Instructions for the “Ethical leadership project”

Read all the instructions carefully before beginning the project:

Ethical leadership project.

This project is another program outcome. By the end of this course you should be able to “manage systems, operations, and organizational behavior with a focus on how ethics impacts an organization’s culture.” This project will be due in three parts in weeks 6, 10, and 14 of the semester. This project is the culmination of your work for the semester. You will be given a situation in a business organization in which you are a manager or a leader. You will be asked to assess this situation and give a proposal for what should be done to deal with some matters of serious ethical consequence for the organization. 
Your project should be submitted in a file format, each part being two pages long not counting a title page, size 12 Times New Roman font, double spaced with 1-inch margins on all sides. Since this is a report, we are not overly concerned with the format. For your research citations, use 
APA’s 
Publication Manual style, 7th edition. Note the grading rubric. For a superior grade, you must be using at least 
two peer-reviewed type sources. Simple blogs found with a Google search are 
not peer-reviewed publications. Use e-books or the journal databases in Amridge library’s comprehensive resources such as Business Source Premier, Academic Search Premier, or ATLA. The textbook can be used as one source. The sources must be used in the papers in a substantive manner, cited, and included in the References.

You should use or implement one or more strategy that you learned this semester in your project proposal: A few examples of these strategies will be given in the following list. Implementing a strategy in your proposal involves more than merely saying that you would use this strategy. If that is all you say, then you have not said anything more than a repetition of a line in the instructions. You must 
research, 
analyze, and 
apply. Then you must explain 
HOW a strategy can be implemented and 
WHY it would be effective and helpful in dealing with the problem under consideration. For example, it is 
NOT sufficient to say that you are implementing a Code of Ethics in the organization. You need to explain 
HOW you would go about doing that and 
WHY a Code of Ethics might help with the particular problem you are addressing. Here are 
some of the strategies we have studied this semester that you might use in your project proposal. 
Note: In making a proposed response to the problem in your case study, you may need to propose a 
short-term response to deal with the immediate situation and then a 
long-term response (one of the strategies from the following list), which would possibly help in the future if similar situations arose in the organizations.

· Following Best Practices: Persuading employees of the importance of being ethical

· Best Practices: Hiring ethical people through a six-step ethics job screen process

· Implementing a Code of Ethics in the organization

· Implementing a Code of Conduct in the organization

· Implementing an ethics training program in the organization

· Implementing diversity training workshops in the organization

· Implementing an ethics reporting system in the organization

· Implementing an ethical appraisal system in the organization

· Ethically empowering employees

· Implementing a plan to green your organization

It will be helpful for you to follow the ethical reasoning of 

Table 5.3
, which is listed in module 14 in Canvas and on page 126 of your textbook.

Pick 

one
 of the following case studies to study, research, analyze, and apply the principles you have learned this semester to for your “Ethical leadership project.” Upload your completed project in the link in module 14. Tell which case study you are doing, #1, #2, or #3. Do not reproduce the case study itself except the number and title. Your completed project should be about 500 words and written as a business proposal designed to be submitted to upper management in the organization. This is not a term paper but a business proposal within the organization. How you organize your project will depend on which one you choose and how you envision it. Here are some possible headers you might include.

· Analysis of the situation.

· Ethical values important to the organization and stakeholders.

· Options open from which to choose.

· Potential consequences for each option for the organization and stakeholders.

· Recommendation for action to be taken.

· Possible long-term actions to be considered.

Part #1: Statement of the problem.

In part #1 you need to analyze whichever case study you choose from the following three options and give a statement of what the problem is. This is your analysis of the situation. What ethical values are important to the organization and stakeholders? What is the conflict or the problem? Study chapters 1 through 4 to write part #1 of your project. It is 


due week 6

.

Part #2: Ethical methodology and leadership strategy. In part #2 you need to state your foundation for ethical values. Will you apply character or value ethics to the case study? Will you use deontological ethics? The Golden Rule? Will you adopt a mere minimum standard of following government law and regulation? What type of practices will you recommend as an ethical leader in addressing the problem in this case study? For example, will you recommend ethical training (chapter 6), affirmative action (chapter 7), an ethics hotline (chapter 8), performance assessments (chapter 9), or financial incentives (chapter 10). Study chapter 5 through 10 to write part #2 of your project. It is 


due week 10

.

Part #3: Recommendation for handling the problem and promoting an ethical culture. In part #3 you should apply your ethical methodology (part #2) and your leadership strategies (part #2) to the problem you have analyzed (part #1) to give a recommendation for the best path forward to solving the problem and putting systems in place so that the problem or similar problems might not occur in the future or may be minimized in the future, and so that an ethical culture might be present. It is 


due week 14

.

Case study #1 – Student Loans

 – page 25 of the textbook

Student Loans Sallie Mae is a publicly traded U.S. corporation that lends billions of dollars in student loans. Twenty-five percent of all student borrowers hold Sallie Mae loans. There are two types of student borrowers: (1) students who qualify for federally guaranteed loans—the students are responsible for the loan, and, if they default, the lender is guaranteed reimbursement; (2) students who do not qualify for federally guaranteed loans because they are high risk—the students are responsible for the loan, and, if they default, the lender loses the loan amount. Lenders such as Sallie Mae greatly prefer to issue federally guaranteed loans because it does not put them at financial risk.

One Sallie Mae marketing strategy is to provide some loans to students who don’t qualify for federally guaranteed loans as a way to build better relationships with schools. The rationale is that these schools are then more likely to direct students who do qualify for federally guaranteed loans to Sallie Mae.92 Even though Sallie Mae loses money on these “designed to fail” student loans, the financial losses are minimal compared with the large profits generated by the additional applications from students who do qualify for federally guaranteed loans.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. If you were a Sallie Mae loan officer, what would you do if you were directed by your boss to issue a high-risk loan to a student who, according to your calculations, has a 92 percent likelihood of default?

2. Issue the loan without highlighting the risks

3. Emphasize the negative consequences of defaulting and let the student decide

4. Refuse to issue the loan

5. Why is this the right option to choose?

6. What are the ethics underlying your decision?”

Case Study #2 – Dismissal and Promotion Politics

 – page 115 of the textbook

Dismissal and Promotion Politics After graduation, you obtain a job as an information technology (IT) support person with a small company. You and your boss, the IT manager, are the only two people in the department. The two of you get along well and enjoy working with each other.

After a year on the job, the company’s president and the chief operating officer (COO) invite you out to lunch. When you arrive at the restaurant, you notice that they seem to have made effort to make this meeting secretive; they chose a location far from work and arrived separately, both of which are out of the ordinary. During lunch, they tell you that they are really pleased with your work and want to offer you the position of IT manager, your boss’ position. You are initially shocked, and they explain that your boss is not meeting their expectations. They plan on firing him in a few weeks, after he completes a major project. They want to offer the job to you first and, if turned down, they will post the position after your boss is fired. They ask you to keep this knowledge confidential and want an answer within a week.

You feel both glad and sad about this opportunity. It’s great to be highly respected and offered the promotion. However, the timing couldn’t be worse for your boss because he and his wife recently had a child. Since your boss will be fired one way or the other, you accept the promotion. The president informs you that it’ll be another 3 weeks before the announcement is made.

Going to work knowing that your boss will be fired is incredibly stressful. Your boss believes his job is secure and mentions he is beginning a costly major home remodeling project.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What would you do?

2. Break confidence and confidentially tell your boss about his upcoming dismissal

3. Don’t say

4. Something else (if so, what?)

5. Why is this the right option to choose?

6. What are the ethics underlying your decision?”

Case study #3 – Advice

 – page 175 of the textbook

After graduation, you obtain a job as a sales representative with a large advertising agency that negotiates media campaigns for corporate clients. Sales representatives travel to assigned markets and negotiate advertising opportunities with television sales managers. Sales representatives have specific media client guidelines specifying the television stations and programs from which commercial time may be purchased, along with a budget ceiling.

Sales representatives are assigned partners who provide moral support. Your region is Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Claire, who has been the sales representative for California for about a year, is your partner. The two of you contact each other once a week for updates.

On a Monday evening, a distraught Claire calls you for advice. Earlier in the day, she met with KXYZ-TV’s new sales manager to negotiate media placement advertisements for Cadillac and Best Buy. The total market media dollar allocation for these two companies in the San Francisco market is $7 million dollars. KXYZ-TV historically has received 20 percent of the business.

Claire informs you that while meeting with KXYZ-TV’s new sales manager in his office, he made unwanted sexual advances toward her. Claire was shocked by his behavior, quickly ended the discussion, and left the building with a promise to return the next day to finish the sale.

“It was a really scuzzy experience,” Claire tells you. “I know our clients want to advertise on KXYZ-TV, but I don’t feel comfortable dealing with that guy.” You note that if she delayed the visit for a week, you could join her and do the sales call together. Claire rejects your offer and insists on handling this herself. Nonetheless, she seeks your advice on what to do next.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What would you recommend?

2. Return, close the deal, and say nothing about the sexual harassment

3. Return, close the deal, and report the sexual harassment incident to her supervisor

4. Don’t return and report the sexual harassment incident to her supervisor

5. Something else (if so, what?)

6. Why is this the right option to choose?

7. What are the ethics underlying your decision?”