Dealerships: That Right to Repair Goes Public 603
Case 9.17 Tiffany vs. Costco 604
The Ethical Common Denominator (ECD) Index: The Common Threads of Business Ethics 607
Alphabetical Index 617
Business Discipline Index 621
Product/Company/Individuals Index 627
Topic Index 657