GB600 Unit 8 Ethical Dilemma Analysis Example

Two Promises, One Courthouse: A Unit 8 Ethical Dilemma Analysis of a Pledge to Stenographers

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GB600: Leadership Strategies for a Changing World

Unit 8 Ethical Dilemma Analysis

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The firm, its people, the court and every figure are composite and illustrative; the frameworks and sources cited are real.

The Facts

I am the firm's director of operations, and I helped draft the pledge. On the day the digital unit was announced, the founder read it aloud to all staff: "No stenographer at this firm will lose a job, or see their regular work reduced, because of digital reporting, for two years from today."

Fourteen months later, the largest county court in our first state ended its contract for stenographic courtroom reporting and switched to its own audio recording system, operated by court staff. The change removes about 30 percent of our courtroom days in that state, about 40 days a month. Those days were covered by four stenographers. At the same time, our three digital reporters, two of whom moved across state lines to join the firm, now handle most of the firm's digital deposition work. If the firm assigns the remaining deposition work to the four stenographers who lost courtroom days, the digital reporters will be idle for much of each week. If it keeps the digital reporters fully busy, the four stenographers will lose regular work.

The court's change had nothing to do with our digital unit. But the pledge's wording, "because of digital reporting," invites the question of whether keeping digital reporters busy while stenographers lose days counts as a breach.

Two Groups the Firm Recruited

Both groups relied on the firm. The stenographers stayed through a period of change, some declining offers from competitors, because the pledge told them their work was secure. The digital reporters accepted jobs, and two moved their families, because the firm told them the digital unit was a long-term investment. Each group has a reasonable claim that the firm's word shaped a major decision in their lives.

Duties Ross Would Name

Ross (1930) described several prima facie duties, obligations that bind unless outweighed by a stronger duty in the circumstances. Two apply here. The duty of fidelity requires keeping promises and honoring the expectations one has created. The duty of non-maleficence requires not causing harm. The dilemma is fidelity against fidelity: the firm made a promise to the stenographers and a commitment to the digital reporters, and both are real. Non-maleficence presses on both sides, since either course harms people who trusted the firm.

Ross offers no formula for ranking duties in conflict. He asks for judgment about which duty is more pressing in the particular case. Badaracco (1997) calls these choices between right and right, and argues that they test a leader's character more than any choice between right and wrong.

Keeping the words of the pledge while breaking its purpose would be the easiest course and the least honest.

What the Pledge Was For

The pledge was written for a specific purpose. When the founder announced the digital unit, several stenographers feared the firm would replace them gradually, starting with the least senior. The pledge was meant to remove that fear for long enough that stenographers could see the digital unit working alongside them rather than instead of them. It was a promise about security during a transition, not a promise about the source of any particular loss. Reading it that way matters because Ross's duty of fidelity attaches to what the promisee reasonably understood, not only to the words. The four stenographers who lost courtroom days understood that their work would be protected for two years, and the founder, asked privately, confirmed that was what she meant.

Keeping the Words, Breaking the Promise

One option would satisfy the pledge's literal wording. Because the court's change was not caused by digital reporting, the firm could argue that the four stenographers' lost days fall outside the pledge, and keep the digital reporters fully employed. That reading is legally defensible and morally weak. The stenographers understood the pledge as a promise that their work was safe during the transition, and the founder intended it that way. A firm that reads its own promise narrowly when it becomes inconvenient will find its next promise discounted.

Four Options

Option 1: Narrow reading. Keep digital reporters busy; let four stenographers lose regular work. Keeps the letter of the pledge, breaks its spirit, protects the digital reporters fully.

Option 2: Strict reading. Give all deposition work to the four stenographers first; leave the digital reporters partly idle at full pay for ten months. Keeps the pledge fully, costs about $140,000 in idle pay, and tells the digital reporters their roles are secondary.

Option 3: Lay off one digital reporter. Reduces the cost of Option 2 but breaks the commitment to someone who moved for the job.

Option 4: Volunteers, with pay protected. Ask the four stenographers whether any wish to train as stenographer-reviewers of digital transcripts or move to our second state's deposition work, at their current pay, and share remaining depositions between the groups, with the firm guaranteeing every stenographer's average monthly earnings for the remaining ten months of the pledge.

The Chosen Course

The firm should choose Option 4. It keeps the pledge's purpose, since no stenographer's earnings will fall during the pledge period. It keeps faith with the digital reporters, since their work continues. It asks the stenographers to accept a change in the kind of work they do, but only voluntarily, with pay protected. Two of the four have already said informally that they would like to train as reviewers, and a third has asked about deposition work in the second state. The cost is the difference between protected earnings and the work actually available, estimated at about $70,000, about half the cost of Option 2.

What Remains Owed

The chosen course does not discharge every obligation. The firm owes the stenographers an honest conversation now about what happens when the pledge expires in ten months, because courtroom work is unlikely to return. It owes the digital reporters a clear statement of how their roles will develop. And it owes both groups an apology for writing a pledge whose wording did not anticipate events outside the firm's control. Future promises should say what happens if the world changes, not only what the firm will do. Paine (1994) argues that an organization's integrity rests on whether its systems and commitments hold up under pressure, and this pledge is the firm's first real test.

References

Badaracco, J. L., Jr. (1997). Defining moments: When managers must choose between right and right. Harvard Business School Press.

Paine, L. S. (1994). Managing for organizational integrity. Harvard Business Review, 72(2), 106-117.

Ross, W. D. (1930). The right and the good. Clarendon Press.