Creativity is of essence in every aspect of life. Moreover, a world full of creative minds can go along way in making it a better place. Companies depend on creative minds to achieve their unique and important objectives. In fact, goals are always backed by creative and innovative minds. In essence, originality goes along way in improving a company’s status. Competitive edge is an essential aspect to companies’ sustainability.
It is therefore imperative that efforts are made to pursue its goals and mission. Company employees are required to be creative to utilize their abilities for betterment of the company. However, copyright and intellectual property issues are still rampant in companies. This is mainly because some people still consider others’ work as more important than theirs. Moreover, others are lazy and find it difficult to come up with their own works.
This paper outlines two problems, one of which includes an employee X, who presented employee Z’s proposal as his/her own. These employees in addition to 98 others were given three weeks to come up with their own proposals. Moreover additional days were granted to those who requested, however, employee X decided to present another person’s work.
The second problem outlines how Enron employees falsified accounting information in order to meet impractical expectations. The paper will therefore try to offer possible disciplinary actions for the first problem and evaluate whether the second case can be linked to students who cheat in exams to get good grades (McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2003, p. 1).
Case one involves several elements. For instance, we are told that employee X is normally hard working and reliable. However, he/she decided to use employee Z’s incomplete work by adding a few lines and assume complete ownership. This is not only disrespectful to employee Z, but also cheating with respect to the company.
In fact, this can be described as plagiarism, because employee X uses Employee Z’s work and ideas without consent and or acknowledgment. Moreover, each of the 100 employees was to come up with his/her proposal. In this regard, the CEO reserves the right to take a disciplinary action.
However, depending on the situation a variety of disciplinary actions may be taken (Whitbeck, 2006, p. 1). Some of which include, penalties, rejection of his/her work, suspension and sacking, followed by assigning the proposal to employee Z. In addition, since employee X is hard working and reliable, it is important that these are put into consideration while deciding on the correct course of disciplinary action.
Reasonably, from all the information presented, employee X’s proposal should be rejected, followed by suspension and ownership of that paper given to its rightful owner, which is employee Z. This is because employee X plagiarized another person’s work, and suspension comes in place of sacking because he/she has been hard working and reliable. Moreover, the employee is punished to avoid such instances in future (Bruwelheide, 1999, p. 1).
It is always important that institutions and organizations make realistic and achievable objectives. This way, they may avoid pressures that come with trying to meet unrealistic expectations. Enron employees’ unrealistic expectations, which forced then to falsify accounting information, can be linked to students who set unrealistic goals and hence cheat to meet them.
This is quite similar because they are all under the influence of pressure to succeed. However, this is an offense and if found can draw various repercussions ranging from penalties, suspensions, expulsion to jail terms, among others. Students should therefore work towards setting realistic and achievable goals to help in their motivation rather than pressure (Fezler, 2010, p. 1).
References
Bruwelheide, J.H. (1999). Intellectual Property and Copyright: Protecting Educational Interests and Managing Changing Environments. net.educause.edu. Web.
Fezler, D. (2010). The Enron Scandal: Enron Collapse. whatreallyhappened.com. Web.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education. (2003). Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial. highered.mcgraw-hill.com. Web.
Whitbeck, C. (2006). Plagiarism in a Grant Proposal. National Academy of Engineering. Web.