Reference no: EM133145665

Case Study

James Whyte is a senior director at Jamaica Training and Development (JTD) a quasi government organization engaged in training and development in Jamaica and the Caribbean region. Whyte is the main technical executive in the organization, providing leadership in policy formulation and advice on strategic direction as it relates to the technical direction and operation of the organization. He leads the organization in forging partnerships and collaboration with the private sector and with regional governments. Whyte, therefore, is required to travel extensively in the Caribbean region to attend high level meeting with other senior officials. He has developed a good reputation in the training and development field and is highly regarded. Whyte has ambitions of establishing himself as an international consultant and over the past five years, taking advantage of the contacts that he had formed from representing his employer, he has been undertaking consultancies in the region mainly with regional government entities. These consultancies involve providing similar services to those provided by his employer. Indeed, he would often arrange to do these consultancies during official visits to represent his employer or he would utilize his leave entitlement to complete the consultancies. Because of the success of his consultancies, Whyte in partnership with another senior colleague decided to establish their own company, named "Caribbean Training and Development" (CTD). As part of its promotion process CTD established a website. On the website numerous pictures of Whyte and colleague are shown participating in JTD functions. Whyte is described as CTD's main strategist while his colleague is described as the director of programmers. The website also advertises CTD as providing similar services as JTD, indeed much of the technical material published on the site are recognized as JTD materials. Neither Whyte nor his colleague has declared interest in CTD to their employer even though JTD regulations forbid its employees to be engaged in other employment without permission. Recently, the existence of CTD was brought to the attention of the Chairman of the board of directors of JTD. She immediately visited CTD's website and was immediately alarmed by its contents.

1. What ethical issues might cause the chairman of JTD to be alarmed? 
2. What should the chairman of JTD do?
3. Assume that having been made aware of their employer's knowledge of their association with CTD James Whyte and his colleague decides to defend their actions. How might they seek to justify their actions if the adopt a utilitarian stance?
4. Describe the kind of conflict of interest taking place here
5. Discuss two approaches that can be used to manage conflicts of interest.