Normative Ethics In Hewlett Packard - Essay Example

Normative Ethics: Utilitarianism and Deontology Hewlett - Packard Presented By: Number: Supervisor: Number of Words: 1257 Patricia Dunn the former chairman of Hewlett Packard has been known for bringing about a strong improvement in the working of Hewlett Packard. She has proved to be very resourceful and has brought about a number of benefits and changes to the company during here tenure as the chairperson of the company. However in the year 2006 September, Patricia was found to have broken the code of conduct of the company. Patricia has been caught for intruding into the personal lives of the people within the company and also journalist of a few of the biggest papers. Patricia has been found guilty for hiring a number of spies who had been recruited to spy and to engage in pretexting. Pretexting is a method where a spy would call the phone company and pretend to be the phone owner himself and wanting to get his own records. Patricia had hired investigators to get the records of the directors, so as to keep a close look at their phone conversations and interactions. This formed to be the biggest issue of the company, mainly because this was a complete breach of the code of conduct of the company. Patricia had violated the rules of the company and had caused a breach of the privacy policy of the company. It is also to be noted that the pretexting was mainly done on the personal phones of the directors and not the official numbers. This made the situation even worse as it is completely a breach of the privacy policy of the company. Once the company found the details of the breach by the Patricia, the board of directors had forced her to resign from the board. This was a combined decision of all the board of directors as Patricia was found to have hired a private investigator called Ronald DeLia, who posed to be a HP director, a journalist and this was mainly to find out information and dig out information of the calls made by the directors and the journalist. Looking at the situation from the view of people within the company, the decision of the board to force Patricia to resign has proved to be one of the best and most useful decisions made by the company. This is mainly because it is unethical and is a complete breach of the privacy of the people. Considering the number of people who would be affected in a positive way versus the negative affect, it is seen that the number of people affected negatively is much greater. For Patricia to use the concept of pretexting and hiring a private detective has proved for her to be very insecure as the chair person of the company and also shows a very high lacking level of understanding the importance of privacy of the employees and co – workers and even known individuals. This highlights a very strong image of a personality of a person who crosses the lines of basic social borders and also use of illegal modes to peek into others personal lives. This is very intense mistake made by Patricia and the correction of this mistake would prove to be very difficult as it would be impossible for the directors or any person working in the company to trust and cooperate and work with Patricia any longer. Considering the above – mentioned factor, it can be safely said that the option of the directors to force Patricia to resign from the post is very accounted for. Firstly, it is unethical to peek into others personal lives. Secondly, it breaks the code of conduct of the company. The code of conduct is equally implied on every person within the organization. Also, this has caused a very big negative image of the company in the business. This is mainly because of the big blunder of the chairperson of trying to spy on journalist of extremely big and well known newspapers. The decision of Patricia to spy has caused a very big negative impact for the business, the directors, journalist and a strong fright in the minds of all the employees and any related persons for HP. The only possible person who might have gained any benefit from the situation is Patricia Dunn. However the benefit that she might have gained would be very limited and would not allow for any strong information to be provided. This is mainly because she aimed at getting records of the phone calls made by the directors. This would not allow for the information of the conversation of these individuals. Also more than any benefit this has majorly caused a very big disaster for Patricia as this will always remain as a scar on her career and this has wiped away all the good things that she has done for the business. This is simply because the human tendency is to remember the negative aspects of any things and easily forget the positive parts of the same person. Based on all the above discussions it is very evident that on the basis of the Utilitarianism the decision taken by the board of directors is very correct. The decision of forcing Patricia to leave is the only way to sort out the issues and allow for the trust of the people to be regained and to be won over and also allow for the image of the company to be continued to be held high. Based on the deontological ethics, and considering whose rights require to be respected first, the choice would definitely be the rights of the directors and others. The basic human rights of these people have been violated to a great extent by Patricia. There has been a misuse of the personal information of these individuals and the misuse of powers by Patricia. It is a known thing that the social security is a major identity for every individual and if this is misused it is as good as identity theft. This makes it unsafe for the people to work in the company under the chairman ship of a person who herself has misused her rights. This also falls into the category of the civil rights being violated in the part of the chair person. Here the obligation is now for the chairperson towards the employees and she is required to make up for the error on her part and the creation of mistrust that has been created. Considering all the factors that have been discussed above, and after having understood the case well, and after analysing the risks, I personally feel that it is most important for the safety of everyone’s privacy that Patricia is removed from the post of the chair person of Hewlett Packard. After having understood the details of the case, this seems to have been the right decision for both the company, and the people of the company. The mistake is clearly on the part of Patricia, and which has to be balanced out and it is essential that she realised how big a mistake this was. Thus in my view the solution to the problem is the absolutely correct and in every term is the most ethical decision to be made. It is the rights of every person in a company to have their privacy and it is in many terms the duty of the chair person and the board of directors to ensure that this code of conduct is kept up to within the company. Hence I feel this is a correct decision that has been made in the particular case. Read More