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When the Seattle Solid Waste Utility, the department responsible for trash pick-up and disposal, moved during 1988-90 to introduce curbside recycling and other dramatic changes in garbage collection, director Diana Gale believed presentation of the utility's plans to the press would be crucial to their prospects for public acceptance. This case recounts the elaborate but successful strategies Gale employed, ranging from training sessions for utility employees run by former television news anchors, to the advent of the utility's own weekly newsletter to track problems and changes in the new garbage program. HKS Case Number 1058.0

Describes the factors faced by Roussel UCLAF, a French drug company, in deciding whether and how to market a controversial new drug, RU 486, which is often called "the French abortion pill." Roussel's decision involved its relations with the French government, its parent company, the German chemicals giant Hoechst, supporters and opponents of abortion rights in France and the United States, and the research community. The objective is to show students the complex web of responsibilities managers face and the practical issues that arise from conflicts among those obligations.

Describes how Roussel UCLAF resolved the dilemma. Intended for use as an in-class handout.

Conscience explains why most business men and women keep their word and deal fairly with one another. There is no evidence that honesty pays, despite efforts to argue otherwise. As business people, we tell ourselves that dishonesty is punished, but it is hard to find cases in which retaliation is swift and sure, even when wrong has clearly been done.

Consists mainly of excerpts from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill. Mill explains what utilitarianism is and gives his rationale for accepting it as a moral philosophy.

Presents a classic dilemma in legal ethics--the conflict between an attorney's obligations as an attorney, in this case to protect a client's confidentiality, and his or her own moral obligations as a person. An attorney must decide how to respond to the father of a missing young woman who has asked for information about her whereabouts. The attorney knows from conversations with his client that the young woman is dead and where her body is. Shows students what role-related obligations are, why they have strong moral claims, and the difficult dilemmas role obligations can create.

Describes how the attorney resolved the dilemma he faced, the reasons for his decision, and the consequences he suffered. Displays vividly the personal toll that moral conflicts can create for professionals with role obligations.

In 1989, PepsiCo withdrew an advertising campaign featuring Madonna following complaints from religious groups regarding the content of a Madonna video.

Addresses repercussions of the accident on the company including ongoing clean-up efforts, litigation, and organizational changes.

This case series involves a crisis in business ethics and management decision making, when one of the company's diesel fuel storage tanks collapses, releasing nearly one million gallons of oil into the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. Divided into four cases guiding the reader through the sequence of events as they occur and their eventual repercussion on the company. The cases involve formulating a corporate response to the accident, the communities affected, government agencies and other corporate stakeholders. This case concentrates on the hours immediately following the spill and identifies key issues as they emerge. These facts influence how the CEO will address the public in his first statement three days later.

Early in 1989, prosecutors in Florida charged a woman with child abuse after she gave birth to her second baby born with signs of cocaine dependency. This case briefly summarizes the problem of cocaine use, the effects of prenatal exposure, and the legal issues surrounding the Florida prosecution. The case can be used to raise a variety of issues, such as the frequency with which disputes about policy are often thinly disguised, disputes about objectives and basic values, and the circumstances under which the state is justified in coercing the behavior of individuals. HKS Case Number 944.0

Summarizes the outcome.

Discusses the events leading to and repercussions following the 11 million gallon oil spill in Prince William Sound off the Alaskan coast. This was the largest spill in U.S. history. Examines the response to the spill by Exxon management, government agencies, and Alyeska, the oil consortium responsible for overseeing operations of the Alaskan pipeline.

Business ethics is a challenge with three parts: 1) developing managers as moral individuals; 2) building an environment in which standards and values are central to the company's strategy, just as economic purpose is; and 3) formulating and implementing policies that support ethical performance--as well as safeguards to assure they are observed. The essence of management responsibility is to make decisions when there are no clear choices or absolute answers.

Assumes that the reader has also read Dow Corning Corp. (A). Presents two difficult decisions faced by Dow Corning's Business Conduct Committee. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Assumes that the reader has also read Dow Corning Corp. (A). Presents two difficult decisions faced by Dow Corning's Business Conduct Committee. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

This book review of Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation and Robert H. Frank's Passions Within Reason questions whether "self-interest" is really the definition of ethical behavior, as past thinkers such as Adam Smith and Charles Darwin would have us believe.

Senior management of General Motors must select a site for a new assembly plant to replace two plants located in Detroit. The economics strongly favor a site in an adjacent state. However, a relocation would have substantial, negative impact on the existing work force, the City of Detroit, and suppliers in the Detroit area. Selection of a Detroit site would result in higher costs and would require the taking by eminent domain of 1,200 homes in the community of Poletown. The case raises issues of corporate responsibility, business-government relations, and stakeholder analysis.

In 1980, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services faced a crisis. Over 700 black children in Cook County, including 69 infants, waited for adoption while the agency was unable to find black parents. Director Gregory L. Color, with his deputy gordon Johnson, approached Father George Clements, a black activist Chicago priest in the Baptist community. From those meetings came One Church, One Child, a plan to use pastors of the black churches as spokesmen to reach the community. Coler and Johnson faced several hurdles as they asked a private religious institution to help solve a public agency's problem. They had to change negative attitudes both in the black community; which had grown to distrust the state agency, and among a staff suspicious of change who would implement the black adoption program. They had to revamp state laws that inhibited the adoption process. And they had to change bureaucratic procedures that had proven ineffective. The accompanying video exhibit brings to life the successful strategy of the One Church, One Child program, focusing on a presentation in a black church designed to encourage adoptions. In addition, the video includes retrospective comments from the program's administrators and vignettes of families who have adopted children as a result of the program. This case will challenge students to examine the assumptions that limit bureaucracies. Available in Spanish translation. HKS Case Number 856.0