This lesson deals with a very simple question. Why is there evil in the world? But we're not going to talk about evil, per se. Rather, we're going to ask a more difficult question. Why do good people and good organizations engage in bad behavior? [MUSIC] Welcome to module four of Global Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. In this module, we're going to raise a simple question, why do good people and good organization do bad things or engage in questionable behavior? That's always a topic of interest because there are many good companies and many good people, but sometimes what they do is not perfect. Before we do that however, we're going to return to the what price safety case to see what the outcomes are and do that again as a review. So again, we're going to go through the ethical decision-making process. I know, I know, you will now be able to do this in your sleep, I hope. And be able to do it ten years from now. I hope that's what you'll take away. So we're going to debrief the framework in the case of, what price safety? Now what are the facts that are important here? Tommy refuses to obey the safety rules. Victor is a very fine manager. His unit runs almost perfectly. But he's lost his temper and he hit Tommy when Tommy just absolutely refused to wear his glasses. And now, of course, Tommy is partly deaf in one ear. Now, as we know, physical violence violates Motorola's code of ethics. But in the cultural and the context of Nambu, Victor's apology and his reparations are acceptable procedure. And in Nambu that would be the end of the problem. There would not be any issue. But how should the manager, the Motorola manager, an American manager, Stan, decide in this case? So there's a power dynamic here obviously. Motorola is in charge. There's no way around that. Motorola can make the final decision. And there's no way to do that. In the meantime, there are a lot of stakeholders, including Motorola, here, the Anzen plant, the costumers, who probably don't know the source, by the way. Which is very interesting, most costumers won't realize this was sourced in Nambu, where they buy a Motorola product, frankly. It's not a secret, they just don't thought of it. Have any of you taken your computer apart to see how many countries the parts of your computer and how many countries? At least 20, maybe 30, interesting. Something to think on, don't do it though because you won't get your computer back together. But anyway, what are the other stakeholders here? Stan, Victor, Tommy, other workers and Nambu itself. So what are the alternatives here? Fire Victor and Tommy, very bad for morale, bad for production, going to get new people. Bad taste in the Nambu society for Motorola, but it follows Motorola's global code of conduct. Fire Victor, warn Tommy, same problems. Suspend both without pay for a short period, not a bad idea. Keep both with warnings. All those are good for the plant and good for morale. It sets a bad precedent for Motorola for their other plants. It means that physical violence is permitted sometimes. So what values are at stake? Well, we know Motorola's global code of ethics and the question of what precedence it sets for all Motorola plants. And how does whatever they decide to reflect on Motorola's character and their reputation? Is there ever a time when physical violence is permitted in organizations? Particularly in organizations when it's managers hitting employees. Are there any exceptions to that? In Nambu, how does Motorola honor these cultural differences? Do those differences override their code? And how does a universal value of physical nonviolence apply across all cultures? Are there exceptions? Are there times when we forgive? And this is a question here of forgiveness. And that's a very interesting, challenging topic. So what does Motorola do? Motorola, through Stan, decides to enforce its code because it doesn't want to set a precedent that violence is sometimes permitted in any of its organizations. Both Victor and Tommy are fired. This decision sends a message to all the divisions about their code and their values. But the decision that Motorola made was very costly to Motorola. The Nambu government required that they give huge payouts to Victor and Tommy. The morale of the plant and the productivity went down enormously when Victor left. I want you to think, was this the best decision? And could you defend an alternate decision? And notice, there's some cases where there's just not one clear right decision. I think we saw that in Merck as well. It wouldn't have been a bad decision to invest research into cancer or HIV. We wouldn't think that was a bad decision. We happen to think that investing in river blindness was the best decision. But some of you might argue that it wasn't. And that's all right. Sometimes we have two or more alternatives, which are fine, which are good. Sometimes we have no alternatives which are fine or which are good, and that puts us on the spot.
