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Since ethics is an integral part of management, it is vital for managers to become comfortable with the language of ethics, and to understand how it is inextricable from the language of business. Students will examine key theories of ethics and how they apply to management decision making.

This note, intended to accompany the short booklet An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments, discusses the logical framework behind argumentation and presents the basic logical rules necessary to reach sound conclusions. Throughout, it refers to the philosophical foundations of logical reasoning and attempts to address these concepts in the framework of management. By the end, diligent students should be able to identify the necessary structure and components of a sound argument-as well as the fatal attraction of unsound arguments-and be able to apply these ideas to create long-term value as leaders of firms and organizations.

The following note attempts to catalog and analyze a set of flawed but common arguments made in business and organizational settings to drive strategic and operational decision making. The arguments are deconstructed into syllogistic form-a set of premises leading to a conclusion-and analyzed for validity and soundness. The final part of this note pays attention to ways decision makers can avoid such bad arguments and the rationalization that often goes hand in hand with them.

Intuition can be a good guide for decision making when the current situation generally matches the situations in which the intuition was formed. But for novel or ambiguous situations, relying only on intuition can blind us to possible negative consequences by focusing our attention only on data that support our intuition. To reduce the likelihood of these errors and to better imagine and prepare for the outcomes of our choices, we use a decision-making framework. This note outlines the process of how to apply a framework.

This technical note provides an overview of religious discrimination law in the United States and provides managers with a meaningful understanding of their rights and obligations when an employee's religious beliefs or practices conflict with his or her work responsibilities. The analysis will touch on intentional discrimination and harassment ("I'm firing you because you're Christian/Jewish/other"), types of religious discrimination that are readily identifiable and resolvable. Less obviously, U.S. law requires that employers provide "reasonable accommodation" whenever a religiously neutral business practice interferes with an employee's religious practice; this reasonable accommodation doctrine is more complex and nuanced. Providing reasonable accommodation presents obstacles for managers that are as legalistically dense as they are financially treacherous. This note aims to help managers identify blatantly illegal practices but it also aims to assist management in navigating the gray areas where the law is underdeveloped or inconsistently applied. The law often provides vignettes of what managers legally can or cannot do, but neither laws nor cases interpreting them provide clear answers for managers attempting to handle challenging religious issues that arise in their firms. Finally, while digesting the information provided in this note, managers must remember that this analysis describes legal solutions, not managerial ones.

Mike Silva, the NY Fed's senior supervisory officer for Goldman Sachs, is having trouble with Carmen Segarra, a recently hired bank examiner who reports to Silva. The two disagree about whether Goldman Sachs has a viable overall conflict-of-interest policy; Silva says "yes," and Segarra says "no." Segarra's communication style-aggressive and frank-has irritated both Silva and others in their department, although an independent report had been critical of the NY Fed for being too cozy with the banking institutions it regulated. The tension between Silva and Segarra has reached a breaking point, and Silva must decide how to handle Segarra and whether to fire her. A teaching note accompanies this case and details how it is taught in Darden's ethics and leading organizations courses.

Carmen Segarra, a recently hired bank examiner in the NY Fed's supervisory office for Goldman Sachs, strongly disagrees with her supervisor, Mike Silva, about whether Goldman Sachs has a viable overall conflict-of-interest policy. Silva says "yes," and Segarra says "no." This issue is the latest in which Segarra sees what she considers regulatory capture in the NY Fed/Goldman Sachs's relationship. An independent report had been critical of the NY Fed for being too cozy with the banking institutions it regulated and suggested hiring more aggressive and vocal examiners. Segarra realizes that her aggressive and frank communication style has irritated both Silva and others in their department but is determined to do her job. The tension between Silva and Segarra has reached a breaking point and Segarra must decide what actions she must take to address both the tension and what she considers regulatory capture. A teaching note accompanies this case and details how it is taught in Darden's ethics and leading organizations courses.

The 14 short vignettes presented in this exercise cover both religion and spirituality issues and are designed to facilitate a discussion on the place of religion in the workplace. They include a variety of religious beliefs, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. The instructor can use all 14 vignettes during one class session or choose to devote a separate class to each.

In 2014, tobacco giant Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) had to confront the rapidly evolving global tobacco industry landscape. E-cigarettes, once considered a fad, were becoming increasingly popular. Facing uncharted territory, tobacco companies were uncertain about how to most successfully enter this market and how to do so rapidly.

In early 2013, the ongoing controversy involving cyclist Lance Armstrong's use of performance-enhancing drugs was taking its toll on the nonprofit LIVESTRONG Foundation, which Armstrong himself had founded years before after being diagnosed with cancer. Armstrong had already been stripped of his titles, including six Tour de France medals, and was about to appear on a television interview where he presumably would admit to doping. LIVESTRONG CEO Doug Ulman and his leadership team had to figure out how to meet the various challenges that now confronted the organization: a continued drain on the organization's time and energy, bad publicity, media scrutiny, and the erosion of financial support. The organization had helped hundreds of thousands of cancer survivors over the years and Ulman and the others wanted to make sure that LIVESTRONG remained strong and viable.

Annalisa McGann, chair of London's prestigious Clarence Hall University, together with the university's board must make a decision about whether to return a large monetary donation from the Natour Charitable Foundation, which was founded and run by a recent graduate who was also the son of the leader of a corrupt, authoritarian regime in an oil-rich region. Almost two-thirds of the money had already been invested in an innovative leukemia drug that could significantly increase patients' chances of survival; the remainder had been earmarked for an endowment fund for low-income students. Each course of action-keeping the money, giving back the entire sum, or returning the unspent money-had complex consequences, particularly in the current environment in which all British universities were suffering financially and there was nationwide student unrest over rising university costs. The British press, by uncovering the connection between Natour and Clarence Hall, had forced the administration's hand, and McGann and the board needed to make a quick decision after considering a number of complicating factors.

"Richard Alpert, senior partner at Evergreen Investments, must decide which of his two best employees to promote to the position of managing VP. He had initially preferred Charlie Pace over Daniel Faraday, but that decision had become less clear-cut when Alpert inadvertently overheard an office conversation and learned that Pace was taking Adderall, a stimulant primarily prescribed for people suffering from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Pace did not have ADHD and apparently obtained the medication by deceiving a physician. Alpert is faced with a number of questions, including whether it was fair to Faraday-or any other high-performing employee-to be passed over for promotion in favor of someone who illicitly boosted his performance with a substance he did not medically need. "

Spreadsheet for case UV6514

Chisholm University's new athletics director must reallocate the athletics budget in its entirety, balancing legal obligations with broader educational and financial goals. A committee appointed to work on this issue had failed to reach consensus due to disagreements about how to comply with Title IX, the law mandating gender parity in all educational offerings, including athletics. The athletics director has the facts organized into an optimization problem so she can systematically balance the tradeoffs and manage system demands or constraints.

In January 2009, Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of the immensely popular and successful Zynga Game Network met with his sister Laura Hartman, DePaul University business ethics professor, to discuss building a new brand of corporate social strategy. Pincus wanted to find a way that Zynga could have a greater social impact on the world. He and Hartman talked about creating a new social strategy that would naturally flow out of Zynga's success in developing highly profitable interactive social games. The two of them wondered whether it was possible for one company to develop a strategy that would both be profitable and engender social change.

The B case of this three-case series outlines how Mark Pincus, with help from his sister Laura Hartman, began to implement his new brand of social strategy. Initial steps included two partnerships: (1) Zynga's YoVille and the San Francisco SPCA; and (2) Mafia Wars and the Huntington's Disease Society of America. A new program within Zynga was created: Zynga.org, which would focus on global problems and ways to address them. Its first project, in partnership with Zynga's wildly popular FarmVille, was a strategy in which users could purchase "Sweet Seeds for Haiti." Through FarmVille, Zynga would contribute 50% of all proceeds from the sale of these seeds to two Haiti-based causes: Fonkoze and FATEM (a microfinance initiative and an educational and school-meals program, respectively). In 2010, Zynga.org continued to evolve, with periodic bumps along the way when Zynga encountered bad press and unfavorable attention.

Following the May 2010 Sweet Seeds campaign, Zynga announced that it would expand its FATEM partnership to build a school for children in Haiti who had been affected by the devastating earthquake in January of that year. In one week, more than 45,000 FarmVille users raised $110,000 through the purchase of virtual social goods. Sweet Seeds would be the first of several campaigns Zynga launched to raise funds for the school. In the meantime, Zynga.org's management had to establish concrete measures for the various projects' success, including efficient implementation, self-sustainability, and replication. Maintaining a strong feedback loop so that those who contributed to these campaigns could see the results was important. Despite competition, Zynga remained, in 2010, a wildly successful company and its dot-org arm helped Mark Pincus and Laura Hartman realize the new type of social strategy they had discussed over the years.

John Hume, a veteran game farmer and founder of the Mauricedale Game Ranch in South Africa, was deeply troubled by the record upsurge in black rhino poaching incidents and black-market horn thefts in 2010 and 2011. While the endangered black rhino represented only one segment of Mauricedale's hunting and farming businesses in 2011, the animal's survival was an important component of the ranch's and industry's growth potential in the future. As both a businessman and a rhino advocate, John Hume was contemplating an innovative idea that might help stop the decline of the black rhino: the creation of a market for legalized black rhino hunting. As he pondered the possibilities and alternatives to determine what his next move should be, Hume had several questions on his mind: Was the legalization of the international sale and trade of rhino horns a viable solution? Was it Hume's responsibility to save the black rhino, and was the animal a good investment?

Xerox Production Manager Jim Deese has to address the concerns of an employee who is uncomfortable with the company's "vision quests," or creative and spiritual retreats. Starting in the early 1990s, Xerox began conducting these vision quests as a means of invigorating production and innovation at the company, which had struggled over the years with product development and increasing competition. Xerox has worked hard to better its product, increase workforce communication, and enable employees to develop spiritually and embrace a higher vision, both work-related and personally. Some studies have shown that incorporating some element of spirituality helps to generate a happier and more creative workplace. Nonetheless, the employee, a professed atheist, is uncomfortable with the vision quests and the company's other mildly spiritual practices, and Deese must decide how to respond.

James Bowman, a founding partner of a private equity fund manager based in New York City, has traveled to China to meet with a China Power Investment Corporation manager in the hope of cultivating a business relationship. But Bowman is flabbergasted when the manager, in what is supposed to be an introductory conversation, asks that Bowman deposit $800,000 into a Chinese banking account. The money, the manager assures Bowman, will be returned to him within 30 minutes. This request, Bowman understands, is about the principles of Confucianism, which many in China incorporate into their work and home lives. These principles involve building close, trusting relationships in business. Bowman realizes that he is being tested, and he is uncertain how to respond.