Introduction
Operating in the environment of the twenty-first-century global economy means facing a variety of ethical challenges on a regular basis, and addressing them in a manner that aligns with corporate values and vision. Because of recent technological breakthroughs, committing fraud in the operating environment of an organization, including financial manipulations, abuse of power, and more, is growing increasingly easy.
As a result, ethical principles are often bent so that an organization can survive in a competitive world. However, ethically questionable decisions made by the company in the process are likely to affect its further culture and values, thus shaping the staff’s behavioral patterns, reducing their corporate loyalty, and bringing their motivation rates down, along with productivity: Mary’s situation being a case in point.
It should be borne in mind, however, that Mary’s case, and the decision-making process it demands, can be viewed through the prism of a variety of philosophies. While some will point to the necessity of disclosing the boss’s actions, others will prove that compliance with a traditional concept of ethics would be detrimental to the stakeholders involved. Nevertheless, because of the threats inherent in Mary’s position and the lack of ethics in the boss’s decision-making, it would be reasonable to suggest that the employee should make the information available to the corresponding authorities (Arnold, Beauchamp, & Bowie, 2012).
Employment at Will (AWE)
From the perspective of AWE, Mary’s situation is beyond deplorable. Suppose she decides to disclose her boss’s plans. In this case, she may be dismissed, based on the principles of AWE (Njoya, 2013). The AWE ethical framework, in its turn, relieves her employer from any responsibility for his actions whatsoever, due to the principles of mutual agreement.
According to current U.S. legislation, the influence of state authorities does not extend to coordinating compliance with an agreement signed on the basis of AWE principles: “While most states provide whistleblower protection for public sector employees, protection for private sector employees is more limited” (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2016, par. III).
Whistleblowing
The choice to be a whistleblower is, nonetheless, a challenging decision to make. While disclosing the issue will help address an ecological and environmental issue, it may, nevertheless, cause harm to other company members by possibly putting them out of work.
However, whistleblowing philosophy indicates that exposing the information, not only to authorities but also the general public, would be the right step to take. Indeed, by definition, the very phenomenon of whistleblowing is geared toward addressing the needs of people in general, as opposed to particular members of society. Hence, the altruistic nature of whistleblowing makes disclosing the fact of fraudulence not only acceptable, but also noble and worth taking pride in.
Ethical Frameworks
Free Market Ethics (FME)
From the perspective of FME, by silencing and shutting down the incident, the boss makes the right choice as he is striving to survive in a competitive business environment (Beauchamp & Bowie, 2012). Therefore, in the case where Mary decides to make the data regarding the fraud public, she will put the economic, financial, and social wellbeing of the people employed at the firm, or somehow related to it, in jeopardy.
Although revealing the information under analysis could be interpreted as taking a step in the right direction, the implications of Mary’s actions are likely to affect a large number of people who are not involved in the fraud and, therefore, do not deserve financial losses (McKinnon & Fiata, 2012).
Utilitarianism
The utilitarianism framework, in its turn, provides a wide array of choices, depending on the party that it is supposed to support. For instance, when considering the scenario from the perspective of its primary agent, i.e., Mary, one must admit that she should keep silent for the sake of her job and further career success. When evaluated from the viewpoint of global wellbeing and the environment as the primary agents, the necessity to disclose the information and prevent similar accidents in the future must be acknowledged.
Therefore, the utilitarianism philosophy can be interpreted as one of the most flexible frameworks to be applied to the case in point. This approach is rather loosely linked to a traditional concept of morality, and implies for the most part that the actions of the decision-maker (i.e., Mary) should maximize the utility of the situation.
Given the fact that the current situation affects the environment, and therefore global health, more than anything else, the truth should be made available to the authorities. Exposing the information to the public, however, might be viewed as a questionable choice, since the company members who were not involved in the fraud may well suffer in the end.
Deontology
As a framework that suggests revealing the truth, deontology requires compliance with rules, the principles of environmental safety being the primary set of regulations in the case under consideration. At this point, the process of identifying the choices that Mary is allowed to make becomes somewhat intricate. On the one hand, there are corporate rules that declare disclosing corporate data to be a punishable action.
Seeing that Mary is still a member of the organization, complying with the principles that its leaders set can be deemed a reasonable step to take. On the other hand, there are legal regulations that require a person possessing knowledge to identify and report emergent threats to the population’s wellbeing. In light of the fact that an oil spill is likely to affect the lives of people who are not only in the state that Mary lives in, but also all over the world, pointing out the obvious discrepancy between contemporary legal standards and the actions taken by the boss is an obvious necessity (Arnold, Beauchamp, & Bowie, 2012).
Virtue Ethics
With the understanding that virtue ethics heralds a specific set of virtues as the basis for the decision-making process, one might assume that, by focusing on honesty, Mary would be obliged to tell the truth to the authorities and, therefore, sacrifice her current financial wellbeing for the sake of justice. However, the principle of acting as a virtuous character in the identified situation is something of a vague guideline for the specified scenario.
As stressed above, making sure that the wellbeing of the people working for the organization should be considered in any action taken is an obviously noble cause. Nevertheless, seeing that the environmental issues involved affect the entire world population on a variety of levels and for a significant time period, the virtue ethics approach suggests that Mary should expose the fraudulent actions committed by the company leader (Arnold, Beauchamp, & Bowie, 2012).
Seeing that the principles of virtue ethics include influencing the choices made by others, as well (McKinnon & Fiata, 2012), trying to convince the boss that his point of view is inadequate would be the right thing to do. However, one must admit that the implications of the actions described above are likely to be deplorable; not only will Mary fail to persuade the boss to admit his mistake, but will also fail to warn him unwillingly about the upcoming check from the environmental organization.
Ethics of Care
Another particular perspective that stresses the significance of addressing the needs of others, ethics of care should be incorporated into the analysis of the choices facing Mary, as well as the implications of these choices, and their justification. Typically viewed as a normative ethical theory, it is built on the principles of morality as the foundation for determining the implications of decisions.
When it comes to determining the features of the ethics of care that make it stand out from the rest of the frameworks under discussion, one must mention the fact that it promotes responsibility as the basis for the decision-making process. In other words, it appeals not only to the reasonability of the person making a choice, but also to their sense of dignity and concept of morality (Arnold, Beauchamp, & Bowie, 2012).
Based on the principles of the ethics of care, Mary should not only shed light on the choices that her employer made, but also how they affect the workplace environment, in general, and the company’s core values, in particular, so that no similar instances of fraudulence should occur in the future. In other words, Mary should assume responsibility for the position that she is currently filling, and the company in general, as a part of her life and career.
However, seeing that the situation can be viewed from different angles, morality principles may require that Mary should consider the lives of hundreds of people employed at the company that may go bankrupt as soon as the truth is revealed. At this point, ethics of care crosses with the utilitarianism perspective (McKinnon & Fiata, 2012).
Conclusion
Making a choice between the option of losing a job and keeping silent about an action fraught with dire environmental consequences is difficult. Although the situation that Mary has found herself in might seem clear, inviting only one option (i.e., disclosing the secret), nevertheless, it is very difficult for some people, because of the numerous stakeholders and the conflict inherent in their interests.
One might argue that the dilemma faced by Mary is astonishingly simple, since she only has two options to select from in order to make a choice. However, the problem is much more complex than identifying the right solution between the two. An overview of the existing ethical frameworks that can be applied in considering the issue under analysis has shown that there is, in fact, no one right solution. To be more accurate, no matter what Mary chooses to do, she can justify her choice based on the tenets of at least one of the ethical theories provided above.
Therefore, in the described scenario, Mary can be advised to choose the option that will harm as few people as possible. Seeing that her actions will inevitably trigger problems for at least one stakeholder, locating the framework that will contribute to the smallest number of issues would be a sensible step to take.
Reference List
Arnold, D. G., Beauchamp, T. L., & Bowie, N. L. (2012). Ethical theory and business (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
McKinnon, B., & Fiata, A. (2012). Ethics: Theory and contemporary issues. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
National Conference of State Legislatures. (2016). The at-will presumption and exceptions to the rule. Web.
Njoya, V. (2013). Property in work: The employment relationship in the Anglo-American firm. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.