Ethics in Organizations and Society

Read the following Case Study and answer the following questions: Betty Bass was a highly respected Senior Vice President at Colossal Technology Enterprises and well known for her community service work. Betty had been at Colossal for over ten years and had risen from the ranks, starting out as an assistant project specialist and steadily progressing to a senior management position. Betty's performance evaluations during her time at Colossal ranged from Very Good to Outstanding performance. Betty's leadership on many Colossal projects resulted in increased revenue for the company. She was generally well respected in the company, but, as is often the case with office politics, there were some people who had competed with her for positions in the past and were envious of her success. Shortly after Betty's most recent promotion to Senior Vice President, Joe Johnson, who was also a candidate for the position, attended a conference. Joe was very disappointed about not getting the promotion, and, after a few too many drinks at a social gathering, he shared his disappointment with a couple he had just met that night. He was comparing his qualifications with Betty's and he mentioned Betty's name. As it turned out, the man he was talking with had known Betty at a previous job, and he mentioned to Joe that he was interested to hear that Betty had completed her MBA at UMUC because when he knew her, she had dropped out. When Joe returned to work, he went to Human Resources and told Harriet Ryder, an HR representative that he had heard from a reliable source that Betty had not completed her MBA and he thought that HR should check on this. Current Human Resources policies at Colossal require potential employees to submit transcripts from the degree-granting institutions for all degrees on their resumes, but this requirement was not in place ten years ago when Betty first began working for Colossal. After discussing this issue with her manager, Harriet contacted Betty and told her that HR needed to update her records. Harriet asked Betty to contact the educational institutions where she received her degrees to request official transcripts to be sent directly to Human Resources at Colossal. This request made Betty's heart sink, because, in fact, she had never received her MBA. She was 18 credits from completion when she had to drop out because of family obligations. She really needed a job at that time and had put the MBA degree on her resume to enhance her chances of getting hired. An MBA was not a requirement for the assistant project specialist job that she was hired into ten years ago, but it is a requirement for the Senior Vice President position she currently holds. However, some of the current Senior VPs, who assumed the position prior to the MBA requirement, do not have MBAs. Topic # 1 Our case study information is fictional. Why do you think that these real life executives below lied on their resumes? Are they doing what our fictional Betty did because they are smarter than we are (i.e., instead of actually completing our degrees with all of the work, sacrifices and stress involved they simply lie that they did so with no work or sacrifices)? Real life examples: 1) Wal-Mart Vice President Forced Out for Lying About Degree “David Tovar, the vice president for corporate communications at Wal-Mart, was forced to resign after the retailer discovered that he had lied about receiving an art degree from the University of Delaware.” http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/article-wal-mart-vice-president-forced-out-for-lying-about-degree-666050 2) MIT dean resigns in lying scandal The dean of admissions at one of America's most prestigious schools resigned on Thursday after the university discovered she had lied about her academic credentials. Marilee Jones, who joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979 to lead the recruitment of women at the university, stepped down from her post after admitting that she had "misrepresented her academic degrees to the institute," according to a statement posted on MIT's Web site. "I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to MIT 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my resume when I applied for my current job or at any time since," Jones said in a posting on the school's Web site. "I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the MIT community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities." Patti Richards, spokeswoman for MIT, said the school had received information about Jones' credentials and investigated them. "At various times she claimed to have received degrees from Albany Medical College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Union College and we confirmed that she had not graduated from any of these schools." -http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/04/27/mit.dean/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD 3) Background of Lotus chief under fire “Jeffrey Papows cuts a colorful figure in the software world-blunt-spoken, dynamic, ready for action. As president of IBM's Lotus Development Corp. unit, he is charged with fighting off mighty Microsoft, and to do it he will jet across the world at a moment's notice to woo a customer or don the garb of an aviator or martial artist in a promotional stunt. Some colleagues and customers say they are especially wowed by what the 45-year-old Papows has told them about his life -- his rise from orphan to daring Marine flier who burst an eardrum training for the Gulf War and who once saved himself and a buddy by hurling a live grenade out of a trench. And by his generosity: Some colleagues tell of being moved as Papows told of aiding the widow of a flier who died ejecting from a disabled F-4 Phantom jet in which he and Mr. Papows were flying. Adding to the impressive package is the Ph.D. from Pepperdine University, to say nothing of the black belt in tae kwon do. Subject to scrutiny But when the stories of Papows's credentials and derring-do are subjected to scrutiny, some problems arise. The Marine Corps says Papows was an air-traffic controller. He never served as an aviator, it says after a thorough search of military records. The records show, too, that he left the Marines as a first lieutenant, not as a captain, the rank shown on a 1997 Papows resume. Papows's doctorate isn't from Pepperdine. It is from an unaccredited correspondence school. He doesn't have a tae kwon do black belt. Nor was he orphaned. His parents live a short distance from his home in Massachusetts.” http://www.zdnet.com/news/background-of-lotus-chief-under-fire/95847 4) Is Jack Grubman the worst analyst ever? “In 1977 Grubman joined AT&T, where he worked in strategic planning and financial management. Eight years later he left for Wall Street, joining PaineWebber. His start was inauspicious: Regulatory records show he initially failed the Series 7 exam required of all investment professionals. Strangely, Grubman faked part of his life history -- claiming to his employers that he'd attended M.I.T. and saying in press interviews that he'd grown up in gritty South Philly, the setting of Rocky. Confronted by BusinessWeek magazine two years ago, he explained, "I probably felt insecure."”-http://money.cnn.com/2002/04/25/pf/investing/grubman/ 5) Top bureaucrat sentenced to jail for forging her credentials “Liv Løberg, who held a series of top bureaucratic posts within the public sector, has been sentenced to 14 months in jail and ordered to repay NOK 1 million in wages to which she was not entitled. Løberg, who also was a reserve Member of Parliament for the conservative Progress Party from 2001 to 2005, was found guilt of forging diplomas and misleading employers about her education and experience. She managed to secure several top administrative jobs within the health care and other public sectors before her forgeries were uncovered.” http://www.newsinenglish.no/2012/04/25/top-bureaucrat-sentenced-to-jail-for-forging-her-credentials/ 6) Did You Lie On Your Resume? “former RadioShack Chief Executive Dave Edmondson was busted for faking his college degree. Edmondson claimed to hold diplomas in psychology and theology from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California. There was no evidence he ever graduated from the school. Bausch & Lomb CEO Ronald Zarrella pulled the same stunt, claiming an M.B.A. from New York University’s business school in his bios for 10 years. He’d started the program, but he never graduated.” -http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/leadership-resume-jobs-lead-careers-cx_ll_0207resume.html 7) CFO of Veritas Misstated Education – “Veritas Software Corp. is headquartered in Silicon Valley and, in Latin, veritas means truth. That didn't stop Kenneth Lonchar from lying about having a master's degree in business administration from nearby Stanford University. Veritas officials said a member of the board of directors had received an unsolicited, outside e-mail that said Lonchar had lied about his education. The company investigated and Lonchar was asked to resign. "I regret this misstatement of my educational background," Lonchar said in a statement released by the firm. He was not available for comment. It's unclear whether Lonchar attended Stanford at all, or whether he received a degree elsewhere. A Veritas spokeswoman declined to elaborate on Lonchar's education.” http://articles.latimes.com/2002/oct/04/business/fi-veritas4 8) The High Price Of Career Lies “Why did Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson fudge his résumé? […]Thompson claimed to have a degree in computer science when he didn’t[.]Yahoo’s first reaction was to call Thompson’s résumé entry an “inadvertent error,” but it turns out this version of the résumé had been kicking around for more than a decade. Thompson blamed a search firm, which pointed the finger right back at him. Ironically, Thompson probably didn’t need that degree to become Yahoo’s top dog. His prior job experience–he previously headed eBay’s PayPal unit–plus his degree in accounting fromStonehill College, were almost certainly enough. Still, like so many people, he seems to have yearned for a status symbol he would have liked to have had. It’s the same feeling that causes workers to embellish their job descriptions, fudge their class ranks and suggest they graduated from college when they never did. Especially in a tough job market, graduates inflate their class standing for fear they’ll otherwise lose out to people who were just better test-takers. Behind each deception there’s usually a rationalization – like, “Everybody does it.” “Who will ever know?” or “I deserve it.”” - http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2012/05/14/the-high-price-of-career-lies-2/ 9) No record of academy head’s doctoral degree – “CAMBRIDGE — Every fall, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, oversees the induction of hundreds of the brightest scholars, artists, and leaders into the prestigious organization, one of the nation’s oldest and most respected honorary societies, whose membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. But records show that Berlowitz, who has led the academy for 17 years, has exaggerated her own academic achievement as part of efforts to win hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funding. In at least two applications for federal grants over the past decade, Berlowitz said she received a doctorate in English from New York University in 1969, a degree NYU said she never earned. Berlowitz said in the applications for funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities that she had a “D. Phil” — the British abbreviation for a doctorate of philosophy or PhD — from NYU. The academy also described her repeatedly as a doctor in an employment ad. But NYU spokesman James Devitt said the university has no record of her receiving a doctorate or completing her dissertation.” http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/06/03/leader-cambridge-prestigious-academy-arts-and-sciences-inflated-resume-falsely-claiming-doctorate/kWvnF95OTkI0HCVvBHe9XJ/story.html 10) Humanist group leader fired after resume lie “MacBain’s transition from ministry to humanism was detailed in a New York Times religion column last Saturday. MacBain, 45, told the Times she had earned a master of divinity degree from Duke University, a claim she also made in prior public statements and in the resume she submitted to the Humanist Community when she applied to become a project director there. A Duke Divinity School spokeswoman contacted the Times after the story ran and said that the school had no record of MacBain earning a master’s degree there, or that she even took graduate school classes. The Times reached MacBain by phone this week. She acknowledged that she had falsified her credentials but offered no further explanation, the newspaper reported.” -http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/09/27/harvard-based-humanist-group-fires-project-director-after-learning-she-lied-resume/cZH58rTFaQBA3t9lSuuR1K/story.html# 11) A personal favorite (as it mentions UMUC), “House Speaker Thom Tillis forced to correct college credentials - House Speaker Thom Tillis is facing questions in his U.S. Senate bid about whether he has exaggerated his college credentials. The Republican gave a radio interview in 2012 in which he said he graduated from the “University of Maryland.” A resume posted in 2011 to his campaign website listed the same thing. More recently, his LinkedIn page and legislative website identified his alma mater as the University of Maryland-College Park. But according to the state’s flagship university, Tillis is not a graduate. Instead, he received a bachelor’s degree in 1997 from University of Maryland University College, an accredited, distance-learning institution affiliated with the state’s university system. Campaign spokesman Jordan Shaw said that other aides put together the two websites and “made just a simple, common mistake.” http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/20/3717486/house-speaker-thom-tillis-forced.html 12) Potentially criminal charges for a company allegedly selling fake diplomas (and more negative consequences for those using lies and/or fraudulent degrees): Axact Chief Executive Arrested in Pakistan Over Fake Diplomas Scandal “Experts say that fake degrees can pose dangers to public safety and national security in many parts of the world and can enable immigration fraud. They can also have serious consequences for customers who are caught using them. Two former Axact officials, speaking separately, said that in 2009, an American married couple, both members of the United States military serving in Iraq, emailed Axact to say that they faced courts-martial for having presented academic credentials bought from a university run by Axact. The couple requested an accreditation certificate from the university to help defend themselves, said Ahmed, a former sales agent who asked that his last name not be used. An Axact manager instructed subordinates to block the couple’s calls, he said.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/world/asia/axact-chief-executive-arrested-in-pakistan-over-fake-diplomas-scandal.html?_r=0 Topic #2: Priorities, Obedience and Ethics? Hello Everybody, I don't know why Betty (or anyone else) would be surprised that fraudulently claiming to have degrees that are not held would be illegal. If a job required an MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree, wouldn't the general public be outraged if someone lied about having it and didn't? Why would one graduate degree be any different than another (MD versus MBA)? "Lying on résumé could land you in jail" (http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Lying-on-resume-could-land-you-in-jail-1197551.php). You may also lose the ability to seek other legal action against your employer due to the fraud in acquiring the job (http://employment.findlaw.com/hiring-process/lying-on-a-resume-or-job-application.html). From Australia, "Lie on your resume and you could be slapped with a $5,000 fine" (http://employmentoffice.com.au/lie-on-your-resume-and-you-could-be-slapped-with-a-5000-fine/). From the UK, "In December 2009 NHS human resources manager Kerrie Devine, 33, received a six month suspended prison sentence and an order to pay £9,600 for lying about her qualifications to Devon Primary Care Trust. She was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of community work." (http://graduatefog.co.uk/2010/1071/lying-cv-illegal-graduate-jobs/) Some students have noted that Betty should consider what "a person of character would do." My response is that the challenge is that how would Betty know what "a person of character" is or how they would behave? If she knew what a person of character was, wouldn't that of prevented her from lying in the first place? What do you think? Is it the responsibility of our MBA program, our US legal system, or individual business leaders to teach business people right from wrong? Can a business person be a successful leader if they prioritize business results over ethics? Also, what role do you think that obedience plays in the workplace in regards to ethical violations? This information below (from the McDonald's hoax case -http://www.news.com.au/business/worklife/mcdonalds-staffer-forced-to-perform-sex-act-after-hoax-call/story-e6frfm9r-1226605333940). It asserts that employees are trained not to think (only to obey) and it also describes the psychological experiments by Stanley Milgram establishing how the majority of people will obey orders (from an authority figure) no matter how horrible or unethical the behavior is; therefore, if this is accurate information, how can any business organization expect ethical behavior on the part of employees? If people simply follow orders, doesn't that jeopardize the entire concept of individual ethics (i.e., individuals applying frameworks to resolve ethical challenges)? "Employees are trained to think, `Can I help you?' In her book, "Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan into the Fryer," Canadian sociologist Ester Reiter concludes that the most prized trait in fast-food workers is obedience. "The assembly-line process very deliberately tries to take away any thought or discretion from workers," said Reiter, who teaches at Toronto's York University and who spent 10 months working at a Burger King as part of her research. "They are appendages to the machine." Retired FBI Special Agent Dan Jablonski, a Wichita, Kan., private detective who investigated hoaxes for Wendy's franchises in the Midwest, said: "You and I can sit here and judge these people and say they were blooming idiots. But they aren't trained to use common sense. They are trained to say and think,`Can I help you?'" […] Perceived authority carries much power, studies show Psychological experts say it is human nature to obey orders, no matter how evil they might seem -- as was illustrated in one of the most famous and frightening human experiments of the 20th century. Seeking to understand why so many Germans followed orders during the Holocaust, Dr. Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, took out a classified ad in 1960 and 1961, inviting residents of New Haven, Conn., to take part in what they were told was a study of the relationship between punishment and learning. A man in a white lab coat introduced the participants to a student, and told them to shock the student each time he made a mistake, increasing the voltage with each error. In reality, the machine was a prop, and the student was an actor who wasn't shocked. Yet nearly two-thirds of Milgram's subjects gave what they believed were paralyzing jolts to a pitifully protesting victim simply because an authority figure -- the man in the white coat -- had commanded them to do so. "With numbing regularity, good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe," Milgram wrote of his results, which were later replicated in nine other countries. Milgram died in 1984, but his biographer and protege, Dr. Thomas Blass, said in an interview that the behavior of the people duped in the strip-search hoaxes would not have surprised him. "Once you accept another person's authority, you become a different person," Blass said. "You are concerned with how well you follow out your orders, rather than whether it is right or wrong." - http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20051009/NEWS01/510090392/A-hoax-most-cruel-Caller-coaxed-McDonald-s-managers-into-strip-searching-worker