Background
Jane heads R&S Electronics Service Company’s payroll department. Eddie, the company’s general manager, requires Jane to keep the employees’ salaries and pay scales confidential. By the third month of her employment, Jane notices that Greg, a service technician and the manager’s brother, earns more than his colleagues do. Later, Jane gets work tickets from the manager, and the service technicians have to pick the ticket on top of the stack when they complete their work tasks. However, Jane comes across the manager giving Edie a different stack of work tickets, and the manager warns her not disclose whatever she has seen to anyone failing which he will fire her. It also occurs to Jane that the manager has allocated his brother the easier work that earns more money than other tasks do, and firing or hiring her is not within the manager’s mandate. Jane is still on probation and has never work elsewhere after leaving college.
Points of Contention in Ethical Issue
Jane has realized that Greg’s pay has nothing to do with his productivity and it results from nepotism. She has two choices. She can either disclose the manager’s inappropriate behavior to the company owner or do as the manager demanded in order to secure her job. If she discloses the manager’s behavior, she will help entrench a culture of rewarding individuals according to their performance and skills and not their relations with the senior officials of the firm. In addition, the lack of clarity on the employees’ pay scales seems to be a factor that can reduce the employees’ motivation and reduce their output, and, eventually, this affects the organizational performance. It is not in anyone’s interest that the organization’s performance decline because that would mean the owner would have to earn lower profits and the employees would have to contend with lower salaries. It seems the requirement to keep the pay information confidential was meant to disguise the manager’s nepotism, and it is not farfetched to imagine that the company may have lost enormous resources because of this requirement.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Business Ethics".
On the other hand, Jane can keep what she saw to herself and help the manager get away with bad behavior. If she refuses to disclose the manager’s nepotism to the company’s owner, she will have effectively endorsed a culture that disregards skills and competence when remunerating the employees and elevates personal relations above everything else when determining the employees’ pay. Jane’s decision not report the manager’s nepotism seems justified considering her vulnerability. The general manager seems close to the owner because Jane has seen them taking lunch on several occasions, and this means that, even if Jane has good intentions, the general manager can antagonize her and have the owner dismiss her. However, losing her job is a small price to pay because if the manager’s nepotism continues, her career progress will be in jeopardy. If the employees’ pay information remains confidential, the company will have difficulties nurturing the talent it needs in order to sustain its growth.
Applicable Moral Philosophies
The relevant moral philosophies in this case are teleology, utilitarianism, and deontology. According to the teleology perspective, an action is morally appropriate if it creates a desired outcome such as enabling an individual to pursue their self-interest or facilitating the attainment of people’s collective goals (Micewski & Troy, 2007; Cornelissen et al., 2013). The teleological perspective implies that, in this case, the best decision for Jane is the one that helps the company to attain its objectives. The lack of clarity on the employees’ pay structure means that the manager can do as he wishes without being accountable for it. If Jane reports the manager to the company’s founder, she will be seeking to rectify this problem, and, therefore, her decision will be ethically appropriate.
Utilitarianism considers the ethical appropriateness of an action in terms of the extent to which it secures the interests of the majority of the people that it affects (Hoffman, Frederick & Schwartz, 2014). From the utilitarian perspective, the best decision for Jane is the one that will benefit most people in the company. If Jane discloses what the manager did, she will help the company to adopt a transparent remuneration structure that can motivate the employees to achieve high levels of performance.
Deontology considers individual rights and the underlying intentions of an act more important than the effect of the act (Barry, 2016). From the deontological perspective, if Jane reports the manager, her intention will be to stop the manager’s bad behavior, and considering that this is a good intention, it will be a morally appropriate act. In addition, the manager’s actions undermine Jane’s rights as an employee, and, therefore, when she reports the manager, she will be securing her employment rights.
Recommended Course of Action
The three moral philosophies considered in this case show that there is nothing wrong if Jane defies the general manager and discloses his nepotism to the company’s owner. Jane’s decision to disclose the manager’s behavior is particularly appropriate considering that it will not cost her anything. The manager has no role in hiring or firing her, and even if he can influence her sacking, she will not have difficulties securing another job because the grounds of her sacking will not raise questions on her personal integrity. Reporting the manager helps Jane’s career prospects more than it hurts them because if the manager gets away with what he did to the service technicians, he will probably start doing it to the employees at Jane’s rank.
- Barry, N. (2016). Business ethics. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan
- Cornelissen, G., Bashshur, M. R., Rode, J., & Le Menestrel, M. (2013). Rules or consequences? The role of ethical mind-sets in moral dynamics. Psychological Science, 24(4), 482-488.
- Hoffman, W. M., Frederick, R. E., & Schwartz, M. S. (Eds.). (2014). Business ethics: Readings and cases in corporate morality. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons
- Micewski, E. R., & Troy, C. (2007). Business ethics–deontologically revisited. Journal of Business Ethics, 72(1), 17-25.
