Amgen's Whistleblowing Ethical Scenario

Amgen Whistleblowing Case Amgen is a Thousand Oaks, California-based firm that encountered the unenviable task of dealing with lawsuits filed by 15 states on the allegations of a Medicaid kickback scheme. The firm also encountered two extra whistleblowing lawsuits that were filed against it in Ventura County by former employees who accused the company of sacking after they detected unethical practices within the firm's operations and reported the wrongdoings to superiors.

Amgen has experienced these lawsuits for alleged unethical practices despite enacting a Code of Ethics that emphasizes the need for employees and all organizational stakeholders to do the right thing. According to Amgen's Code of Ethics, employees are not only encouraged to do the right thing but also asked to resolve ethical dilemmas through evaluating the legality of proposed actions, compliance with organizational policies, company's values, and evaluation of ethical issues such as rights and respect.

Shawn O'Brien allegations and the alleged retaliation seem contradictory to the principles and practices embedded in Amgen's Code of Ethics. The allegations by O'Brien seemingly contradicted the principles and practices established in the code through failure to examine the legality of proposed actions. On the contrary, the alleged retaliation against O'Brien violates the principles and practices since they do no foster the adoption of right practices as stated in company policies. Moreover, the retaliation was not based on the firm's value and assessment of ethical issues like rights and respect.

Whistleblowing is defined as an employee's disclosure of unethical, illegitimate, immoral, and illegal practices by employers to people or organizational stakeholders with the capability to enforce effective action ("What is 'Whistleblowing'?" par, 1). In some cases, whistleblowing is a term that can also refer to the disclosure of wrongdoing by organizational members regarding an issue considered to be of public interest. There are two different types of whistleblowing i.e. internal and external whistleblowing.

Internal whistleblowing is defined as reporting wrongdoing to people within the firm with adequate authority to deal with the issue whereas external whistleblowing is reporting wrongdoing to people outside the firm like the relevant federal agency (Dworkin & Baucus, p.1281). Given the facts of the case, O'Brien took appropriate steps to report his concerns since the first step would require conducting internal whistleblowing. Since his initial efforts proved futile, O'Brien should have considered conducting external whistleblowing rather than wait to file lawsuit upon retaliation.

From an ethical perspective, O'Brien's actions were motivated by utilitarian ethical principle, which postulates that ethical actions are based on motivations to achieve good for all. O'Brien's use of this ethical principle to guide his actions is evident in the fact that he sought to ensure that the company's processes and operations were geared towards promoting the good of all its stakeholders rather than merely focusing on making profits alone as the expense of the community.

His advocacy for doing the right thing was largely based on the need to promote the good of all individuals. In addition, O'Brien's actions fit into the conventional or role conformity and post-conventional or self-accepted moral principles levels of Kohlberg's model of moral development. In this case, his actions were based on the belief that moral values are embedded in performing the right role and conformity to mutual rights, duties, and standards. The problems with Medicaid kickbacks.