Please Give a full answer. Plagirism is Prohibited Subject: Business Ethics and
ID: 388120 • Letter: P
Question
Please Give a full answer. Plagirism is Prohibited Subject: Business Ethics and Corporate Governance Required: 1500 words A secretary who has worked for your corporation for fifteen years is involved in a car accident in which she permanently loses the use of her right hand. Thus, she can no longer effectively type, file, or perform many of the other functions that she previously had performed and that are included in her job description. Your corporation has a very tight budget and does not have sufficient funds to pay for an additional secretary without reallocating budget items. The injured secretary has been very loyal to your corporation, and you have been very satisfied with her work and dedication. She wants to stay at her job. Moreover, she does not believe that she could find other employment at this time Question: Should your corporation fire her, lay her off with compensation, or find a way to retain her? Required: 1500 words Note in resolving this delimma apply: 1. Utilitarianism 2.The Rights Model 3. Your personal opinionExplanation / Answer
Before understanding the case let us first understand the theories involved
Utilitarian theory: It is a normative theory which states that something is morally correct when it produces greatest amount of benefits to large number of people. Utilitarian theory tries to answer ethical questions with an economic analysis that focus on human beings.
In utilitarian theory, every stakeholder cannot be happy as it states it tries to solve the problem benefitting larger number of stake holders which means end decision might not satisfy all the stakeholder.
According to this theory, you are ethically correct when your decision benefits large number of stakeholders.
Rights model: It is the theory which propagates access to the privileged people who would otherwise had if they were not physically disabled. This theory basically speaks about rights of disabled people.
DRPI (Disability Rights Promotion international) is an international group which focus on improving life of disabled people. it says disabled people are entitled to have right to education, right to property and right to have equal employment opportunity.
It is important to acknowledge that much of the privileges enjoyed by disabled people today are direct result of these groups which fight for them.
Case: In present case, secretary has worked for fifteen years loyally to the company. In an unfortunate event she had an accident which resulted in loss of her hand. The loss of hand is hindering secretary from discharging her duties specified in job description. The company has tight budget and does not have sufficient fund to pay for additional secretary. The secretary is highly depended on company for her livelihood and cannot find work with some other company. The boss needs secretary as it is critical position for him to function properly.
Explanation according to utilitarian theory:
According to utilitarian theory, the decision you take should benefit maximum number of stake holder. Now stake holder in present case is secretary, you and the company. The secretary is deeply depended on the company for work. Without secretary you find it difficult to work and the company has tight budget and does not have fund for additional secretary.
The best decision in this case would be to shift secretary to some other position within the company. This benefits all the stake holders (Secretary, you and the company) because secretary would retain her job, you can hire new secretary and company need not spend on additional secretary.
If this decision does not work, the best possible solution would be to fire secretary with compensation. This would benefit you and the company. This might not be morally right, as it convey wrong message to other employees. The secretary who was loyal to the company feels betrayed because of this decision.
The last possible solution would be to keep the secretary in the position and do not hire new secretary. This would benefit least number of stake holder (Only secretary). The boss would find it difficult to work without secretary and company would not be getting benefits of the employee.
My opinion:
My opinion is to go for 1st or 3rd decision and not 2nd decision. Employees are vital assets of the organization. The secretary has been working loyally for 15 years. She cannot be fired for no fault of her. The company usually keep certain amount of money for CSR (Corporate social responsibility) activities. Some money can be drawn from it to finance the salary of the secretary. If secretary is fired, it would have repel effect on entire organization and morale of entire organization would be down.
Explanation according to Rights theory:
Rights theories main agenda is to benefit disabled persons. Hence according to this theory, secretary should be provided with maximum benefits. DRPI is an international group which fights for the rights of disabled people. According to them, disabled people should be provided with equal opportunity to access education, right to parenthood and right to employment.
My opinion:
As explained earlier, my opinion remain the same. The secretary should be provided with alternate job and should not be removed from job.
Consequences of removing secretary from the job:
There would be multiple consequences if secretary is removed from the job, which are listed below.
Conclusion:
All the theories (Utilitarian, rights model) studied above concludes that retaining the secretary would be the best option for the manager. The utilitarian theory provides 3 alternatives and rights model propagates rights of disabled person which states that disabled person should not be denied of opportunity. By analyzing all the above option, the best option for manager would be to change her designation and provide alternate position within the organization where she can work easily without need of the hand. This would satisfy all the stake holder.
The secretary would be happy that she retained the job, the boss would be happy that critical job handled by secretary would not be jeopardized and the company would not be burdened with hiring of additional secretary.
The morale of the employees would increase because of this decision. Employee would feel safe working for the organization. If employees are happy, productivity of workers increase. This in turn increase profitability of the company.
Economically too, it would be not practical for company to provide large payout to the secretary when they have tight budget.