1. MANDATORY: Please read the short case and then answer the questions at the bottom. This is an ethical assessment for the School of Business and you must draw on all of your ethical knowledge to fully answer each question.
Susan Shapiro had an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Smith College, a master's degree in Chemical Engineering from M. I. T., three years' service as a sergeant in the Israeli army, and an MBA from the University of Michigan. The following is a nearly verbatim account of her experiences during the first month of employment with a large chemical company in New York.
We spent about three weeks in New York City, being told about the structure of the company and the uses of the products, and then they took us down to Baton Rouge to look at a chemical plant. You realize that most of the MBAs who go to work for a chemical company have very little knowledge of chemistry. There were 28 of us who started in the training program that year, and the others generally had undergraduate degrees in engineering or economics. I don't know what you learn by looking at a chemical plant, but they flew us down South, put us up at a Holiday Inn, and took us on a tour of their plant the next day.
As part of the tour, we were taken into a drying shed where an intermediate chemical product was being washed with benzene and then dried. The cake was dumped in a rotating screen and sprayed with benzene, which was then partially recovered by a vacuum box under the screen. However, the vacuum box technology is out of date now, and never did work very well. Much of the solvent evaporated within the shed, and the atmosphere was heavy with the fumes despite the "open air" type of construction.
Benzene is a known carcinogen; there is a direct, statistically valid correlation between benzene and leukemia and birth defects. The federal standard is 10 parts per million, and a lab director would get upset if you let the concentration get near 100 parts for more than a few minutes, but in the drying shed it was over 1,000. The air was humid with the vapor, and the eyes of the men who were working in the area were watering. I was glad to get out, and we were only in the drying shed about three minutes.
I told the foreman who was showing us around-he was a big, burly man with probably 30 years' experience-that the conditions in the shed were dangerous to the health of the men working there, but he told me, "Lady, don't worry about it. That is a sign-on-job (a job to which newly hired employees are assigned until they build up their seniority so that they can transfer to more desirable work). We've all done it, and it hasn't hurt any of us."
a. Identify all of the stakeholders and reflect on various perspectives of the dilemma.
b. Explore two or more frameworks for assessing and evaluating the ethical situation.
c. How do the organization leaders' actions and policies determine the ethical tone of the organization?
d. Apply appropriate organization and external entity roles (code of conduct, professional code of conduct, laws and professional codes of conduct) when evaluating corporate governance.
2. MANDATORY: What effect has/will this organizational behavior class had/have on your current or future personal work performance? Define specific concepts/theories and provide examples of how it has or will affect your performance. The purpose of this question is to help you critically think about the course and how you can apply specific concepts/theories to yourself. Please remember that this question is worth 15 points, which should be reflected in the depth of your answer.
Please answer 7 of the following questions, worth 10 points each. Please include the question with each of your answers. Support each answer with references and include a bibliography.
3. Is it better to be loved or feared?
4. Create an argument that defends the idea that all human behavior can be described by power.
5. What is the difference between movement and motivation?
6. How was scientific management revolutionary for its time? How have approaches to management changed since the introduction of scientific management?
7. Is servant leadership something which is inherent to specific individuals or can it be a learned behavior? If so, how would you think Servant leadership could be taught?
8. Consider the following statement: Group performance in countries with high collectivism is better than countries with high individualism. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
9. Some people think managers should use different leadership styles based on an individual subordinate's needs, while others believe one's leadership style should be consistent, regardless of the subordinate. Please create an argument supporting one position or the other.
10. Considering group composition, is it better to have groups of mixed skill levels (one person with a high skill level, one with a medium skill level, another with low skill level) or equal skill levels (everyone in the group has a high skill level)?