Assignment Task:
Selecting Pilots
Mr. Baldwin was working for a Canadian foreign-aid department and his task was to work closely with the government owned Burmese airlines to select pilot trainees who would be trained in Canada as commercial pilots. The fund was made available by the government of Canada to the government of Burma under a bilateral agreement.
Mr. Baldwin had taken the selection instruments from Canada for conducting the written examination, which consisted of a battery of IQ, mechanical aptitude, numerical ability, and verbal ability tests. The personnel department of the airlines liked the test battery and it was agreed upon that these materials would be used for the selection of the candidates. The written test and the oral interview were conducted without any problem and the list of candidates was finalized. Mr. Baldwin was very pleased with the whole selection process. According to the procedures of the airlines, the list was sent to the ministry of tourism for approval, which was a matter of formality. Mr. Baldwin returned to Canada at this stage.
A few weeks later he received a message from the airlines that two of the twenty-four candidates who had ranked in the top ten were to be replaced by two people from the list of alternative candidates. This was not only unfair to the two candidates but also it invalidated the whole selection process. He categorically rejected this proposal and said that the list was agreed upon by both parties and was therefore final. Since this was not acceptable to the Burmese, the two parties clearly faced an impasse. Mr. Baldwin was asked by his department to go back to Burma and resolve the issue.
Mr. Baldwin learned from the local airlines official that these two top ranked candidates were members of families who had a few individuals who were in the political opposition to the government. The government considered it unsafe to allow these people to fly an airplane, and feared that they could be part of a plot to hijack the plane in future. Baldwin argued that these people had obtained clearance from the police before the final selection was made, and so the concern for security was not convincing. He further suggested that it was not proper to penalize an individual for what his or her family was responsible for. With the intention of putting pressure on the government, he suggested that if the list was not acceptable to the government, Canada may withdraw the entire aid package for the training of the pilots. Having served his ultimatum, he again left for Canada.
He learned in a few weeks that the government of Burma decided to forego the aid and notified all the candidates that the program for training the pilots was scrapped. Mr. Baldwin felt that all his efforts toward developing a fair selection procedure had been wasted.
Questions to answer
Can you explain what is happening here? Please think from multiple perspectives (e.g., from the perspective of Mr. Baldwin, the Burmese Government, the selected candidates, and the rejected candidates). How would you act if you were Mr. Baldwin or a member of the Burmese Government?