Case Study Assignment 1

Module 1: Case Study Assignment

Erica Kovarik

Arizona State University

OGL 345: Organizational Ethics

Case Study Assignment 2

Section 1: What is Ethics?

To me Ethics deals with well-based standards of how people ought to act. Ethics does

not describe the way people do act. It deals with the way people should act. Ethical people

always strive to make the right decision in all circumstances (Mintz, 2012). I chose this

definition of Ethic’s because I feel this is how I look at it when it comes to being ethical in my

daily life. When it comes to being ethical, it’s about making the right choices in life, your job,

and as a person. Being ethical is a choice and Steven Mintz’s definition of being Ethical is

exactly stating that. Not everyone always chooses to be ethical, but I strive to be ethical in any

decision that comes my way.

Section 2: What is your Chosen Profession?

My chosen profession is Leadership within a company or business. I am choosing this

profession because my goal is obtain a Leadership position with my degree. I currently work as a

Financial Associate within a hospital right now and would like to work my way up into a

leadership position. My dream profession would be to someday be a CEO or CFO of a company.

I feel as a leader, you get the chance to make a difference in your peers and that is what I want to

do.

Section 3: Case Study 1

The first case study I choose to talk about was with the CEO of Starbucks. His name is

Kevin Johnson. Johnson had to make an ethical decision when it came to an incident that

occurred at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. Two black men were waiting to meet with business
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associates. They had not yet ordered anything at the time. A store manager had approached them

and asked them to leave. They refused, so the store manager called the cops. During this time,

another witness at Starbucks had recorded the whole incident on their phone and put it on the

internet. They also had not ordered anything at this time and had been sitting there for a while,

but were not asked to leave. The video went viral and the public believed the black men got

arrested due to discrimination and racism (Tangall, 2018). Johnson, being the CEO had to make

some difficult decisions on behalf of the situation. His first decision was if the manager was right

or wrong to ask the two mean to leave, but not the other patrons that had not order. His options

were to keep the manager or to let that manager go. The incident happened on a Thursday, but by

the following Monday, Johnson had stated that the manager no longer worked at the store

(Tangall, 2018). His next decision was if he was going to apologize and makes a statement on

the viral video. He chooses to be ethical. In his apology statement and follow up video release

shortly after the arrests, Johnson said, “The video shot by customers is very hard to watch and

the actions in it are not representative of our Starbucks Mission and Values.  Creating an

environment that is both safe and welcoming for everyone is paramount for every store.

Regretfully, our practices and training led to a bad outcome—the basis for the call to the

Philadelphia police department was wrong” (Tangall, 2018).

These decisions were ethical dilemmas because a viral video was released that made

Starbucks look like they were being raciest and discriminating. No company wants to have the

public think they are raciest or discriminating against their customer or potential customers.

They do not want to get a bad reputation. Companies want to make their customers happy and

satisfied, and that video did not. Having to let go a manager of a store and make a statement to

the public is hard, and you always want to be ethical when it comes to this type of situation
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because you want to do the right thing. The result of Johnson’s decision of his statement is that

the employees needed more training, including when to call authorities, and that the company

needed to conduct a thorough analysis of practices that lead to this incident (Tangall, 2018).

Johnson also went out to Philadelphia and met with the two men face to face to involve them in

the learning and understanding of what Starbucks needed to do differently (Tangall, 2018). He

wanted to get the best perspective and point of view.

I choose this ethical dilemma case study because I want to be a leader within a business

or company. My dream goal is to become a CEO of a company and with that you have hard

things that can occur in this position. This case stuck out to me because Racism and

Discrimination is a big thing in this world at this time. This case was able to show me a good

ethical dilemma and how a CEO handled it in an ethical way. I feel this was very important to

understand and learn in my profession because it could happen in any business or company.

With the internet, things can be put up instantly, and being able to prevent this and make an

ethical decision will help me with my future profession and leadership skills.

Section 4: Case Study 2

The second case study I choose to talk about is about a girl named Sarah. She was

recently promoted to a managerial position at her industrial engineering company. With this new

position, she is now responsible for overseeing the company’s production factory, which meant

approximately 50 factory workers now reported to her (Bartlett, 2015). Sarah had no experience

in a factory before and this new position was going to be a major change for her. On Sara’s first

day, she realized that the workers continued to work well past the end of their 8-hour shift. She

then goes to the factory supervisor (who reports to her) to express concern because the factory
Case Study Assignment 5

does not have the budget to pay so many workers overtime. The supervisor smiles at Sarah and

explains that the factory meets production goals by making the factory workers work off the

clock. The workers are well aware of this expectation and went along with it in order to keep

their jobs. Sarah is shocked to learn this illegal practice had become part of the company culture,

but the supervisor explains that the company’s CEO is well aware of this expectation (Bartlett,

2015).

Sarah had some tough decisions to make after learning what she had discovered. She

could either not say anything or risk losing her job and confront the CEO with what he was

doing wrong. This was an ethical dilemma because what the CEO of the company was doing was

an illegal practice and he could be fined heavenly because of it. Sarah made the ethical decision

and confronted her boss in the illegal practice and brought notice to the authorities. This resulted

in the employees of the factory being paid rightful for when they had worked “off the clock”.

I choose this ethical dilemma case because this is a rare case that could happen to anyone

starting off in a leadership position. Wanting to make a changes right when you start is hard.

Speaking up to someone in a higher position is hard. In so many cases, companies are doing

things that ethical and trying to do the right thing. But this case shows a perfect example of a

CEO and how they are not making ethical decisions within a company. It caught my eye because

it brought my attention how a CEO will do anything to make ends meet, even if it is illegal. I feel

being able to understand this ethical dilemma allows me to show that being ethical within my

profession can be risky. But in the end, being ethical is the right thing to do.

Section 5: Case Study 3

Case Study Assignment 6

The last case study I choose to talk about is about an intern within a company. His name

is Will and he is an intern at a government engineering office. He works within a team of four

other interns and they all report to their boss, Jim. Will had been noticing that Jim treated male

and female interns differently. He would often send Will and his fellow male interns on faraway

projects or tedious task that he would never assign to Meghan. Meghan is the female intern.

Meghan is not happy with the extra attention and only gets in-office engineering projects

working alone with Jim. As a prestigious conference approaches, Jim predictably selects Meghan

as a representative for the office without even informing the other interns about the opportunity

(Mukherji, 2013). At this point, Will and the other male interns get curious as to why Meghan is

the one being chosen for this opportunity. They started to dig into Jim’s background and had

discovered that he had numerous sexual harassment cases filed on him. None of these cases had

been prosecuted though. Despite the urgings of her teammates, Meghan is reluctant to file her

own report as she does not want to confront Jim directly and an anonymous report would easily

be traced to her. Fearing that the report will compromise her prospects at full-time employment

at the office, she tells Will that she will just deal with it for the rest of the internship: “It's only

another three months anyways” (Mukherji, 2013).

At this point, Will was put into an ethical dilemma. He was witnessing a teammate being

sexual harassed, as well as being gender discriminated. At this point, Will had to make the

decision to not say anything about the situation, while Meghan continued to be sexual harassed,

or confront Jim and file his own report against Jim. When being ethical, the right thing to do is to

confront Jim and file his own report against Jim. This is exactly what Will did. It is not right for

Jim to do that. Meghan should not have to be in an environment where she should be frightened

to speak up and feel afraid to lose her job. This is an ethical dilemma because their boss Jim was
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doing something illegal and unethical. What he was doing is wrong and should not happen in a

work environment. The result of being ethical in this case and making the right decision to turn

Jim in will result in legal actions and Jim to lose his job. This allows Meghan not be

discriminated or harassed anymore and not be scared of her boss Jim.

I choose this ethical dilemma case because this showed a case where the leader was

making an unethical decision and was doing the wrong thing. This allowed me to see a

prospective from a team about how their boss was being unethical and doing the wrong thing. It

caught my eye due to this being about gender discrimination and sexual harassment. I feel this is

a very important topic and idea that needs to be shown and heard about. This happens in so many

company’s and business without people knowing. A lot of these cases result in people being like

Meghan and just dealing with it because they are scared that they are going to lose their job over

it. I feel as I go into my profession in Business Leadership, I need to see multiple perspectives

and examples from not only leaders, but the people they are leading. Making ethical decisions

can be tough. But allowing me to understand cases that can happen within leadership, allows me

to know what I can do for my future and how I can prevent them and make the right ethical

decisions.
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References

Bartlett, C. (2015, August 26). Off the Clock. Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-

areas/more/engineering-ethics/engineering-ethics-cases/off-the-clock/

Mintz, S. (2012, April 12). What is the Basis for Ethical Decision-making? Retrieved from

https://www.ethicssage.com/2012/04/what-is-the-basis-for-ethical-decision-making.html

Mukherji, S. (2013, June 3). Gender Discrimination. Retrieved from

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/business-ethics/resources/silicon-valley-business-

ethics-cases/gender-discrimination.html

Tangdall, S. (2018, August 29). The CEO of Starbucks and the Practice of Ethical Leadership.

Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/leadership-ethics/resources/the-

ceo-of-starbucks-and-the-practice-of-ethical-leadership/