ASSIGNMENT, ETHICS

The individual assignment for the Ethics in Management course is to document and analyze an ethical dilemma that you have experienced personally in an organizational setting (i.e. school, work, sports team, etc.). An ethical dilemma is a situation involving a conflict among responsibilities. The dilemma you develop should still be “well balanced” so that its resolution poses a true ethical challenge requiring a tradeoff of legitimate responsibilities. You will have to develop moral arguments on both sides of your dilemma; this will be difficult to do convincingly if it is simply a choice between an obvious “right thing to do” and some other course of action which would be generally considered “wrong.”
Alternatively, if you feel strongly about what the correct action is, then you may analyze your dilemma through the Giving Voice to Values (or GVV) criteria. In this instance, you take an ethical stance and try to convince the other party(ies) involved to change their decision to a more ethical one. This is especially relevant when dealing with more black and white situations (such as altering financial data for ones personal gain) whereby it is hard to argue both sides such that the better exercise is develop arguments to the person, or persons, being unethical
The learning objective of this assignment is to place the concepts of the course in a context that is relevant to you personally. The evaluation objective of this assignment is to assess your understanding of the basic concepts of the course to date, in particular, identification of ethical dilemmas as a conflict of legitimate responsibilities among stakeholder positions, as well as use of different forms of moral reasoning.
In terms of GVV, the learning objective is to learn how to frame appropriate arguments for a real world ethical situation you have faced such that you will be better equipped if, and sadly when, you encounter a similar situation.