Reference no: EM13135984

Executive Summary 

It was 9:30 in the evening of what had been a very long Friday when the phone rang in Chip Brownlee's home study. On the line was Arch Carter, the lead director of Galvatrens, the Houston-based consumer products company that Chip had led as chairman and CEO for the past ten years. 
"I just got your voice mail," Arch said. "The parts about a lawsuit and accusations that we manipulated our sales numbers certainly got my attention. What's going on?" 
"At this point, I don't know much," Chip responded, "but I wanted to give you a heads-up. A former divisional sales manager has filed a lawsuit against the company, charging he was wrongfully terminated because he tried to report an illegal scheme to inflate sales." 
Chip had received a copy of the lawsuit that afternoon. As he'd read through the complaint, he'd gotten a whole new perspective on the multiple departures that had rocked Sales during the past four weeks. The plaintiff was Mike Fields, who had left Galvatrens three weeks earlier. He claimed that he'd come across a plan devised by Greg Wilson, another divisional sales manager. According to Mike, Greg had proposed shipping goods to a few of his bigger customers, billing them, and booking the sales-but with a side agreement that they wouldn't have to take ownership, could return the shipments at any time, and would get a 2% discount on any goods they accepted and paid for in the following quarter. The purpose of the channel-stuffing scheme was to meet quarterly sales targets and trigger bonuses, Mike contended. 
"So what's the wrongful termination charge about?" Arch asked. 
"Mike says he found out about the scheme by accident and, since he didn't know who else might be involved, contacted Harry about it," Chip said. In the lawsuit, Mike claimed that he had left a confidential voice mail for Harry Mart, Galvatrens's COO, asking to speak with him about a matter of the utmost urgency involving possible misconduct by a company manager. He said Harry never followed up with him and instead referred the matter to Mike's boss, Terry Samples. Until a week ago, when he left abruptly to take another job, Terry had been the senior vice president of sales.
"Mike alleges that Terry subsequently told him his performance was not up to snuff and that he'd have to accept a demotion and a transfer to Indianapolis if he wanted to stay with the company," Chip continued. "Mike says the demotion and transfer were in retaliation for exposing the channel-stuffing scheme-and Terry knew that Mike, as a divorced father with joint custody of his kids, couldn't leave town." 
"Yikes! So Terry could have been involved in this?" 
• The report should be typed double spaced, using Times New Roman font size of either 10 point or 12 point. 
• Every page should be clearly numbered. 
• The assignment should include the following parts: 
(a) A title / cover page, which indicates basic information such as Subject title, Subject code, Trimester number, Assignment title, group members' full names and KOI student numbers, word count and name of the tutor. 
(b) Executive Summary 
(c) Table of Contents 
(d) main contents - Introduction, Analysis, Conclusions and Recommendations - Appendices (if any). 
(e) References (using Harvard - Anglia style 
(f) Attachments 
Marking Guide: Analysis 30% 
Research - extent and application 30% 
Recommendations/conclusions 20% 
Presentation 20% 
This mark will be scaled to a mark out of 20 

Note 
Report writing on case 
Include all the ethical issues 
Legitimacy - duties and responsibility-do what is right because it is right thing to do 
Social contract 
Utilitarianism 
Deontology 
Libertarianism - says we are equally free. 
Virtue ethics 
Relavant examples