About this Assignment
Whether they realize it or not, managers make many decisions every day that can directly or indirectly impact their customers, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, and the company’s reputation. When making these decisions, managers need to be aware of the legal and ethical implications their decisions may have on others. Some decisions have an obvious impact, such as bribing a government official to secure a contract or falsifying financial documents to make the company appear to be more profitable to shareholders. Other decisions are less obvious, such as hiring one person over another simply based on a ‘gut feeling’ or ignoring a problem on the team in the hopes that it will work itself out.
For this assignment, you will examine a real-life ethical dilemma managers have faced in the past. Please write a 1,500 word paper that addresses one of the following dilemmas.
- In 2015, Volkswagen was caught in violation of United States’ emissions standards for vehicles. The automaker designed programming that would allow their vehicles to pass laboratory emissions tests, when in reality, their vehicles were emitting up to 40 times the legal emissions limits. Examine the company’s decision to engage in these practices and what the fallout for the company was after the practice was discovered.
- Between 2017 and 2018 the ride-sharing company Uber faced several scandals. A former employee posted a blog where she described her experience with gender bias and harassment while at the company, and their new self-driving car technology dangerously failed as it ran a red light while a passenger was crossing an intersection. Examine what decisions the company made that led to these issues, and analyze and evaluate how Uber responded to them.
For the situation, please address the following:
- Discuss the decision-making process employed by management to address the ethical dilemma, if it was in fact addressed.
- Show how management decisions impacted employees, leaders, stakeholders, and shareholders of the organization.
- Explain the public relations and media strategy the organization used to address the ethical dilemma.
- Discuss strategies that the company could institute that would allow it to network and develop shared values with stakeholders.
Related Lessons
You may find the following lessons from the course helpful for this assignment:
- Ethical Decision Making
- Reviewing Solutions to Ethical Issues in Business Management
- A Stakeholder-Based Approach to Ethical Decision Making
- The Impact of Business Decisions on Stakeholders
- Communication Strategy & Public Relations for Business Ethics
Using Sources
You may refer to the course material for supporting evidence, but you must also use at least three resources and cite them using APA format. Please include a mix of both primary and secondary sources, with at least one source from a scholarly peer-reviewed journal. If you use any Study.com lessons as sources, please also cite them in APA format, including the lesson title and instructor’s name.
- Primary sources are first-hand accounts such as interviews, advertisements, speeches, company documents, statements, and press releases published by the company in question.
- Secondary sources come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Management Ethics, the Journal of Management Studies, or the Harvard Business Review. You may use sources like JSTOR, Google Scholar, and EBSCO to find articles from these journals. Secondary sources may also come from reputable websites with .gov, .edu, or .org in the domain. (Wikipedia is not a reputable source, though the sources listed in Wikipedia articles may be acceptable.)
If you’re unsure about how to use APA format to cite your sources, please see the following lessons:
Grading Rubric
Your assignment will be graded on the following rubric:
| Category | Unacceptable (0-1) | Needs Improvement (2-3) | Good (4) | Excellent (5) | Total Possible Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structure (x2) | Structure is illogical or significantly hinders understanding | Management decisions are difficult to identify; ideas are disjointed | Evidence is provided & is relevant to the thesis’ transitions and connections join ideas | Management decisions are well integrated; ideas flow logically; main points are identifiable | 10 |
| Analysis (x2) | No examples are used to support management decisions; paper fails to address the assigned requirements | Few or weak examples are given to support main points | Examples are given and analyzed to support each point | All main points are supported with evidence and include original analysis | 10 |
| Mechanics (x1) | Incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and use of standard English grammar hinders understanding | Several instances of incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage of standard English grammar | Few instances of incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage of standard English grammar | No or very few instances of incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage of standard English grammar | 5 |
| Formatting (x1) | Paper is not submitted in APA format or is significantly less than the required page length | Paper is presented in the general APA layout, but lacks appropriate citations and/ or in-text formatting | Paper is fully formatted and cited, but has some errors | Paper is fully formatted and cited with no errors | 5 |
Before You Submit
When you complete your assignment, we suggest taking some time to check for any errors or to add any finishing touches. We also suggest that you use online plagiarism checkers such as PlagScan or DupliChecker to make sure that your assignment is not too similar to any existing materials. Plagiarized submissions will NOT be graded.
