Business and Ethics
UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE
VAFB, CALIFORNIA
ECBU 346
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
FEBURARY 12, 1997
BY DOUG RONING
From a business perspective, working under government contracts can be
very lucrative. In general, a steady stream of orders keep coming in, revenue
increases and the company continues to grow. There are a few obvious downfalls
to working with government contracts; a higher quality is to be expected as well
as extensive research accompanied by accurate and complete documentation are
usually required. If one part of the process fails to perform correctly it can
cause minor flaws as well a problems that can carry some serious repercussions;
For example the case of the failed computer chip at Company X. When both the
employee and company are found at fault, the question arises of how extensive
should the repercussions be? Is the company as a whole liable or do you look
into individual employees within that company? From an ethical perspective one
would have to look at the available information of both the employees and their
superiors along with the role of others in the situation. Next you would have
to analyze the final outcome from a corporate perspective and then examine the
corporate responsibility as a whole in order to find a resolution for cases such
as this.
The first mitigating factor involved in the Company X case is the
uncertainty, on the part of the employees, on their duties that they were
assigned. It is possible that during the testing procedure, an employee
couldn't distinguish between the parts they were to test under government
standards and commercial ...