W1-A#2
Closing Case
Mike and Iris were going through the asset valuation worksheets that had been collected from all the managers in the company.
“Iris,” Mike said after a few minutes, “the problem, as I see it, is that no two managers give us answers that can be compared to each other. Some gave only one value, and some didn’t actually use a rank order for the last part. In fact, we don’t know what criteria were used to evaluate the ranges or even where they got the cost or replacement values.”
“I agree,” Iris said, nodding her head. “These values and ranges are really inconsistent. This makes it a real challenge to make a useful comprehensive list of information assets. We’re going to have to visit all the managers and find out where they got their values from and how the assets were classified.”
Ethical Decision-Making
Suppose Mike and Iris make the decision to simply take the highest of each of the values without regard to how the values were determined by the person who made the initial assessment. Then, they determine their own rankings among all the compiled assets. When the list is included later in the planning process, they depict it as authoritative because it comes from “all managers.”
Is this method, even if it’s faster and easier, an ethical way to do business? Why or why not?
