Sarah Norton is an MBA student who specializes in market research. She has one semester left until graduation and is working as a graduate assistant. She is a person with very high ethical values and she is very religious. She looks for a job in Hammonsville, where she wants to stay. She starts working for the Wise Research Corporation, a field research services company. They have offices in Dallas, Hammonsville and Tulsa. She travels to Dallas to start her training for the job and finds out that the company’s behavior to the different stakeholders is very unethical. Sarah, a very ethical person with high values, finds herself in a big dilemma – should she stay with the company or better, resign from the job even though she quit her graduate assistantship.
In the situation analysis, environmental, cultural and political trends are discussed. The economy in general is not in a growing stage and the ethical behavior in business is not sufficient. Nevertheless, there is a growing trend to increase ethical behavior, and many companies and associations develop a code of ethics for their business or industry. In the second part of the paper, the problems appearing from the situation are discussed. unethical behavior and it’s impact on the stakeholders of the company lead to Sarah’s decision whether to resign form the job or not. In the third part, a solution is presented which is the resignation from the job. A justification of the chosen solution follows and also an implementation strategy.
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II. SITUATION ANALYSIS
A. Environment
1. Economic conditions and trends
The economic conditions are important in this case because they are not favorable to find a job; especially not for lower managers like MBAs just graduating from college. The American industry is in the process of downsizing. Please note! This is not an example of text written by our writers! Essaypedia.com is a database of essays that were collected at open web resources. You can use them at you own risk following the citation rules below.
But we recommend you to order a custom plagiarism-free essay written just for you from one of our writers. Place an order, add your paper details and enjoy the results! You can keep in touch with your writer, check the draft of your paper and send your order for revision for free. If you are hesitating to place an order – just ask for a quote! In Appendix one, unemployment figures are provided, and show see that unemployment was very high in the years 1994/1995.
2. Cultural and social values and trends
Unethical behavior is becoming more and more common in business life. One can observe unethical behavior every day by simply watching the news. This results from the following developments:
ü the high value society places on economic success
ü profit share being the sole objective
ü intense competition between departments, people or companies
ü management being concerned with the “letter of law” rather then with “the spirit of law”
ü ambiguous corporate policies regarding ethical behavior
ü inadequate controls allowing people to get away with behaving unethically
ü business leaders failing to comprehend the public’s ethical concern
ü the “let the buyer beware” custom prevails (Greenberg J., Baron R. A. (2000) p. 31).
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Since these trends in industry have created a very unsatisfying condition, business leaders are trying to increase morale values in business life and many companies develop a code of ethics, a mission about ethical behavior or an organizational culture with high ethical standards.
3. Political and legal issues
In the field of market research there is a code of professional ethics developed by the Market Research Association (MRA).
However there is no nationwide standard for collection and handling of data for market researchers. This Code of Ethics is provided in Appendix II.
4. Summary of environmental opportunities and threats
The economy in general is not in a growing stage and the ethical behavior in business is not sufficient. Nevertheless, there a returning trend to move to a more ethical behavior, therefore many companies and associations develop a code of ethics for their business or industry. There is no nationwide standard for ethical matters in market research and no law for ethical behavior. The Code of Ethics of the MRA is the only attempt to set some ethical rules how to operate a marketing research company.
B. Industry
1. Classification and definition of industry
Opinion and marketing research is a multi-billion-dollar industry dedicated to providing valuable information to companies, which focus on sales and services. Opinion and marketing research:
ü helps manufacturers to identify, to understand and to meet consumer needs and wants
ü saves the consumer money by providing data to companies to help them reduce the costs associated with new product failures.
ü assists manufacturers and service providers to improve the quality and usefulness of the products and services.
Consumers make their opinions on products, services and issues by answering questions of market researchers. The consumer can influence manufacturers to incorporate consumer opinion into products, services and procedures. About 72 million Americans are interviewed in an opinion and marketing research study yearly (www.mra-net.org).
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The case tells us that outside research suppliers are a growing industry. Wise Research is such an industry.
2. The Code of Ethics and the responsibilities of the marketing research industry
The Marketing Research Industry Association writes industry the following about ethics in the marketing research industry: “Research knowledge and the value of research are communicated to both the business community and the public at large, while complying with applicable federal, state and local laws, regulations and ordinances. MRA (Marketing Research Association) expects members to follow principles of honesty, professionalism, fairness and confidentiality to guard the interests of the public and our clients in order to promote good business practices. MRA’s Code of Data Collection Standards consists of the responsibilities of respondents, clients, and data collectors not only to each other, but also to the general public and business community. All MRA members must sign and adhere to the Code of Data Collection Standards. The standards are enforced, and complaints of alleged unethical behavior may be filed against an MRA member who is suspected to have violated the Code” (http://www.mra-net.org/codes/index.cfm).
This Code of Ethics is applicable for members of the MRA. It shows how important ethical behavior in marketing research is. The book “Marketing Management” by J. Paul Peter and James H. Donnely Jr. also talks about ethical behavior in the marketing research sector. Peter and Donnely base their ethical Responsibilities on Gilbert A. Churchill Jr. “market research: Methodological Foundations”. They trace the ethical responsibilities to three different groups: respondents, clients and employees.
Responsibilities to respondents are:
ü Preserving respondent anonymity
ü Avoiding mental stress for respondents
ü Avoiding questions detrimental to respondents
ü Avoiding the use of dangerous equipment or techniques
ü Avoiding deception of respondents
ü Avoiding coercion of respondents.
The responsibilities to clients are:
ü Providing confidentiality
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ü Providing technical integrity
ü Providing administrative integrity
ü Providing guidance on research usage.
And last the responsibilities to the employees are
ü Creating an ethical work environment
ü Avoiding opportunities of unethical behavior (p. 41).
3. Summary of the industry analysis
The market research industry is very unique and provides important information to the different industries selling products and services to consumers. They normally work with a very high standard of ethical behavior; the MRA summarized these ethics in the Code of Ethics.
C. Firm
1. Description of the company
Wise Research is a market research company. It’s business is field research in shopping malls which categorizes it as a field research company. Field research companies do data collection on research projects. Wise Research has been operating in this business for 25 years and has several subsidiaries. These subsidiaries are all mall research offices. The head office and two other offices are located in Dallas, TX, one is located in Tulsa, OK and one is located in Hammonsville, MI. The office in Hammonsville has exited for 10 years. The company is involved in fieldwork, although they do not generate questionnaires or analyze the collected data.
The core competence of Wise Research is to collect data for other marketing research firms, and these firms provide the information to their clients. One can conclude from the descriptions of the company that it does not have a mission statement, a philosophy or a particular strategy concerning organizational culture and ethical behavior. There is no marketing budget and the office personnel recruits the clients. The lack of ethical behavior of Wise Research leads to a severe damage of their reputation in the long run and to any marketing efforts. Clients will realize in a post purchase evaluation that the data delivered by Wise Research is manipulated and not valid.
2. Financial condition
One can assume that the financial situation is not very good since we learn from the case that benefits promised to employees are paid with a delay. This happens to Cindy, the office supervisor in Dallas. Also, the management discourages employees from talking about their salaries. Another evidence for a poor financial situation is that Sarah is told that she could make $ 25,000 a year with a 40-hour week, which is not true. The company owns no computers; this indicates that they only possess very few assets. The company does not have a marketing budget.
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3. Management philosophy and managerial climate
The case does not say anything about the management philosophy, but is does talk about the behavior of the management, which drastically influences the organizational culture and climate.
The behavior of the management is very unethical. They force their employees to fake organizational figures and they also put a substantial pressure on the employees. They take advantage of personal situations of their employees (such as in the case of Cindy – she desperately needed a job, they paid her less money than other employees) and this gives management an image of dishonesty to employees and to clients. Their behavior is also very informal; the interview with Sarah indicates this.
4. Organizational structure
The owner of the company, Bill Wise, is also the president. His wife Karen works for the company too. The headquarters of the company is in Dallas, and there are four more offices. The offices work with very uneducated staff. Every office has a local manger who carries the responsibility. The office managers communicate directly with the owners of the company.
5. Organizational culture
The organizational culture and also the organizational climate are influenced by the managerial climate. Climate and culture are two different subjects, but they are associated. Hofstede (1998) states in an article “Attitudes, values and organizational cultures” the following about climate and culture: “Climate derives from sociology, culture from anthropology, and this affects the methods by which they are studied; climate is more closely linked with individual motivation and behavior than culture, which resides entirely at the organizational level; climate has an evaluative connotation and partly overlaps with satisfaction; cultures can be different without one being objectively better than the other. […] Climate can fruitfully be seen as a subset of culture”(p. 496).
The organizational culture of Wise Research is very unethical and this is lived and enforced by the management. The organizational climate is very poor because of the bad managerial climate.
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6. Sarah’s job
According to Bill and Karen Wise, Sarah’s job has the following work conditions: the pay is $11 a hour, and she can earn $ 25,000 a year with a time per week of 40 hours. The benefits are health insurance premiums at the same level as the Dallas employees. The Missouri employees normally do not get health insurance benefits. One week of vacation was offered after one year of employment. Performance reviews are held after three and nine months. Raises are only given after performance reviews.
7. Summary of the condition of Wise Research
The condition of Wise Research, especially in a long-term consideration is very poor. The financial situation is poor, there are no marketing activities at all and the behavior of the management plus the organizational climate and culture is unethical. The management might consider it’s unethical behavior as strength for the company to generate profit in the short run, but after some time the different stakeholders of the company will find out and switch to the competition.
D. Sarah Norton – the new employee
1. Sarah’s personality
Sarah Norton is 32 years old and she was brought up in Missouri by a morally strong family. The values in her education were religion coupled with high moral standards. She is respected and liked by family, friends, and colleagues. She never tries to convince other people to share her views in moral standards, ethics or religion. She has one younger sister and a boyfriend in Hammonsville and she is very close with them.
2. Location
Sarah lives in the city of Hammonsville, Missouri. Hammonsville has about 150,000 inhabitants. Hammonsville is the town where she wants to work since her sister and her boyfriend Jeff live there. The city of Hammonsville does not have many opportunities to work as a market researcher, because a small town like this does not contain many industries that need market research.
3. Education and work experience
Sarah started to work after graduating from high school for the state of Missouri. She worked in the professional registration office of the “Board of Healing Arts”. The office is operated in a very professional manner, and this is what Sarah liked most about her work there. After a couple of years in the job, Sarah decided to get a college degree in marketing and management. She went to Hammonsville State University because she wanted to be near her sister. While studying she worked at the local state vocational rehabilitation office. She also worked at a restaurant, for which she had been responsible in the absence of the owner.
People liked her at work because she has a positive work ethic; she is intelligent and has strong moral values. She graduated from the university (double major) with honors. Since she wants to work in the field of marketing research, she worked in many research projects to get experience. She learned how important the ethical handling of data is, and she knows the Code of Ethics by the Marketing Research Association. In 1994 she started her MBA with a specialization in market research. She works as a graduate assistant and is responsible for five more graduate assistants in the marketing department. In 1995 she decides to look for a job.
4. Summary of Sarah’s characteristics
Sarah is a very skilled, educated person with high moral, ethical values and a religious attitude. She is intelligent, has a lot of project experience in marketing research as well as a good college education. Unfortunately she has not graduated from her MBA program yet. She is not flexible in choosing her workplace since she wants to stay in Hammonsville with her boyfriend and her sister.
III. PROBLEMS FOUND IN SITUATION ANALYSIS
A. Statement of primary problems
1. Evidence of problems
Sarah Norton applies for a job at Wise Research after reading their job advertisement in the newspaper. After two interviews she gets hired and is sent directly to Dallas for on the job training. During the first week of training, Sarah understands that the company’s treatment of employees and customers is very unethical. She realizes that she is very unhappy with the situation and she needs to make the decision if she wants to stay with the company or not. These are the different problems I found in the situation analysis:
Ethical Issues: Professionalism
ü The company operates in a very unprofessional way. The job advertisement is placed in the Hammonsville News Monitor, on Sunday, July 9th, 1995. It doesn’t say the name of the company, nor does it give any specific job requirements. It only gives a reference to details about an entry-level management position. Instead of an address a PO-Box is named.
ü The following interview is not very professional either. Sarah meets Mr. and Mrs. Wise in a hotel room in Hammonsville, without knowing that she was going to meet Mrs. Wise too. The interview is very informal and the clothing of the Mr. and Mrs. Wise is not appropriate for a business interview. The office facilities are not shown to Sarah.
ü The second interview is as informal as the first one.
ü The training process also shows a high level of unprofessionalism. Sarah receives an Airport Pick up from the son of Mr. and Mrs. Wise. He invites her for lunch and behaves in a very informal manner and tries to impress Sarah with different statements. He also tries to discover contents of about the phone call Sarah made earlier to the Hammonsville office to find out more about the job. Even though she does not respond to the question he tries several times. Also, he has only a very little understanding of the research process and is not able to answer her questions.
ü There are no computers in the company.
ü The knowledge of the interviewers and other staff of the company about the data collection process is on a very low level.
Ethical issues: Organizational culture
ü Before the interview Sarah called the company to find out more about what they are doing and the local manager reacts very irritated when he hears that she is invited for a job interview. It tells us that the manger does not know what is going on in the company and that the communication is bad. Later in the interview she learns form Bill and Karen Wise that this local mangers was laid off and that she is hired to replace him. As a matter of fact, he is still at the company and he does not know yet, that he will be laid off.
ü Another indicator of unethical organizational culture in the company shows the fact that Sarah is asked not to tell anybody why she is at the company when she starts her training. The other employees are told she is an auditor. Because of this, she has to be at the company first in the morning so that no one can see her clock in.
ü More evidence of dishonesty is shown by the information that actual working time in the company is 37,5 hours, not 40 as said in the interview. This decreases Sarah’s annual salary and she does not earn the promised amount. The dishonesty to employees and different treatments of employees show the low level of organizational culture. For example the company pays Cindy less than Sarah even though they have more or less the same job. Management took advantage of Cindy’s situation when she was hired and her raise of salary was delayed.
ü Another incident gives information about the organizational culture: one of the interviewers is supposed to be laid off because this interviewer talked to somebody else in the company about her salary. The management initiates this lay off. The employee is in a very bad financial and social situation that does not impress the management at all. After begging to keep the job, the interviewer is allowed to stay.
Ethical issues: The Code of Ethics
The Code of Ethics is shown as Appendix II.
There are several actions by Wise Research, which interfere with The Code of Ethics by the MRA. Reports about how many interviews are completed per hour are manipulated so that these reports show the exact number required. With this method Wise Research manipulates the figures regarding how many potential interviewees were screened. Wise Research uses family members and relatives of the interviewers to answer survey questions if they run out of time. They use these relatives several times with different names, so that the clients cannot find out. This affects the validity of the data.
