Please read each passage below, I need a minimum of 150 words for each part (1 & 2) which is a total of 300 words in response. I DO NOT need a reference or title page, however please provide the reference(s) underneath the passage. Please label as I have done below, example Part 1 and place your response along with the reference. Please keep each one on the same document! Please cite properly and use correct grammar. DUE TOMORROW by 6PM CST 4/4/22
Part 1
In a sales environment, it common to know that sales people, at times, tend to walk the fine line of ethics. In my organization, we sell our service to customers and at times the service isn’t available and we will have to build directly to the customer. In order for the company to build to the customer it has to have a certain amount of return on the investment. In order to meet that return, the customers normally has to pay a higher monthly rate for a certain amount of years. For those customers, at times, I’ve seen salespeople agree on a certain price for a customer and in order to build to that customer, they would inflate the actual price of the service so that it does offer a return and the company builds to that customer. The ethical dilemma is not telling the customer of the inflated rate and once the construction is completed, the salesperson will take the rate of the contract back down to it’s original rate and blaming it on the customer advising that the customer changed their mind. Being that the ethical decision-making process consists of two questions: What should I do? and What will I do, Schafer (2011). In this type of scenario, the sales person is left to ask themselves, “how can I still make quota if I don’t make this sale” and how should I handle this if the customer refuses to increase his monthly rate. Instead of addressing this question, the sales person took it upon themselves cross the ethical line and has also placed the customer in a compromising predicament if the company reaches out to confirm if they agreed to the higher rate. This type of ethical dilemma can easily be avoided by being honest with the customer and if they aren’t willing to increase their rate, simply move on to another.
References:
Gleason, A. T. (2022). Resources for Ethical Decision-Making. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(1), 6–12. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_PERSP-21-00175
Schaffer, J. (2011). The Ethical Trap: Once Caught in the Ethical Trap, Few Can Escape. Psychology Today. Retrieved from: The Ethical Trap | Psychology Today (Links to an external site.).
Part 2
In this week’s course article featured in Psychology Today, the author affirms that there are two essential questions one must answer when making an ethical decision: “What should I do?” and “What will I do?” (Schafer, 2011). An example of an ethical dilemma where I had to make these exact same considerations occurred in a restaurant I previously worked at.
During my time there, a coworker told me how she and a few other servers were fixing their receipts when reporting their funds to the manager at the end of the night. The goal of changing the amounts the servers chose to report when closing out was giving them more money to take home and less money than they owed the “house” at the end of the night. The coworker I previously mentioned told me the entire setup when training me, and I immediately knew I was not going to participate. However, by the coworker informing me of what was happening, I became another person involved in this ethical dilemma just by knowing what other servers were doing. At the time, I was a few years younger than the other workers and decided not to engage, but I did not raise any flags about it either. Similar to what Schafer mentions in the article, I was caught in an ethical trap. If I would have told management what was happening, I would have potentially been ostracized by others and possibly even suspected of also participating in misreporting funds. If I chose to also participate, I would be engaging in unethical behavior whether I was caught or not. Schafer also states in the article that in the event of an ethical dilemma, a “poor primary ethical decision often leads to a secondary ethical decision” (Schafer, 2011). In my case, my first decision not to raise awareness to management was a poor one. Although my second decision to not participate either was the right one, I still knew an unethical situation occurring within the small business. The managers found out a few nights later and only a few servers (including me) reported the expected amounts of funds while the other servers were caught in the act. While my situation ended with an acceptable “escape,” others in situations more serious than mine may be faced with a decision that may pit them against “the majority.” While doing the right thing may be difficult when going against what other people are doing, one can avoid ethical traps by standing firm in what they believe to be the right thing and executing that decision. If I would have executed what I knew was ethical in that situation, I might have made others upset, but I would have been correctly supporting that small restaurant.
Reference
Schafer, J. (2011, April 16). The Ethical Trap. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201104/the-ethical-trap
