ETH 2200 Module 4 Written Assignment: An Ethical Decision From Theory to Practice Example

Six Bags of Cold Patch: Working Through an Ethical Decision on a Township Crew

Student Name

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

ETH-2200: Leading the Way: A Path Towards Ethical Leadership

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Six Bags of Cold Patch: Working Through an Ethical Decision on a Township Crew

The Dilemma

On a Friday in October, I noticed that our stock of cold patch, the bagged asphalt we use for temporary pothole repairs, was six bags short. Each bag costs the township about $14. The next week, I saw the bags in the bed of a crew member's personal pickup. He has worked for the township for 22 years, trained me when I started and is close to retirement. He also does driveway sealing on weekends. When I asked him privately, he said, "It's a few bags. Half the guys take something. The township wastes more than that every week."

Step 1: Moral Awareness

Rest (1986) argued that ethical action requires four steps, each of which can fail: recognizing that a situation is a moral issue, judging what is right, intending to do it and carrying it out. The first step is less obvious than it seems. The amount is small, and the crew member's comment frames it as normal. Jones (1991) found that people are less likely to recognize an issue as moral when its consequences seem small and when it is common practice. Both conditions are present here. Yet taking public property for private profit is theft regardless of the amount, and if it is common, the problem is larger than one person. I recognized it as a moral issue.

Step 2: Moral Judgment

Consequences. Reporting could end a long career just before retirement and damage my relationships on the crew. Not reporting leaves taxpayers paying for private work, signals to the crew that theft is acceptable and exposes me to discipline if it comes out later.

Duties. As a crew leader, I have a duty under township policy to report misuse of property. I also have loyalty to a colleague who helped me, but loyalty does not extend to covering wrongdoing.

Virtue. A person of integrity in my role would not pretend not to have seen it, and would also treat a longtime colleague with respect.

All three frameworks point toward acting, though consequences argue for acting carefully.

Step 3: Moral Intention and the Pressures Against It

The hardest step is wanting to act when it costs something. Bandura (1999) described moral disengagement, the mental moves that let people do wrong without feeling wrong. The crew member's comment uses three: comparing the theft to larger waste ("the township wastes more"), spreading responsibility ("half the guys take something") and minimizing harm ("a few bags"). I noticed similar thoughts in myself: he is retiring soon; it is only $84. Recognizing these as disengagement, not reasons, helped me resist them. Kish-Gephart et al. (2010) found that unethical choices rise when a workplace's culture tolerates them, which means that if the crew member is right about others, ignoring this would strengthen the culture that produced it.

Step 4: Moral Action

I decided to report the incident to the superintendent, but to do it in a way that respected the crew member. I told him first, face to face, that I would be reporting it and why, and suggested he return the bags and tell the superintendent himself before I did. He did both. I also told the superintendent, without naming anyone, that the crew member had said others take material, and recommended a simple inventory sign-out sheet for all bagged materials. The superintendent issued a written warning, required repayment and did not end his employment. The sign-out sheet started the next month.

Evaluation

The decision meets the test of all three frameworks: it honored my duty, produced better long-term consequences for the crew's culture than silence would have and was done with honesty and respect. It cost me something; the crew member was cool toward me for several weeks. The model helped most at step three, because naming the excuses as moral disengagement made them easier to set aside.

References

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193-209. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_3

Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366-395. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1991.4278958

Kish-Gephart, J. J., Harrison, D. A., & Treviño, L. K. (2010). Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: Meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017103

Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral development: Advances in research and theory. Praeger.