Reference no: EM133446902

Case Study: Mark worked for an automotive steel casting company. He was part of a small group asked to investigate the cause of an operating problem that had developed in the brakes of a new luxury automobile and to make recommendations for its improvement. Initial analysis could not determine if the problem created an unsafe condition, but the problem led to irritating sounds when the automobile was driven at normal speeds. The boss/ vice president of engineering told the group that he was certain that the problem was due to tensile stress in the castings and asked employees not to waste time investigating this further. Mark and a lab technician conducted additional tests and found conclusive evidence that the problem was not tensile stress. As Mark began work on other possible explanations of the problem, he was told by his boss that the problem had been solved. A report prepared by his boss strongly supported the tensile stress hypothesis. Most of the data points from Mark's experiments had been omitted or changed to fit the curves. The boss's report "proved" that tensile stress was responsible for the problem.

Questions:

Imagine you are Mark-what should you do? Please conduct an ethical analysis of this situation using the following questions as a guide.
a. What ethical issues does mark face in this scenario?
b. Who are the key stakeholders and what are their stakes?
c. How would you rate Mark's boss as an ethical leader (you might have to infer this based on the case facts)? Please explain your rating.
d. Evaluate this situation using multiple ethical frameworks/tools. (prescriptive ethical frameworks)
e. What should Mark do? Make a recommendation that is supported by your analysis and explain how he should implement his plan.