What customers don’t know won’t hurt

them, or will it?

Why Elena motivated to lie to customers?
Elena was motivated to lie to customers due to positive reinforcement from her supervisor. Her
supervisor encouraged her to do that. Once he rent out a car to a person who agreed to pay 150 dollars
a day and told her to lie to couple who had reserved it before. He told her that if she wants to become a
manager she must have to make valuable deals for the office by hook or by crook. And with the
attraction of this reward and regular encouragement from the supervisor Elena was motivated to lie.

Whether Elena will confess to legal representative or not?

Elena will not confess to legal representative due to fear of punishment for what she did. She had
worked hard for the current position and if she confesses then she could not even imagine becoming a
manager in the near future.

Whether Elena is responsible for it or not?

It is clear from the case study that behavior of Elena is due to external factors. And her supervisor is
totally responsible for her wrong behavior, in this way we can say that she is not responsible because he
told her that if she wants to become a manager she had to lie to customer like him. But if we see it in
this context that now it was her second nature and she was consistently repeating the same behavior at
that place where everyone was not lying to customers. So we can say that in this way she was
responsible for this wrong behavior due to its high consistency and low distinctiveness. And if we see it
in large perspective the distinctiveness of this organization is low so the organization will be responsible
for what Elena did.

Whether Elena will lie to legal representative or decide to come clean?

If we observe the Elena’s personality traits we came to know that conscientiousness is very high in her
personality. She is very ambitious to become a manager even for this she started lying to customers to
make more profit for her office. So to become a manager we can say that she will not tell the truth to
the legal representative. Apart from this now she is habitual to lie so in such a crucial situation she must
lie to save her. And as well as the escalation of commitment is concerned she will persist on her wrong
decision so escalation of commitment will occur.
What emotions might Elena be experiencing?
When Elena came to know about the accident of the car she became very much nervous and cannot
control her emotions. She lost in thoughts and start thinking why she rent out a car with such a fault,
and then she remembers it was all due to her supervisor and she thought to tell the legal representative
about him. All this situations shows that she was extremely nervous at that time and she want to get rid
of the situation. Such emotional situation will definitely impact her decision and she will not tell the legal
representative about the fact and escalation of commitment will occur.

We can also take it in this sense that being a girl she might not face the internal dissonance and she tell
everything regarding supervisor to the legal representative to get internal satisfaction.

Whether Elena could be a good leader some day?

I think Elena could not be a good leader because she lacks many traits a good leader must have E.g.

 Emotional intelligence
 dominance
 Can take own decision
 Have a broad vision
 Be a role model
 Self confidence
 Locus of control
 Integrity

It is proved from the case study that Elena lacks all above traits which must be present in a good leader
so we can say that she could not be a good leader in the future.

How might the rental office climate impact Elena’s behavior?

Rental office climate negatively influence the Elena’s behavior and she started lying to customers and it
became her second nature. There were so many factors involved in this climate as; there was no check
on the decisions of Elena so we can say that there was lack of accountability. Negative influence from
the supervisor was also the part of such climate. And finally they were working for just profit earning.

What steps should be taken to improve the ethics at office?

In order to improve the ethical conditions in the office first there should be some check on the existing
situation where both Elena and her supervisor were lying to customers. And to permanently remove
this from the office management can form a philosophy in which basic ethical standards would be in
written form and clearly communicate to all employees. In this way employees will have a clear idea
about organization’s ethical standards and avoid such malpractices.