This project is another program outcome. By the end of this course you should be able to “manage systems, operations, and organizational behavior with a focus on how ethics impacts an organization’s culture.” This project will be due in three parts in weeks 6, 10, and 14 of the semester. This project is the culmination of your work for the semester. You will be given a situation in a business organization in which you are a manager or a leader. You will be asked to assess this situation and give a proposal for what should be done to deal with some matters of serious ethical consequence for the organization. Your project should be submitted in a file format, each part being two pages long not counting a title page, size 12 Times New Roman font, double spaced with 1-inch margins on all sides. Since this is a report, we are not overly concerned with the format. For your research citations, use APA’s Publication Manual style, 7th edition. Note the grading rubric. For a superior grade, you must be using at least two peer-reviewed type sources. Simple blogs found with a Google search are not peer-reviewed publications. Use e-books or the journal databases in Amridge library’s comprehensive resources such as Business Source Premier, Academic Search Premier, or ATLA. The textbook can be used as one source. The sources must be used in the papers in a substantive manner, cited, and included in the References.
You should use or implement one or more strategy that you learned this semester in your project proposal: A few examples of these strategies will be given in the following list. Implementing a strategy in your proposal involves more than merely saying that you would use this strategy. If that is all you say, then you have not said anything more than a repetition of a line in the instructions. You must research, analyze, and apply. Then you must explain HOW a strategy can be implemented and WHY it would be effective and helpful in dealing with the problem under consideration. For example, it is NOT sufficient to say that you are implementing a Code of Ethics in the organization. You need to explain HOW you would go about doing that and WHY a Code of Ethics might help with the particular problem you are addressing. Here are some of the strategies we have studied this semester that you might use in your project proposal. Note: In making a proposed response to the problem in your case study, you may need to propose a short-term response to deal with the immediate situation and then a long-term response (one of the strategies from the following list), which would possibly help in the future if similar situations arose in the organizations.
Following Best Practices: Persuading employees of the importance of being ethical
Best Practices: Hiring ethical people through a six-step ethics job screen process
Implementing a Code of Ethics in the organization
Implementing a Code of Conduct in the organization
Implementing an ethics training program in the organization
Implementing diversity training workshops in the organization
Implementing an ethics reporting system in the organization
Implementing an ethical appraisal system in the organization
Ethically empowering employees
Implementing a plan to green your organization
It will be helpful for you to follow the ethical reasoning of Table 5.3, which is listed in module 14 in Canvas and on page 126 of your textbook.
Pick one of the following case studies to study, research, analyze, and apply the principles you have learned this semester to for your "Ethical leadership project." Upload your completed project in the link in module 14. Tell which case study you are doing, #1, #2, or #3. Do not reproduce the case study itself except the number and title. Your completed project should be about 500 words and written as a business proposal designed to be submitted to upper management in the organization. This is not a term paper but a business proposal within the organization. How you organize your project will depend on which one you choose and how you envision it. Here are some possible headers you might include.
Analysis of the situation.
Ethical values important to the organization and stakeholders.
Options open from which to choose.
Potential consequences for each option for the organization and stakeholders.
Recommendation for action to be taken.
Possible long-term actions to be considered.
Part #1: Statement of the problem.
In part #1 you need to analyze whichever case study you choose from the following three options and give a statement of what the problem is. This is your analysis of the situation. What ethical values are important to the organization and stakeholders? What is the conflict or the problem? Study chapters 1 through 4 to write part #1 of your project. It is due week 6.
Case study #1 – Student Loans – page 25 of the textbook Business Ethics Best Practices for Designing and Managing Ethical Organizations Second Edition
Student Loans Sallie Mae is a publicly traded U.S. corporation that lends billions of dollars in student loans. Twenty-five percent of all student borrowers hold Sallie Mae loans. There are two types of student borrowers: (1) students who qualify for federally guaranteed loans—the students are responsible for the loan, and, if they default, the lender is guaranteed reimbursement; (2) students who do not qualify for federally guaranteed loans because they are high risk—the students are responsible for the loan, and, if they default, the lender loses the loan amount. Lenders such as Sallie Mae greatly prefer to issue federally guaranteed loans because it does not put them at financial risk.
One Sallie Mae marketing strategy is to provide some loans to students who don’t qualify for federally guaranteed loans as a way to build better relationships with schools. The rationale is that these schools are then more likely to direct students who do qualify for federally guaranteed loans to Sallie Mae.92 Even though Sallie Mae loses money on these “designed to fail” student loans, the financial losses are minimal compared with the large profits generated by the additional applications from students who do qualify for federally guaranteed loans.