Question

The year is 2020. Youjust got your dream job as a stock broker on Wall Street. They gaveyou a nice signing bonus and you are making a lot of money. Youalso have the opportunity to make a large year-end bonus if youmeet your sales quota. But your Boss has a reputation for firingnew employees that don’t reach those sales goals. Timing could nothave been better because your student loans are thru the roof andyour parents were just threatening to kick you out of the basement.You buy yourself a couple new suits, rent your apartment inManhattan and show up 30 minutes early to work ready to start yourcareer.

Your Boss, Mr. Moneybags, has you start cold calling people to get them to buy stock inTEXLA corporation. He says that TEXLA is a great new company thatis working on a new drug that might cure cancer. He failed to tellyou that the President of Texla is his brother-in-law. You startmaking sales calls and find out that the easiest people to convinceto buy the stock are senior citizens.

The first year youmake reach your sales quota and receive a 1 Million Dollars bonuswhich you immediately invest in TEXLA stock because it has beendoing so well. You also invested all of your parent’s retirementsavings in TEXLA. Later that year you accidentlyreceive an email that was addressed to Mr. Moneybags from hisbrother-in-law the President of TEXLA which informed him that thetesting shows their new drug actually makes cancer worse. You arethe only one who has this information and know that once thisinformation hits the internet the value of the stock will drop toZERO but no one will ever find out that you have this insideinformation. You also remembered from your awesome business lawclass that it is illegal to use “Inside Information” to benefityourself or your clients.

Your Boss will losehis investment, you will lose your investment, your parent’sretirement savings will be lost along with all of those seniorcitizens that listened to your advice.

You only have an hourbefore the news will hit the press which means you can’t calleveryone. What do you do?????

Identify theethical dilemma(s) in this situation.

REQUIREMENT

Use an ethical decision making model to determine theright course of action to take in thissituation.Use the Business Process Pragmatism as aguide for your answer.

BusinessProcess Pragmatism is :

1. Step 1

   Inquiry

   First, the decision maker must understand the problem. This stepinvolves identifying the parties involved (the stakeholders) andcollecting the relevant facts. Once the ethical problem or problemsare clarified, the decision maker lists any relevant legal andethical principles that will guide the decision.

2. Step 2

   Discussion

   In this step, the decision maker lists possible actions. Theultimate goals for the decision are determined, and each option isevaluated using the laws and ethical principles listed in Step1.

3. Step 3

   Decision

   In this step, those participating in the decision making worktogether to craft a consensus decision or consensus plan of actionfor the corporation.

4. Step 4

   Justification

   In this step, the decision maker articulates the reasons for theproposed action or series of actions. Generally, these reasonsshould come from the analysis done in Step 3.

The following case further demonstrates the types of situationsthat can occur when management demonstrates a lack of concern aboutethics.

5. Evaluation

This final step occursonce the decision has been made and implemented. The solutionshould be analyzed to determine if it was effective. The results ofthis evaluation may be used in making future decision