A Risk and Reward and Responsibility-Ethics in Business

1. Revisit the issue of ethical decision making (from where?)
2. View  Risk, Reward, Responsibility: Ethics in Business video (http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=2250 ) which can be found at the Ethics in America II (http://www.learner.org/resources/series207.html?pop=yes&pid=2250#) site.
3. After you watch the video, answer the following questions under the Discussion Forum: Week 5 A Risk, Reward, Responsibility: Ethics in Business

• Is it a company’s problem or concern if the product they are manufacturing or the process they are utilizing might hurt others, if they are in compliance with the prevailing law? Why? Why not? Do they have to go beyond what the law requires?
• In  the Novostan Case– The panelists struggle to balance the value of bringing badly needed jobs and money to the workers in Novasate (and the lower cost of production) against the price that these workers may pay in health and safety. Does outsourcing such work to developing countries create a “race to the bottom”? Or are lower, but reasonable, standards and pay a key competitive advantage for people trying to lift themselves out of poverty- especially if you as a company are doing nothing illegal in either your home country or state or in the state or country you are doing the work?
• In the MaxiCorp scenario :How does the company grapple with the risk its clients may be confronting, especially when the company itself is unsure of the degree of risk? How do we as a society decide what is an acceptable rate of failure with new technologies that bring tremendous benefits?
• In the Wowie, Info. situation– What happens to the values of a company dedicated to the free flow of information, when it comes to a country with a government hostile to the unfettered exchange of ideas? For example, in the sceneio, Asian country of Jaigunda first demands the name of someone who is selling child pornography. Next, they demand the name of a blogger who is writing about police brutality. Both are crimes in this totalitarian country. What are Wowie’s obligations to its shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, and the community, and do they change when the nature of the alleged crime changes?

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