Scenario:
Butterfly Corporation where Charles had worked for two yearsafter graduating. He liked his job but the firm was going throughsome rough times. Because the firm was losing money, Douglas, theCEO, set increasingly rigorous performance goals. Charles noticed alot of employees were grumbling about these unrealisticexpectations. He also heard rumors of quality control incidents andother problems.
One day, Charles was called into Douglas’s office. “Hello, Doug.You wanted to see me?” Charles asked.
“Yes, Charles. Come in.” Doug looked grim. After Charles satdown, he began to speak. “Look, you know about the tough times weare in. We are losing money left and right. So far, I’ve been ableto keep this company afloat by drastically making cuts and speedingup production. I guess in all this cost-cutting, there have beenproblems that have come up. A lot of people have called the hotlineto complain about ethical problems, such as employees cuttingcorners to make their quotas. Now I’ve got the board on myback.”
“I’m really sorry, Doug. How can I help?” Charles asked.
“Well, the board requested we perform an ethics audit to makesure everyone is complying with company regulations. As if we don’thave enough to worry about. This is only going to increase ourcosts. Anyway, I want you to lead the audit.”
Charles was stunned. “Me? But Doug, I’ve only been here for twoyears. Shouldn’t you choose a more experienced manager to leadthis?”
Doug shook his head. “We need all our managers to continue doingtheir jobs. I don’t have the time to pull one of them away fromtheir responsibilities just because the board wants us to do anethics audit.”
Charles agreed to lead the audit process. That night heresearched how to conduct an ethics audit. He promised to have arudimentary plan outlining how the ethics audit should be conductedon Doug’s desk for approval the next day. As he researched on theInternet, he became more excited. He spent hours forming objectivesfor the audit, determining the audit’s scope, and defining what hethought should be the firm’s ethical priorities. He created a planfor using focus groups of employees to see what the greatestconcerns were. He wanted to get other stakeholders involved,especially customers. Charles was interested in assessing theoverall corporate culture of the firm. Because Charles knew hisdata analysis skills were not good, he recommended bringing in acommittee of competent coworkers who had been in the organizationfor years and knew the system inside and out. He also developed alist of organizations Butterfly could hire to verify the resultsonce data was collected and analyzed.
The next day, Charles turned in his report and waited while Dougread through it. When finished, he looked up at Charles andfrowned. “Charles, I can see you put a lot of work into this.However, what you have recommended is not going to suit ourneeds.”
“What do you mean?” Charles asked.
“First off, I already told you, I don’t want to remove peoplefrom their jobs to work on this. We’re behind schedule as it is.Also, focus groups of employees and customer feedback? That’s goingto take up time and resources we cannot afford to lose. We’resupposed to be cutting costs, not throwing money . . . simply tocheck our results.” Doug asked that Charles “Revise this and bringit back to me tomorrow” he said.
Initial Posting
As Charles, what options do you have at this point? Your task isto create an ethical response to the task you have been given. Inyour response, consider what successful auditing processes shouldbe in place at Butterfly Corporation. Make recommendations as towhat should be done to encourage an ethical environment.
This analysis should be prepared as a Microsoft™ Word document.There is no minimum or maximum in terms of the word count; however,the response should explicitly address all required components ofthis discussion assignment. The document should be preparedconsistent with the APA writing style (6th edition) and reflecthigher level cognitive processing (analysis, synthesis, and orevaluation).
