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

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

Samsung had released a device known as the Galaxy Note 7. After being available to the
public in 2016, the batteries would overheat to the point where the phone would catch fire.
Because of this problem, some consumers experienced burns and there were reports of property
damage. This ultimately led to Samsung’s market value, recalling millions of Galaxy Note 7. My
external role for this organization is being an analyst. Collecting data throughout the organization
is important for me to better understand the situation that occurred with Samsung. This will help
me provide some clarity of the situation and to review different approaches that could have been
taken. While also being a potential customer of Samsung devices and services, looking into this
as an analyst will allow me to see all the facts. (Samuelson, K., 2016)

2) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

The ethics of the organization influenced the Galaxy Note 7 recall due to the batteries
catching on fire because of poor management and poor decisions within the organization. Having
ethics implemented into an organization creates environments that reflect the organization’s
values. It allows management to better understand situations and how to address them.
Organizational ethics provides management with tools to make ethical decisions to provide the
best possible outcome. Samsung was not able to utilize organizational ethics to help make
decisions and provide core values to the environment. This ultimately led to poor decisions being
made that put customers’ lives in jeopardy and negatively influenced Samsungs reputation.

Samsungs poor ethical decisions had a large impact on their customers. Building a strong
relationship with the customers helps make an organization viable. Because of the severity of
this situation, it reduces the trust of customers over the organization. When the battery failed and
caught on fire, Samsung replaced the batteries. Without doing further evaluation of the defective
phones, the replacement battery caused phones to overheat and catch on fire as well. Because of
poor ethical decisions and service level agreements not being followed has raised many flags if
Samsung encourages core values of organizational ethics.

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

One of the ethical communities that I would apply as an alternative course of action
regarding Samsung and the phones catching on fire would be The Factory: Excellence and
Authorship. In the textbook “Reframing Organizations” by Bolman, explains the factory as “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, G. 2021). Applying this
alternative course of action for Samsung would ensure that all aspects of the organization are
being looked through thoroughly and takes proper measurements to see where they may be
lacking excellence.

I believe if Samsung was to take a close look at the organization excellence and
authorship, it would have allowed the organization to see where improvement is needed. For this
situation, leadership making poor decisions did not allow the organization to generate better
solutions and ended up releasing a product that had serious defects. Management needs to hold
themselves accountable as they did not provide the trust to let the employees solve these
problems before any decisions are made. Unfortunately for Samsung workers, the decision was
already made before further testing could have been done to help avoid the Galaxy Note 7
defects.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned about
ethics.

Given what I have learned about ethics, I would also ensure that all executive decisions
made are also viewed from an ethical perspective. This is opposed to making decisions from an
alternative perspective such as money, power, etc. I would ensure that leaders and managers are
trained in ethics and provided scenarios where other organizations have failed due to lack of
attention on ethics. It is imperative for all members of an organization to have good ethics at the
forefront of their decision-making skills and abilities.

In this Samsung example, executives and leaders were quick to publicize that Samsung
would be replacing all batteries in the Galaxy Note 7 with new ones. I don’t believe at the time
of publicizing these statements that Samsung was ready to replace the batteries with new ones.
Instead of jumping to conclusion and making large promises, it may have been wise of Samsung
to take a major step back and realize what the potential causes of this big Galaxy Note 7
problem. During this time of reflection, Samsung executives may have realized that the battery
problem was a way larger fix than just replacing the battery. Systems, processes, safety
standards, and ethical procedures are all things that need to be re-addressed. Knowing what I
know now about ethics, Samsung should have prioritized doing things the ethical and best way,
before prioritizing a potential short-term profit by promising a quick and easy battery
replacement.

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 References

Bolman, G., Lee, Deal E., Terrence. (2021). Reframing Organization Artistry, Choice, And
Leadership. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from
https://app.perusall.com/courses/ogl-481-org-leadership-pro-seminar-i-2022-fall-
b795852759/reframing-organizations-artistry-choice-and- leadership?
assignmentId=v9M8TxEWnFDjXFBFe&part=1

Samuelson, K. (2016, October 11). A Brief History of Samsung’s Troubled Galaxy Note 7
Smartphone. Time.
https://time.com/4526350/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-problems-overheating-fire/