OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

This situation involves the following departments of Western Alliance Bank. The Vendor
Management Services team, the Legal Department team, and the HR Recruiting team. I work as
a Vendor Management Analyst on the VMS team, so I had a front row seat this story as it
unfolded.

On Friday October 8th, an email thread was forwarded to the Vendor Management Services
inbox in which a recruiter was inquiring about a Statement of Work (SOW) for a new employee.
This email read as follows:

October 7, 2021, 12:03 PM [Kendra Kilber*]:

Hi, I pushed through a new temp hire through background yesterday, Kisha Kilgorey, for
R2839 HR Specialist. Her tentative start date is Monday 10/18 and I have the SOW from the
Agency as well. Can you advise who I should send that to and if there is anything else I need
to do? Thank you, Kendra

Kendra received a response from a Dianna Zeenon*, a Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist,
which reads:

October 8, 2021, 8:47 AM [Dianna Zeenon*]:

Kendra, All SOW’s must go through Legal. Send the SOW to: +Amy Landerin +Vendor
Management Services. Once Amy approves the language and format in the SOW, and after
the SOW is executed, the Agency can invoice. The SOW should be in Word format so that
she (Amy) can redline as needed. Vendor Management will direct for signatures and
execution. Hope that helps!

At this point, VMS had received Kendra’s first email in addition to this recent reply from
Dianna. My first step was to confirm with Kendra what recruiting agency had been used. Kendra
confirmed that this employee would be hired through Rodson Hulf*. This was one of my
vendors, so handling this request would be my responsibility. In response to Kendra’s inquiry, I
told her the following:

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 October 8, 2021, 10:47 AM [Audra Scott]:

Hi Kendra, Okay, great. All VMS should need then is a fully executed copy of the SOW
when you receive it. Thank you, Audra Scott

With this response, a big mistake had just been made. At this point, all parties receiving the
email thread were Kendra, myself (through the VMS email account), and Amy Landerin* who is
a council member with the Legal Department. In the back of my head, I knew it was a part of our
process to have all SOWs sent to Legal@westernalliancebank.com for review before execution,
but I did not explicitly state this in my responses to Kendra because I saw Amy, our most used
Legal counsel member on the email thread. So, I left as is and figured she would review on
Legal’s behalf. I strayed from the proper process.

From the beginning, it was technically Kendra’s responsibility to have the SOW reviewed by
Legal, signed by both parties for full execution, and sent back to VMS for entering the system.
That is how the process goes. I waited about a week for her to get back to me, and I did finally
hear from her on October 14th. She clearly had been working on it as she asked who the signer
on the WAB side should be. I informed Kendra that it would be William Brugs*, the Senior Vice
President of Human Resources. The next day, October 15th, Kendra sent back the SOW fully
executed to the same thread of people: me and Amy Landerin*. Then, Amy sent the following
which was her first response in the thread thus far:

October 15, 2021, 1:09 PM [Amy Landerin*]:

Hi Kendra and VMS – I’m a little confused as to why this SOW was never submitted to the
Legal Department for review prior to execution? Diana’s attached email explains the process
(though a slight tweak is that all contracts need to go to the Legal Department –
legaldepartment@westernalliancebank.com – and not to me directly). As VMS is aware of
the review process, VMS should also have stepped in to ensure that a Word version of the
SOW was provided to Legal. This SOW doesn’t align with the governing agreement and
contains conditions we do not accept as general policy, and adds terms in conflict with the
governing agreement, which, on a related note, isn’t even properly referenced in this SOW,
thereby leaving the parties wondering what exactly the prevailing terms really are. Please
reach out to me at your earliest convenience as I will need to note my file as to why this
departed from the usual Legal review process, thank you.

Both my managers were CC’d on this response as was Kendra’s manager as well as William
Brugs*. Kendra’s manager immediately responded explaining that she is new and that is why the
mistake was made. I knew I had also contributed to this mistake because I did not mention or
check if the SOW had been approved by Legal before it was signed. I did not want to hide
behind the fact that I was new, though, so I arranged a phone call with both of my managers to
explain and own up the situation. Afterwards, my manager sent an email back in the thread that
reads as follows:

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 October 15, 2021, 2:56 PM [Sally Ronald*]:

On chatting with Audra who is the VMS analyst assigned, Kendra was requested to send this
to legal for review and should have only sent it on the Vendor once having received Legal’s
ok to do so or have redlines addressed if noted. The VMS analyst should have confirmed via
email that this was being done and followed the process we have for all agreement reviews. I
apologize that this was not done, and the agreement was fully executed without Legal or
VMS review. Kendra, going forward please ensure that all agreements are sent directly to
vms@westernalliancebank.com and the VMS analyst assigned will follow the VMS/Legal
process (sending them to the legal group email and not an individual). You will be copied on
all communication regarding your agreement, redlines etc. with Legal. Have a good weekend
everyone.

Currently, this SOW presents risk to the bank which is the opposite of what VMS aims to
achieve. An amendment document will need to be drafted to correct this, but nothing can take
away the fact that steps were missed in this process. Sally acknowledged this and made it clear to
everybody exactly which steps were missed so we can keep it from happening again.

Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

In my job, risk is inherent, and it is something we aim to protect both employees and the
bank from. Outsourcing vendors as we do is inherently brings to the organization, so it our
ethical duty to protect against it. Such risk includes potential business disruption as well as
negative impact on business performance. Whether I had a strong ethical conviction prior to
joining the VMS team, I quickly needed to adopt one because we are not in the position to
simply look the other way when it comes to risky situations for Western Alliance. As I stated
previously, it is our ethical duty to ensure all risks have been addressed prior to engaging in
business with a new vendor.

In this situation, for me to not have sent the contract to legal, mistake or not, I did not
uphold the ethical obligation I have. I fell short in performing my due diligence process and this
led to a risk being posed to the bank. To this point, the text even says, “A company that loses
track of any redeeming moral purpose doesn't provide credible ethical guardrails for its
employees. The result is often a spiritual and financial disaster” (Bolman and Deal, 2017). That
is exactly what this situation was; VMS normally acts as guardrails for the bank to keep
everybody safe. Without these guardrails, financial disasters would be very, very common.

Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative course
of action regarding your case.

For an alternative course of action regarding this case, I wish I had placed more emphasis
on excellence as an organizational ethic. This organizational component of ethics corresponds
with the structural framework, and while all frameworks are useful to analyze a situation, the

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structural frame plays a big component in this one. Western Alliance is currently moving at very
fast pace because of how quickly the bank is growing. This often leads to mistakes being made
as things fall through the cracks, but all we can really hope for us that everybody is trying to do
their job as effectively and efficiently as possible. With respect to this, the text says, “The ethical
imperative of the factory is excellence: ensuring that work is done as effectively and efficiently
as possible to produce high-quality yields” (Bolman and Deal, 2017). While I was moving very
quickly at the time of this situation, the expectation was there that I would still do my job
effectively and I fell short there.

Reflect on what you would do or not do differently give what you have learned about
ethics.

As far as ethics goes, I can say in hindsight that I wish I had focused more on the
excellence of ethics, but, in the moment, I did the best I could. I was trying to do my job as
efficiently and effectively as I could. Doing so is what caused me to move a little too quickly and
make a mistake. Now, I have a much better grasp on what it truly means to work efficiently.
After the situation was over, I learned something, and I’ve never came close to making the same
mistake again.

This learning experience allowed me to invest a bit more soul into my work. I feel more
responsible and knowledgeable about the process, and I would have made the mistake in the
future. When it comes to ethics and soul, the text says, “… ethics must reside in soul, a sense of
bedrock character that anchors core beliefs and values. We discuss why soul is important and
how it sustains spiritual conviction and ethical behavior” (Bolman and Deal, 2017). This
situation was the first obstacle I overcame at work, and I truly do believe it instilled a bit more
soul into the way I’ve approached my work since.

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. & Deal, T. (2017). Reframing Organizations. John Wiley & Sons.