¶ … decision to go along with his boss, Tom, notwithstanding his better judgment, he was uncomfortable. After all, he knows in advance that the quality of the products he will be providing to the local schools is terrible. How could he in good conscience deliver pens that leak and notebooks with pages that come apart easily.
What ethical issues are raised in this story? The very fact that schools in the area have trusted the company Sam works for, and that the products he has delivered to the schools have previously been of good quality, providing them with shoddy products at this point in his job puts his reputation in jeopardy. Besides his personal issues (reputation, values, responsibilities), the ethical issues raised include: a) there is deception when you sell products the customer believes are worthy but in fact they are not worthy; b) when you knowingly charge the same price for inferior products that you do for high quality products you are engaging in fraud, which goes beyond ethics and becomes a legal matter; c) once a worker like Sam allows himself to be caught in an unethical trap like this one, and he justifies it as just following orders (which is what Adolf Eichmann did...
When the supplies in the classroom cabinet fall apart and the pens leak on students' written work, their hands and clothing, students, teachers, administrators, and parents are impacted; parents are also impacted because they wind up having to buy better school supplies for their children.
What should Sam do or not do? Sam should try to convince his boss to continue using the high quality materials instead of the inferior materials. And if that doesn't succeed, Sam should give his resignation. He must resist getting into deceptive…
