Problem
Dan Smithson, head of the Kilgore Regional State Economic Development Office, was asked by the governor's office to join their new Economic Development Policy Task Force. This reassignment was expected to last about ten months. His selection was based on the performance record of the regional office since he took charge twelve years earlier.
In the past, Smithson had received excellent performance evaluations from his supervisors and was respected for his administrative ability, creative solutions, and outstanding results in a department customer satisfaction survey. Even so, in the past year he felt that he had not been getting the same level of support from the central office. He attributed this to his office's budget cuts, some staff turnover and uneven productivity during the past two years. He feared that his superiors might believe that he had lost his administrative touch. He was beginning to think he had been selected for the task force so that he could be easily replaced. Since he had worked for the bureau for seventeen of its twenty years of existence, he had extensive experience and knew most employees throughout the agency.
Two weeks before he was to report to the task force, Sarah Jones, his supervisor in the central office, told him to select his own replacement from a list of bureau nominees that included some of Smithson's subordinates.
Smithson decided to examine the qualifications of each candidate and select the one with the weakest background. He thought this would enable him to return to his old job when his assignment on the taskforce was completed. After reviewing the list of candidates, Smithson narrowed his choice to three people: Linda Smith, administrative assistant from Region Two; Alec Henry, administrative assistant from Region Six; and Bill Dobson, from Smithson's office.
In reviewing Linda Smith and Alec Henry's files, Smithson decided that they were very ambitious young people who might become a threat to his position. Both Smith and Henry had a Master of Public Administration degree, and excellent performance evaluations. Smithson feared that they might be thought more competent than he. Therefore, he decided to appoint Dobson, who, he felt, had an adequate background and qualifications that would satisfy his superiors but would not pose a serious threat to him. Dobson had been loyal to him for years and always seemed to display great respect. Consequently, Smithson believed Dobson would hesitate before attempting to undermine him. Smithson left for his new assignment confident that he had made the right decision.
When Dobson assumed Smithson's position, he directed his efforts toward achieving efficiency. He reorganized the structure of the office and specified distinct work assignments for each employee. He appointed a personal assistant and an administrative assistant. He insisted on use of the chain of command for all communications. Dobson took a rigid and highly structured approach to his new managerial position. After only two months under Dobson, the office increased the number of cases completed. This improvement was noticed in by Sarah Jones and she expressed her appreciation of his efficiency. However, after five months, problems began to develop that were unnoticed by Jones. Many of Dobson's subordinates began to feel that they were being pushed too hard. They noticed that Dobson insisted on making all decisions himself; and ignored both their clients' unique problems and their own suggestions. Dobson pushed productivity by insisting that every case be treated exactly the same and rewarded productivity based only on the number of cases completed. After seven months, the best-case worker in the office transferred to the Lubbock Regional Office, and the most experienced case worker took early retirement. Soon, staff members of cities and local businesses in the Kilgore Region started complaining to the regional staff that they were not receiving the high-quality individualized help with their unique needs as in the past.
During the ninth month, Sarah Jones, the supervisor in the central office, received a message informing her that Smithson would complete his assignment in two weeks; was preparing to resume his position at the Kilgore Regional Office, and had received a commendation from the governor for his contributions to the taskforce. Jones was faced with the problem of deciding whether to replace Smithson with Dobson. She had never had a problem with Smithson during the 2 years she had supervised him and still thought that Smithson was capable of resuming his old post. She was unaware of staff members and client problems with Dobson and believed that Dobson had been doing a better job than Smithson.
Jones realized that she would never have thought of replacing Smithson with Dobson had the taskforce assignment not come up. Jones was aware of the problems confronting Smithson's office while Smithson was there but ignored them believing they were caused by external and coincidental factors-nothing Smithson could not handle. However, when Dobson's reorganization and strict managerial approach were implemented and positive results occurred, she began to wonder about Smithson's ability. Even though productivity under Dobson had trailed off in the last two months, Dobson attributed that to the office being short staffed. She wondered whether Dobson's approach wasn't necessary at this time to keep up with the Kilgore Office's workload.
What are the ethical issues involved? What should you do? Why?