Part 1

1. Normalization of Values Conflicts: Normalization of value conflicts indicates to a preparedness that

in workplace or in organization setting, we will face value conflicts and dilemmas. If we normalize the
possibility that there will be such conflicts, when it actually happens later, the surprise factor will be less
in magnitude and people will be better equipped to address the issues.

2. Psychological Safety: Psychological safety is a measure of to what extent people face safe and
comfortable in a group environment to take interpersonal risks or make mistakes. If a group environment
is psychologically safe, it means that the members of that group will have the assurance that if they make
mistakes, they will not be penalized. This feeling of safety foster growth mindset in a group setting.

3. Separation Fallacy: Separation fallacy addresses the classification of an issue as either ethical or
business related, it often indicates that business decisions should not take into consideration ethical
concerns. The problem with separation fallacy is that if we separate the issue as business in stead of
ethical, this can work as a moral disengagement factor to be involved in ethically dubious practices.
Separation can make people justify their unethical decision as a business need.

4. Motivated Reasoning: There are four sources of motivation: self-interest, altruism, collectivism,
principles. When people are motivated by any of these, they may take a decision and then try to justify
their decision which suits their motivation. It is not necessarily bad all the time, however, motivated
reasoning can lead us to disengage from moral implications of a decision and make us forget to
understand other perspectives than our own motivations.

5. Perspective Taking Vs. Perspective Getting: Perspective taking is like trying to imagine us in other
people’s shoes, which intuitively sounds good, however comes with a pitfall that it might make us
consider “us” in their position with our history and previous dispositions in stead of that particular person.
On the other hand, perspective getting suggests that we try to understand that person’s perspective and
what he is going through and not make it about ourselves.

6. Agency & Self-Efficacy: Agency is the human capability that we can change our own conditions and
situations by action, it originates action and is the opposite of helplessness. Self-efficacy is the belief in
those capabilities that even if we face challenges, we can overcome those and make impact through our
actions. Both the concepts are related to growth concept as these indicates that we can grow from our
fixed position or mistakes.

7. Diversity & Inclusion: Diversity is like a legal guidance regarding taking people from diverse
backgrounds, it is like a gateway, a formal concept and can be measured. Inclusion is like a pathway to
that gateway and often informal thus, hard to measure. People can have headwinds in the pathway and
face difficulties to be ‘included’.

Part: 2

9. Ethical Decision Making Using the Trevino-Nelson 8 Step Model

Step 1: Gather the Facts

If we summarize the facts briefly, Timothy who is William’s supervisor has specifically asked William to
give him his credentials so that he can use those to access to William’s restricted university resources for
company benefit. Timothy is a recent MBA grad and he is trying to save costs for the company, on the
other hand, William is not feeling comfortable to violate the University license rules.

Step 2: Identify the Ethical Issue

The ethical issue can be framed here as: “Should William do what Timothy said for the company and
violate University’s code?”

Step 3: Identify the Affected Parties/The Stakeholders

Following are the key stakeholders here:

William: He is the protagonist here and has the control of the resource Timothy is asking

Timothy: William’s Supervisor

The Company

The University (William’s)

Step 4: Identify the Consequences

In terms of the identified stakeholders above, here are the possible consequences they may face:

William: If he accepts Timothy’s demand, he may be favored by Timothy, and it can build up their
relation which may help him professionally later. However, it might psychologically harm William as he
is violating some code. On the other hand, if he does not accept Timothy’s demand, he might face
repercussions in the company and it may harm his relationship with his supervisor; however, William
might feel morally strong if he becomes able to resist.

Timothy: William’s Supervisor is trying to save company costs, therefore, if William agrees, he will be
able to save a lot for company and he may get incentives from his upper management. Failure to get the
data for free will not enable him to get the incentives. However, depending on the company culture &
values, Timothy’s behavior (trying to use William’s credentials) might also be criticized by his upper
management.

The Company: If William agrees, the company saves a lot and if William does not agree, company will
incur huge costs. Also, there is a possibility that if people get to know that the company tried to exploit an
intern for cost saving, it may cause reputational damages for the company.

The University (William’s): If William supplies the credentials, the university’s resources get misused,
and the codes are violated.

Considering a consequentialist approach, in order to ensure the greatest benefit for the greatest number of
people, I would recommend William not to provide his credentials. The reason is, if we consider long
term consequences, William is just going to start his career and he is an intern now, starting his career
with such a code violation may be start of many more in future. Also, the University gets exploited here
with a code violation. Timothy, if he thinks about the long terms, should also refrain from such behavior
to manage his personal reputation and trustworthiness. The company may suffer economically in short
term, however, the cost is not equivalent to the possible harms others will face if William decides to
provide his credentials.

Step 5: Identify the Obligations & Duties

If we consider the deontological approach, William has duties towards his university, he has been
provided a privilege by the university and he should not misuse that. On the other hand, William has also
some obligations to his company and supervisor, however, I believe his obligations to the university
should take precedence here as he cannot misuse resources without the knowledge of the university.

Also, if we think about the golden rule (“do unto them as you would have them do unto you”), William
will not want others to face the same dilemma imposed by him to others. If we consider the categorical
imperative (what if this practice becomes a universal practice), this behavior of misusing university
resources should not be a widespread practice of-course.

Step 6: Consider the Protagonist’s Character & Integrity

If we consider William’s character, integrity and intentions, we can see that William is already having
doubts and he is not intending to provide the credentials if it were an ideal scenario. Also, his character
indicates that he feels loyalty towards the university codes. However, he is facing possible temptations
from the company too. If we consider the “disclosure rule” here, William will not perhaps want people to
know about his transgressions. Also, we should consider community standards when we apply virtue
ethics approach; here, his primary community is his university and accepting Timothy’s demand violates
the community standards.

Step 7: Considering All Options

There might be alternate options other than rejecting Timothy’s demand or accepting it. William can have
a conversation with Timothy and tell him that he is not comfortable with the issue. Also, if Timothy
doesn’t agree, William can go to his supervisor. William can also consult the issue with someone from the
university. William can suggest that the company purchases a subscription of the database to save costs.

Step 8: Gut Check

As per the case, William his already having his gut tell him that there is something wrong if he obliges to
Timothy.

So, considering all the 3 ethical approaches and gut feel as a last check , we get the consistent result that
William should not oblige to Timothy’s request and possibly look for alternate options which may save
his integrity, do not harm his obligations to any of the parties and also ensure better benefit for all the
stakeholders (i.e: a subscription idea saves company cost to some extent, ensures that William is not
violating code and also saves Timothy & William from an ethical transgression).

10. Identifying Bad Arguments & Possible Moral Disengagements:

Following are the Possible Moral Disengagements William can be Vulnerable to:

Moral Justification: As the company will save significant expenses, William may think that he is
serving the greater good here.

Advantageous Comparison: William may compare it to some more serious violations like downloading
much more confidential data other than just demographics or selling the data for his own benefit to other
parties and try to justify that providing some useful data to his company is not that bad.

Displacement of Responsibility: William may blame it to his supervisor Timothy that he made William
do the violation here.

Diffusion of Responsibility: William may blame the system or the company that made him do it. Also,
he may think this is a company practice and everyone does it.

Distortion of Consequences: He may think that the university will not face any serious consequences if
he violates the code for the company.
Possible Bad Arguments:

Normalization: William may justify his transgression by saying that this is a common practice in the
company or the consulting industry.

Consummate Professional: William may think it was wrong, but he can do it anyway as he was made to
do it. He can try to justify that he did like doing it as he understood it was wrong but didn’t have any
options.

Mission Statement: We do not know the company mission or values, however, if those implicitly implies
the encouragement of such behavior, William might use that as a shield.

Sky is Falling: As downloading reports incurs a lot of money for the company, he may think that if he
repeatedly denies Timothy, William will cause the company to go through huge expenses which might
eventually make the business vulnerable.

Relativist: William may think all the consequences and finally to escape his dilemma he just might shut
down by saying that he thinks providing the credentials is not wrong and thus stop further considerations.

Monetary Equivalency Argument: He may consider the amount of money his company save if he
accepts the demand and also the amount of money the university will have as an opportunity cost. Then
he may justify that as the company will be saving much more, he should supply his credentials. However,
in this argument, he is not considering the other impacts of code violation as it does not have direct
monetary consequences.

Bandwagon: William may think that if he does not give the credentials, Timothy will try to find some
other intern or some other student in his network to get those. So, William might finally give the
credentials thinking that someone else will give it anyway.

11. Blind Spots

The authors in the blind spot article found some loopholes in the traditional ethical approaches and thus
think that the approaches are not going to save us. They key weaknesses they found are:

 In the traditional linear approach, the flow is from awareness to judgement to intention to action.
However, there might be absence of awareness and thus the linear model can actually become
ineffectual.
 Sometimes, our system 1 thinking or emotion can make us decide first and then make us try to
justify our decisions. Thus, actions precede judgement here. The traditional approaches do not
consider this factor.
  Moral intention is a core part of traditional approach (virtue-ethics and deontological models),
however, sometimes there can be no conscious intention and people can make both morally good
or bad decisions. That violates the traditional assumption here.

How to Address the Challenges:

 From the focused leader concept, we learned the importance of self-awareness and awareness
about others and the world. If we practice developing our awareness, it will help us develop our
moral awareness too. We will be able to identify the possible moral implications & dimensions of
a situation. Also, empathy and perspective getting approaches will help us here.
 If we apply the step-by-step models (i.e: the 8-step prescriptive model) of ethical decision making
and apply our system 2 thinking, it will help us making bad ethical decisions out of emotion or
system 1 thinking. System 1 thinking or gut check can remain as a last filter however, it should
not be the only step or criteria.
 Empathy & perspective getting can also help us in having the right intentions. Empathy has 3
components, one of which is empathic concern which indicates the desire to help others improve
their condition. If we practice empathy and build up empathic concern, it will help us have the
good intentions and engage in ethical practices more.

13. Empathy, Perspective Taking & Power

The empathy triad: There are 3 types of empathy and thus empathy is not just a single thing rather a
collection of multiple components.

There is emotional empathy which is equivalent to vicariously catching other’s feelings. For instance, if
we someone sad, we may become sad ourselves. This is related to emotions.

Next is cognitive empathy or compassion which can also be termed as perspective taking. It talks about
truing to take other’s perspectives and understand their situation. This is related to thoughts.

Finally, there is empathic concern which is linked to desire. It indicates our intention to act and help
others improve their situation.

Benefits of Empathy & Perspective Taking:

  If leaders exhibit empathy, it creates a psychologically safe environment in organizations where
people don’t feel to afraid to make mistakes and thus fosters growth mindset. It helps people
grow. Therefore, it can also help people fight their unconscious biases.
 Empathy has been related to diversity & inclusion. Empathy fosters an environment for diversity
& inclusion.
 According to empathy podcast, it has been found that empathic people are less likely to engage in
unethical practices.
 Just simply knowing that we can grow empathy and perspective taking, it can help us develop
these characteristics and help other people foster.
 Empathy fosters allyship, it encourages privileged people to help the underprivileged.
 Empathy has been linked with less stress, better work satisfaction and thus more productivity.
 Perspective taking helps people foster growth/exploration mindset thus it helps with creativity &
innovation.

Dangers of Empathy & Perspective Taking:

 People may misinterpret empathy and confuse it with avoidance of hard conversations and
disengagements.
 People may think that they do not have enough time to empathize with others as they are too
busy. They may also not feel the need to empathize as they might think they do not need others
from a privileged point.
 Trying to practice perspective taking, we may become too focused on ourselves and try to
imagine “us” in their situation and overlook what they are actually going through and truly
understand their situation.
 Empathy can sometimes blindside us as we may become more empathic with people we know or
care about and thus overlook others.

Controlling Empathy to Overcome the Dangers

 Empathy can start from self-compassion. So, we need to empathize with ourselves first and share
our pains with others. This may open the door for further practice of empathy.
 We can try perspective getting in stead of perspective taking to truly understand other people’s
situation and build up cognitive empathy.
  If we practice empathy and develop empathic concern, it will help us take actions and not avoid
hard conversations.
 We need to have a growth mindset that empathy is not a trait rather it can be learned.

Power & Empathy

Empathy often helps people climb up the ladder in management or leadership, however, when people
reach there, it might get harder for them to empathize. Empathy is often a survival skill, therefore,
underrepresented, or underprivileged often feel the increased necessity to empathize as they need others
to survive. When people gain power, they often think that they do not need others and thus feel reluctant
in empathizing.

This irony can be addressed by the concept of allyship. If people are privileged and if they practice
empathic concern, they can become motivated to leverage their power and privileges to help the
underprivileged. Also, power is not permanent, this thought can make people stop thinking that they are
invulnerable that thus feel the necessity to empathize.