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Business Ethics

Business Ethics

[Category]:

Business

[Paper Title]:

 

[Text]:

Business Ethics

 

 

>From a business perspective, working under government contracts can be a
very lucrative proposition. In general, a stream of orders keep coming in,
revenue increases and the company grows in the aggregate. The obvious downfalls
to working in this manner is both higher quality expected as well as the
extensive research and documentation required for government

contracts. If a part fails to perform correctly it can cause minor glitches
as well as problems that can carry serious repercussions, such as in the
National Semiconductor case. When both the culpable component and company are
found, the question arises of how extensive these

repercussions should be. Is the company as an entity liable or do you look
into individual employees within that company? From an ethical perspective one
would have to look at the mitigating factors of both the employees and their
superiors along with the role of others in the failure of these components. Next
you would have to analyze the final ruling from a corporate perspective and then
we must examine the macro issue of corporate responsibility in order to attempt
to find a resolution for cases like these.

 

 

The first mitigating factor involved in the National Semiconductor case is
the uncertainty, on the part of the employees, on the duties that they were
assigned. It is plausible that during the testing procedure, an employee couldn’t
distinguish which parts they were to test under government standards and
commercial standards. In some cases they might have even been misinformed on the
final consumers of the products that they tested. In fact, ignorance on the part
of the employees would fully excuse them from any moral responsibility for any
damage that may result from their work. Whether it is decided that an employees
is fully excused, or is given some moral responsibility, would have to be looked
at on an individual basis.

 

 

The second mitigating factor is the duress or threats that an employee might
suffer if they do not follow through with their assignment. After the bogus
testing was completed in the National Semiconductor labs, the documentation
department also had to falsify documents stating that

the parts had surpassed the governmental testing standards. From a legal and
ethical standpoint, both the testers and the writers of the reports were merely
acting as agents on d

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