Running head: SPORT ETHICS 1

Sport Ethics: Atlas-Rand Case Study

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Sport Ethics: Atlas-Rand Case Study

The purpose of this study is to show interpersonal conflicts in the “hard-nosed” of

corporate financing and sport marketing and how personal integrity is challenged by

organizational climate. Chris is an example of the normal average person who is challenged to

change her ways and beliefs in order to survive in the corporate world and keep her job. She

serves as a strong example for everyone to learn from. Organizational climate is generally

viewed as the practices that organizations develop around their handling of people

(Schlein,2004).

Ethical Issues

Weighing in at 3 points (a very important consideration) is integrity. It is known that a

person who has worked hard to develop a high standard of integrity such as Chris who graduated

with her B.A will likely transfer these principles to other peoples’ professional lives and will

experience less or no friction with the ethical standards of the organization. However, we see

Darlene who is her boss putting her integrity on the test with core ethical issues such as the price

fixing scenario which is controversial from every angle.

The other issue being, nurturing of retrogressive organizational culture. Culture serves as

a communication channel to show employees what is considered acceptable and unacceptable in

the workplace. This goes a long way to reinforce interpersonal relationships and convening

messages to those employees who in this case are those of an organization such as Atlas-Rand

and portray those behaviors (Schoeman,2014). This is illustrated when Darlene shows Chris that

not upholding to Atlas-Rand’s code of ethics is what she has been doing and it has been working

for her, the company and the public at large. This ethical issue is somewhat important thus giving

it a 2 as culture influences decision making of individual employees in day to day situations.

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Another very important consideration is price fixing. This occurred during the meeting in

a large conference room with what Chris later realized to be were individuals from Atlas-Rand’s

competitors. According to (Harvey, A., & Woodruff, M. J., 2013) the key reason price fixing is

illegal as well as unethical is that it violates one of the basic requirements for markets to work

efficiently. It compromises the moral standard of natural law and is unethical under section 1 of

the Sherman Antitrust Act and also Chris states that Atlas-Rand’s Code of ethics disputes what

they had done earlier when she was meeting with Darlene.

Conceptual Issues

Chris’ father relies on the Navy to deal with his financial issues. This is a conceptual idea

in his head in that he believes that since he served the navy many years back, that they now owe

him and the only payback he knows is they take care of him and his family financial issues while

he “rests”. This concept is fallacious as there are so many factors to consider when looking at

cost of living for a family and also changing economic states making it hard to survive only on

retirement benefits.

Chris’ mother stays at home to give birth and raise the 5 children. Considered as a mere

fallacy this issue is portrayed by her who on top of not knowing a great deal about the world of

business, she doesn’t have any work or is not shown to possess any skillset unlike his male

counterpart who joined the navy. This has led to her not having great influence on Chris as she

states that it is instead her father who inspired her.

This family influence clouds Chris’ judgement on personal values due to the upbringing

and the kind of role models she upholds thus we find her being inflexible to adjust to new

situations portraying an interplay between her personal beliefs and what is considered ethical in a

corporate like Atlas-Rand. Her inflexibility is shown when all her arguments are based on
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written rules such as Atlas-Rand’s code of ethics forgetting that there are unwritten rules that are

well fit to the practical realities of staying afloat in business.

Factual Issues

One of the facts established was, ethics are not homogenous. The ethical position of Chris

and her view of Atlas-Rand as an organization that caters for the demonstration of important

values and the community responsibility does not seem to add up to the values that she upholds

and expects it to. The experience of the price fixing meeting proved her wrong as it dawned on

her that the business world operates differently. In that, what is unethical is not always legal,

leaving her with an ethical dilemma.

Another realization is that issues that deal with standing on one’s ground are ideal and are

faced with so much resistance and challenges especially from those one looks up to. This is

demonstrated in the fact that Chris’ boss, Darlene even after knowing that the things that

transpired in the unofficial business meeting with Atlas-Rand’s competitors wouldn’t ogre well

with Chris, she still decided to go ahead with requesting for her presence and also convinced her

that it was normal despite price fixing being illegal.

Furthermore, it is easy for organizational culture to lure you into their definition of ethics.

For Chris, the realization that the transpirations of the meeting with Atlas-Rand’s competitors

sure were illegal but Darlene insists that it is such actions that have made Atlas-Rand a multi-

national company with annual profits exceeding 4 billion US dollars. This looks like a thing they

hold with so much sentimental value to an extent of exercising illegal methods for increase their

profit margin.
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Stakeholders

Stakeholders are those who can affect or be affected by the organization's actions,

objectives and policies. The public in this case involves the clients of Atlas-Rand which includes

superstars from different sports including tennis, golf, football, basketball, baseball, hockey

among others. The management is another stakeholder in this case includes persons such as the

CEO of domestic operations, Vice president of personnel of Atlas-Rand’s international office,

Assistant director and director of Joint Ventures at the head office, Chris and Darlene

respectively. We also have the policy makers who Chris refers to as “the guys in legal

department who spend half their lives drawing up policies” on matters relating to price-fixing.

The issue depicted above tarnishes Atlas-Rand’s objective of being transparent and

accountable to the market and when its investigated by independent bodies or the government

and found that they had price fixed, the bad publicity associated with the act will lead to

termination of contracts they have with sport superstars and also reduce their profit margin

notwithstanding their grip on the sport apparel and equipment market. This may lead to a

butterfly effect causing their competitors to have an advantage over them.

Decision

Despite Chris’ boss, Darlene, overseeing the illegal price fixing, Chris is still left with a

decision to make regarding her future and her integrity. It is also seen that she has had such a

tremendous input to Atlas-Rand’s operations as she was the one who after 6 months was already

making progress on a number of ventures that had been left dormant in the early negotiation

stages by her predecessor.

In regard to Chris’ ethical dilemma, rational egoism would be the best moral standard

that she has to stand by. This is because she has to reason in order to come up with a decision
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that upholds her self-interest, purposeful action and have substantial amount of reasons why she

took that route. Unlike the other moral standards that have the elements of “I have to do this

because another person or people have said so”. All this information is found in the book

Darlene asked Chris if she has read, ‘Atlas Shrugged’.

We don’t know her response to the question above, so it is wrong to conclude that she did

make the decision-making immediately while they were still at dinner. If she had read it earlier,

then this information would have been instrumental in designing her response and understand

Darlene’s point of view. Since we are not aware of the measures that will be taken by Chris

regarding achieving the goals for the company, the shareholders and herself it’s like opening a

Pandora’s box. If she remains adamant to change, she threatens her career progression which has

initially been promising as she has climbed up the professional ladder faster compared to average

employees.

It is known within 6 months she had been promoted to become an Assistant Director of

Joint Ventures at the head office, thus esteemed to make viable decisions related to the growth of

the company. Her boss makes it clear that compromise is expected from her side if at all she will

continue to enjoy promotions and even occupy a higher office than that of her boss “Chris, your

future is incredibly bright, you know you will go far in this company, farther than I will”.

It is also unknown if Darlene’s utterances were job threatening as they went beyond the

unethical acts in question and focused on the future of her assistant in maintaining her

prestigious position in Atlas-Rand as well as her ability to break the glass ceiling in proving her

competence if she stands with the stipulated code of ethics.

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Chris’ boss speaks from experience as she incites her that her way of doing things was

helpful only that her predecessors did not go far beyond being average using the same formulae.

This was a wake-up call to Chris in finding a pivotal ground between the code of ethics and the

practical realities of becoming a success since they are meeting informally and as the previous

meeting with Atlas-Rand’s competitors the ramifications of these date are yet to manifest.

Respect for person is not upheld in this case because contrary to its advocacy for

autonomy in decision making we see Darlene imposing her perceptions on Chris to influence the

product of her choice. For instance, “if you don’t play by our rules, well, you don’t survive”.

With respect for person moral standard, the link between the director and her assistant is on the

line as giving the choice to Chris she might choose to not go ahead with the idea. This will lead

to Darlene losing trust in Chris which will have further effects on the productivity and output of

the Joint Ventures office. However, employing the egoism ensures peaceful cooperation between

the two as they will be both in agreement and as Darlene stated the company, shareholders and

themselves all win.

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References

Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism - The Objective Standard. (2017). The

Objective Standard. Retrieved 14 April 2017, from

https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2012-summer/atlas-shrugged-ayn-rand-

morality-egoism/#_ednref10

Harvey, A., & Woodruff, M. J. (2013). Confirmation bias in the United States Supreme Court

judicial database. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 29(2), 414-460

Schoeman, Cynthia. "Is ethics your responsibility?: ethics." Tax Professional 2012.4 (2012): 24-

25.

What Is Integrity? See Examples in the Workplace. (2017). The Balance. Retrieved 14 April

2017, from https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-integrity-really-1917676

Why Do Companies Succumb to Price Fixing?. (2017). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 14

April 2017, from https://hbr.org/1978/07/why-do-companies-succumb-to-price-fixing

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