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Jim, an employee of the nuclear division of Fairway Electric, discovered a report written fifteen years ago about a flaw in the design of their Radon II nuclear reactor. The flaw did not present a safety hazard but was expensive to fix. The company had not told customers about the report. After getting no response from the CEO, Jim took the story to a local newspaper. Word soon got out that Jim was a whistle-blower. This created much negative feeling toward Jim within his department. The CEO asked the vice president of the nuclear division to talk with Jim, pressuring him either to transfer to another office or, preferably, to quit. Jim refused. How should the situation have been handled? Experts from human resource management, public relations, and industry tell what they would have done in this situation.

Presents a problem involving rehabilitating a small office building in Boston. Describes an investment decision which is knowingly underfunded. As construction proceeds, the developer realizes that it is not up to building code and faces difficult business and ethical decisions regarding restructuring the deal, finding other sources of capital, replacing the contractors, and dealing with a difficult building inspector. Also points to the necessity of doing accurate financial planning.

Inside companies and beyond them, business and ethics still demand managers to make tough decisions. Concerns about doing business in South Africa, how to handle plant closures, issues involving personnel matters--none is new. What is new is the interest the public takes in business decisions and the pressure it applies--pressure that tempts boards and managers to sidestep hard choices. Managers must be open to the role ethics plays in decision making. Know where you stand on issues as an individual. Weigh all the competing interests carefully. Then simply get on with doing business and let your actions speak for themselves. This article won HBR's 1986 Ethics in Business Prize.

How can usually honest, intelligent, compassionate human beings act in ways that are callous, duplicitous, dishonest, and wrongheaded? Unethical behavior is found everywhere, and ambitious managers facing murky borderlands between right and wrong sometimes cross over the line. Their decisions ruin people's lives, destroy institutions, and give business as a whole a bad name. But executives can establish effective guidelines to ensure their corporations' survival. There are practical solutions to the rationalizations that give way to unethical behavior.

Describes the development and ongoing operation of the Business Conduct Committee of Dow Corning Corp. as an example of managing corporate values in a multinational enterprise.

Intended to advance understanding of corporate responsibility in the context of a bankruptcy decision. The case documents the implementation of a turnaround plan for financially ailing Braniff International. This includes a new marketing and operations strategy, concessions from labor, changes in management, and a financial restructuring. The narrative describes the worsening financial condition of the company and the choices made by the CEO and CFO to raise cash and avoid filing. These choices and events led to progressively limited options. It was decided that attempting to reorganize under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Reform Act was preferable to being placed into involuntary bankruptcy under Chapter VII. This required keeping preparations secret and eventually filing by surprise.

Supplements the (A) case.

This is an issues-oriented note designed to stimulate discussion of the ethical aspects of the sale of pesticides which are not approved for any use or only for restricted use in the United States to less developed countries. It is organized as follows: the problem, some examples, what a pesticide is, the pesticide industry, benefits of pesticides, risks to humans, the industry response, and regulation of pesticides.

Introduces managers and students of management to some of the basic categories and frameworks of philosophical ethics. Consists of five parts: l) Classifying ethical frameworks; 2) Teleological frameworks; 3) Deontological frameworks; 4) Mixed frameworks; and 5) from theory to practice.

Business is an institution to which our society assigns a certain sphere of activity--to secure the social good of economic efficiency. The values that govern the conduct of business must be conditioned by the purpose of the business institution. Business leaders therefore have the responsibility of running their companies in such a way as to realize their most economic performance. That means taking the needs and the concepts of purpose of each of the system's members into account. It does not mean making profit the primary goal.

The theory that success is commensurate with effort is an enduring belief in our society. So is the idea that hard work builds character. What becomes of men and women in large corporations in which success is not necessarily connected with hard work? Interviews with managers and executives in several big companies reveal that bureaucracy, the prevailing organizational form of our society and economy, breaks apart the old connection between work and salvation and erodes all standards of morality except its own. McKinsey Award Winner.

Presents an accounting of Ford Motor Company's handling of a product safety controversy (1970-77) surrounding its Pinto subcompact car. May be used as part of a series, Managing Product Safety, that provides an opportunity to compare and contrast the social response strategies employed by companies involved in a catastrophic product safety controversy.

Shows how the Borg-Warner Corporation developed a statement of values and beliefs under the leadership of its chief executive officer, James F. Bere. The "Beliefs," a set of general principles intended to guide business behavior, now must be given operational meaning as they are shared and communicated to a very large and decentralized organization. Provides students an opportunity to critique the development of a corporate statement of beliefs and to relate ethics directly to business policy and practice.

Jim Sawyer, 40, a manager at United Industries Plastics Division has exhibited signs of alcoholism. Personnel must now consider how the company should address this kind of problem. Provides an opportunity to examine the role corporations should play in helping employees deal with or confront issues of personal health.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

Provides a general framework for the analysis of ethics-related case studies in business policy, drawing upon categories from the discipline of moral philosophy.

Top management at Consolidated Foods was concerned about consumer complaints and threatened boycotts, some relating to television and print ad content and others relating to sponsorship of television programs thought to portray excessive sex or violence. Describes the situation up to January 1981.

Supplements the (A) case.

Details the moral conflict experienced by Don Taylor, a new high-level executive in an oil drilling firm, when he discovered that the firm was deceiving its investors. What should he do and how should he go about it? Presents the emergence of Taylor's suspicions about the deceptive practices.