Chapter 7
1. On page 304, we read the major justification for why businesses should respect the privacy rights of their employees: The employee can…contend that she or he will be most productive in a supportive environment based on trust, respect, and autonomy. Describe two different monitoring situations at a given job: (a) One in which the methods of employee monitoring makes you (the employee) less productive; you dont feel supported, trusted, respected, or autonomous due to your managements style of monitoring. (b) In the second situation, describe a different monitoring system that allows you to be just as productive as if you were not monitored at all, and you feel supported, trusted, respected, and autonomous. Explain.
2. (a) Suppose: You are upper management and are tasked with reading your employee emails, though they are password protected, because they are the companys email account (e.g. csun.edu). IT enables you to read the emails even though they are password protected. There has been no company policy given to the employees saying that their emails will be read or will not be read. Create 3 different emails by your employee, each one which would lead you, his employer, to fire him/her (assuming he/she is an at-will employee) after you read it. One email you create has to involve a co-worker, one has to involve management, and one has to involve the companys product or service. Either type the email as you read it, or convey the meaning of it (if you do not wish to use profanity, threats, etc. in your answer to this question). Note: You are describing or creating 3 different emails. Each of the 3 must have a different theme: threatening, sexual, racist, sexist, homophobic, slanderous, etc. (b) Would you ask the employee to explain the email (answer this for each one) before you fired him/her? Explain.
3. Page 310 tells the real-life story of the two Arizona nurses who had an after-hours porn site (they were the porn stars) to generate more money in their lives. Pick oneside: Argue as persuasively as you can that, as the owner of the hospital, you should fire them OR warn them but not fire them (have them cease and desist porn to keep their nursing jobs).
4. Page 322 tells us that there are background checks readily available on the internet to anyone willing to pay $10 to $250. You run a background check on Sam who is applying to work as an accountant. He is qualified, had the best interview, and appears to be a solid addition to your company. Questions: Discuss what you would do (and why) if you find in his background check: (a) a restraining order against him by his ex-wife still in effect; (b) a judgment against him (he cannot sell his condo, which is his home, without paying off a lien against it); and last: (c) he settled a lawsuit that alleged a screenplay he sold and was made into an internet series was partly written by an ex-colleague (who sued him for having given Sam some of the key ideas/stories). Sam settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed sum. Note: Each of these items on his background check is turning up separately: NOT all together. In other words, in each a, b, and c, what would you do as the potential employer if each one alone appeared on his background check?
5. Page 342: #7. The book asks this question: Did the employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy that was violated by the video surveillance? Explain. Answer that as (a), and then answer: (b) How would you have handled the reported thefts from the security guards lockers and the reports that they (the guards) were bringing weapons to campus, if you ran the university who employed them?Explain.
Book: Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility, by Laura Hartman, Joseph DesJardins, and Chris MacDonald, 4th edition 2018
