Application of Ethical Theory: Business and Society - Case Study Example

? An Ethical Analysis of the Given Case Study Section/# With reference to the case study that has been de d, this analysis will consider the following factors: identification of key shareholders, identification of key ethical issues, evaluation of the case utilizing two ethical theories, explanation of how the author would have behaved within the given situation, and judgment of whether Tom has acted correctly or incorrectly within the given situation that has been enumerated upon. As a means of understanding and elaborating upon this, key factors of the thought process and decision making regime that Tom adopted throughout the case study will be analysed along with the motivating factors that eventually spurred him to represent another individual’s work as his own original. Moreover, the analysis will consider the ways in which this particular author might have handled the situation better as well as a final judgment over whether or not Tom ultimately did the ethical good or bad in the given situation. With regards to the stakeholders within this specific case that has been listed, there are three. Firstly, there is Tom, the graphic artist working on a tight deadline at the heart of the ethical conflict. Tom represents that only individual within the case, who is faced with an ethical dilemma. The second shareholder is that of Nina, the Internet blogger whose content was unwittingly downloaded and copied by Tom in an attempt to meet the deadline he had with the supermarket chain. Lastly, the supermarket chain itself represents the third and final shareholder within this particular ethical case. Naturally, with regards to this particular case, the key ethical consideration at hand is whether or not Tom has acted ethically with relation to borrowing Nina’s content without permission and passing it off as his own in an effort to appease his distributor. The case is somewhat compounded and complicated by the fact that initially Tom wished to do the right thing and contacted Nina with regards to her permission to use aspects of her artwork in finalizing his own project. However, as the deadline loomed closer and closer and Tom did not have the wherewithal to finish the project under his own power, he was seemingly ‘forced’ to proceed on with Nina’s design without ever hearing back regarding her confirmation on his ability to borrow key aspects of her own ideas. The issue, therefore, extends well beyond legalities and whether or not Nina’s artwork exhibited on her blog was available to Tom under the fair use clause of the law; rather, ethically speaking, the question centres upon whether or not Tom had the ethical right to borrow Nina’s artwork without her confirmation, whether it was ethical of Tom to pass this artwork along unattributed, and the degree and extent to which he had a moral and ethical obligation to his employer to produce genuine and original work to fulfil the order (Cuilla 2011, p. 340). With regards to evaluating this case using two ethical theories that have thus far been discussed within the confines of this course, it is the belief of this student that the two ethical theories that best apply to the given case in point are those of the ethics of rights and postmodern ethics. With regards to the ethics of rights, one can see quite plainly and fairly readily that the ultimate issue at the heart of the matter is whether or not Tom has the right to the material that he has borrowed/stolen without the consent of the original artists. In this sense, the theory of rights denotes that the following questions must be answered if an ethical decision is to result: whose rights are at stake, what are the corresponding obligations, and how should these rights be ranked? With regards to the first one, the right of Nina as well as the rights of the supermarket are at stake. The rights of Nina relate, of course, to her right as the original artist to be secure in the fact that no one else is duplicating or passing off their own work as hers. Similarly, the right of the supermarket relates to the fact that they have hired a contract worker, Tom in this case, to complete an original design to be featured on a new product line that they will proceed to market. As such, the right of the supermarket hinges upon the fact that they have paid for original artwork and expect to receive such. Any attempt by Tom to portray something other than his own work in an attempt to meet however tight a deadline he might face necessarily infringes upon the rights of the employer/supermarket chain as equally or perhaps even greater than upon Nina’s rights. In this particular case, Tom has very few, if any, rights at stake due to the fact that he has been hired to perform a job, and the only right he has within the given context is the right to be paid for his efforts if they are both satisfactory to the employer, meet the given deadline, and are original in their design and execution. The second theory that aptly pertains to the given case which has been studied over the course of this semester concerns the post-modern ethics. For purposes of clarity, postmodern ethics can be described as ethics built around situational responses, social constraints to ethical reasoning, moral impulses, and feelings (Brenkert 2010, p. 705). Obviously, such an approach is necessarily more nebulous and indeterminate than the previously mentioned ethics of rights; however, they are nonetheless important in seeking to define and determine what responsibilities Tom and the remainder of the shareholders have to one another within the confines of this particular case. It is within the constraints of postmodern ethics that Tom’s attempt to reach out to Nina in the hopes of gaining her approval for borrowing her artwork is appreciated. Although in the ethics of rights interpretation such a gesture was of little value, in the postmodern framework, this action in and of itself speaks volumes and helps to shine a much more favourable light on the situation than would otherwise be the case (Smith & Dubbink 2011, p. 340). Additionally, within the framework of postmodern ethical consideration, it is more understandable how the given situation placed Tom at a disadvantage and allowed him to be tempted to find an easy way out in borrowing Nina’s artwork without approval. It should be strongly noted that although none of these make Tom’s decision any less reprehensible, they do allow the researcher to place an aura of understanding and fairness around what would otherwise be a simple ethical issue with a clear violator and a clear victim. In this manner, the reader can seek to understand some of the situational and causal mechanisms that moved the situation in the direction that it eventually unfolded. Rather than portraying Tom as a morally bankrupt and unethical businessman, such an approach shows that although his actions were, at their core, unethical, they were perpetrated not out of a sense or desire to defraud, cheat, or steal; rather, they were done out of an original desire to procrastinate, seek approval from the original author, and meet a deadline that seemed all but impossible. In such a way, Tom has not only short changed himself with regards to the level he is perceived as an artist, but has also short changed his employer, and short changed a fellow artist by illegitimately borrowing without permission her design. With respect to what this student would have done if faced with a similar moral/ethical dilemma such as the one that has been enumerated upon, the key difference would have begun with a break from Tom’s decision making upon receipt of the project. Rather than placing the work on the back burner, this student would have recognized that due to the fact that many past deadlines had been missed and key customers had been angered, the first step that should have been taken was critical planning and scheduling to ensure that the needs of the project were allotted enough time to be completed. Naturally, hindsight is perfect. If this was unable to be achieved, it would have been necessary for this student to do one of two things: 1) go to the supermarket chain and request an extension (regardless of the anger or frustration this may cause); 2) refuse the project (Bowie 2010, p. 715). With regards to the second choice, this strikes the reader as the most extreme. However, if one considers the fact of how the supermarket might respond if and when they found out that the artwork they have paid for is in fact not original and has merely been lifted from the Internet, the results will be much more grave than the result of foregoing the money and prestige that completing a contract project for a major supermarket chain might be. Lastly, with respect to whether or not Tom did the right thing, such an answer is difficult to state in a simple yes or no answer. However, for purposes of clarity and brevity, the reader should understand that although his intentions may have been good, Tom ended up making a highly unethical decision spurred on by his belief that it was better to turn in a plagiarised artwork than either asking for an extension, refusing the project entirely, or acknowledging the inspiration for his design and giving credit where credit was due (Trevino 2010, p .762). Although the thought process behind Tom’s decision was made from a litany of complicating factors, the ultimate end, regardless of the level of good intentions that might have been entertained, was highly unethical. As a means of understanding this particular ethical situation that has been described within the case study, the reader would do well to observe the fact that although Tom himself was at his core not someone who would be considered an unethical businessman, the path towards the ultimate decision making process which led him to submit the work of another artist as his own was born out of a host of complicating factors. This more than any other factor is worth bearing in mind due to the fact that studies in ethics oftentimes lead one to believe that the line between the ethical and unethical can be readily determined based upon a single decision. Although this is oftentimes true, the progression and layers of implied meanings that each successive step denotes was of primal importance to this particular case. As such, it helped to point to the key factors surrounding the ethical decision making process. References Bowie, NE 2010, 'Business ethics: no longer an endangered species but still threatened', Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 713-715, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 January 2013. Brenkert, GG 2010, 'The limits and prospects of business ethics', Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 703-709, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 January 2013. Cuillla, JB 2011, 'Is business ethics getting better? A Historical perspective', Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 335-343, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 January 2013. Smith, J & Dubbink, W 2011, 'Understanding the role of moral principles in business ethics: a Kantian perspective', Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 205-231, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 January 2013. Trevino, L 2010, 'Navigating business ethics: smoother sailing ahead', Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 761-764, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 January 2013. Read More