Maynard Leigh Associates: Consultantpreneurs' Dilemma of Purpose or Profit

The co-founders/consultants at Maynard Leigh Associates (MLA), an HR consulting firm based in the United Kingdom and India, are in a quandary about how to respond to a couple of ethical dilemmas. In the first case, a client has hired MLA to deliver a series of workshops to a group of employees who clearly do not need any help of this kind, and the workshop facilitator feels the client is wasting its money. In the second case, the CEO of a local IT giant has hired MLA to host a workshop that would brainstorm ways to eradicate all roadblocks to his organization’s success, but during the delivery of this workshop, the consultants realized that the biggest roadblock to the organization’s success was the CEO himself. Should the partners be open with the client about their findings and risk damaging a lucrative business relationship, or should they simply remain silent on the subject and pocket their fee. What would be the impact of their decision on the future of their company? Importantly, they need to make a decision that upholds MLA’s corporate values.

In discussing and analyzing this case, students will:<ul><li>Understand the challenges and features of a purpose-driven (values–driven) organization.</li><li>Appreciate how corporate purpose can tie employees together by establishing an ideological and psychological contract.</li><li>Understand the role that a competing-values framework plays during different stages of the organization’s life cycle.</li><li>Examine the pros and cons of taking an ethical stance for an organization’s long- and short-term success.</li></ul>

• Psychological contract
• ideological contract
• values based organization
• competing values
• ethics