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Professional Ethical Analysis Paper

Ryan Hall
BIS 345
Arizona State University
Professor Bill Erwin
August 5, 2015

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Introduction
This paper will analyze some of the various professional ethics that come into play in the
professional services arena. I have been working as a land surveyor for the last sixteen years and
with the firm I am currently employed for over ten years. I am the production manager for the
mapping department within our organization and my goal is to create a more productive and
cohesive team and in doing so implementing a high ethical standard as our foundation. I have
included six case studies which each deal with a unique obstacle that can be encountered within
the professional services industry. Professional interviews were conducted to better detail some
of the specific ethical challenges that are faced within this industry and are incorporated into this
paper. Finally, I will discuss these ethical challenges as well as the philosophy I feel can best be
used to address these challenges.
Case Study No. 1
Quality Management: Signing Off on a Substandard Product
http://www.scu.edu/r/ethics-center/ethicsblog/silicon-valley/16452/Quality
Management:-Signing-Off-on-a-Substandard-Product
Lauren's first job after graduation from Santa Clara University was working as a quality
engineer with a highly respected technology company. She had to monitor the manufacturing
process and make sure that all products met customer specifications. Just three months into her
position, the company booked a very large deal with a strategic customer, helping establish the
company's dominance in the industry.
Specifically, Lauren's company was designing a device that would be integrated into
another company's product. The customer contracted out this work because they were
experiencing rapid growth and cannot meet demand otherwise. They picked Lauren's company
because of its good reputation and fast turnaround time. Lauren's role was to test the new device
and make sure it met technical and environmental specifications, particularly functionality under
extreme conditions, such as high humidity.

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The test results showed that the products did not meet the quality standards agreed upon,
but only by a very small margin. Her general manager instructed her to push it through anyway,
stating that the risk of failure was not great enough to delay mass production. Moreover, the
likelihood of the product ever being placed in such extreme situations was so small that the
manager did not feel jeopardizing the contract was worth it.
Lauren spoke to her immediate boss, who worked under her general manager, and he also
advocated pushing the product through to production. She was faced with the choice of ignoring
company protocols or going against management. Sweeping the problem under the rug would
require Lauren to sign off on a report that she knew to be fraudulent. She also knew that if she
went to upper management her working relationships with her immediate bosses would be
strained, maybe even preventing her success in the company. Not to mention, the company
would have to delay production and possibly lose the contract.
Commentary
I chose this case study because I feel the ethical dilemma Lauren faced was all too
commonplace in todays organizations. Employees are all too often put into a situation where
they have to choose between what they know if the right choice and what their superior has
instructed them to do. It is very difficult to disobey your superior and keep your job, but it can
also be tough to live with a decision that goes against what you believe is right.
Case Study No. 2
The Effects of Ethics Policies: A Positive Story
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/positive-story.html
By Jessica Silliman
Mike Bradley was well established in his career in human resources when he went to
work for a mid-size, IT company located in the Bay Area. At the time, Arthur Andersen had just
gone out of business for illegal accounting practices and ethics scandals were all over the news.
But against the grain, Mike's new company had taken the commitment to ethics to a new level.
The company made a conscious effort to dedicate itself to be an employer that actively supported

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ethical business practices. They wanted employees to be comfortable speaking up about ethical
issues, so they partnered with an external ethics company which fielded anonymous phone calls
about ethics concerns. In addition, each employee was required to navigate an online values
course that provided ethical dilemmas for employees to solve. Mike felt comfortable knowing his
company took ethics seriously.
After two years with the company, Mike encountered a situation that questioned his
morals. He had been assigned to create an online tool designed to explain the inner workings of
the company to each employee. He had committed to having it done in two weeks, but he
encountered a problem: some of the content necessary for the online tool was under copyright.
Mike knew that he didn't have time to request use of the material. He also knew that, if he used it
illegally, it was likely nobody would notice. "Deep down I knew it wasn't right to use the
content," said Mike.
Flagging this as a concern for the company would delay the project, but Mike was
committed to the ethical stance of the company, so he went to the management team. He told
them that, although he knew he wanted the project done, he would be forced to violate the
company's stance to accomplish the project on time.
Mike offered two options to the management: they could purchase the content or
eliminate it from the online tool. Either way, the project would be delayed.
Mike was quickly praised by the management for bringing the issue to their attention. Managers
told him that he did the right thing.
Commentary
I chose this case study because it was a breath of fresh air and supports something I
strongly believe in. Not only was this company projecting the image that they were an ethical
company, they were backing it up as well. It is great to see an employee rewarded for making an
ethical decision even though it would cause his project to fall behind schedule. Deadlines seem
to be an incredibly strong driving force in business and tend to trump the ethical issues in terms
of importance.

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Case Study No. 3

Client Obligations and Handling your Boss
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/client-obligations.html
By Jessica Silliman
Rosie Alexander had recently lost her job from the dot-com bust when she decided to
switch industries and join a medium-sized consulting firm where she helped individual clients
manage their personal portfolios. Although the firm wasn't the top in the market, the firm had
several long-term clients who gave them a good reputation amongst peers.
One long-term client, Betty Fitz, emailed Rosie's boss, Conor Hall, asking a few
questions about a recent acquisition of stock. Conor forwarded the inquiries to Rosie, asking her
for help. Rosie, new to the job and not fully aware of Ms. Fitz's financial background, wasn't able
to answer all of Ms. Fitz's questions-they needed to be put to someone with more expertise. So
she wrote an email back to Conor, letting him know that she needed more information before she
could fully evaluate Ms. Fitz's situation. She explicitly stated in the email to Conor that her reply
was an inquiry for further information and was not meant to be forwarded on to Ms. Fritz. Rosie
felt her answer was still in an informal, rough form and left many questions unanswered.
A few days later, Ms. Fitz emailed Conor again, asking if he had gotten her questions
answered. In a rush, Conor forwarded Rosie's email to Ms. Fitz. Later, he told Rosie that he felt
her response was good enough and that he didn't have the time to waste composing a whole new
document. When Ms. Fitz complained about the lack of detail in the response, Conor placed the
blame on Rosie, his "clearly incompetent assistant."
"He messed with my reputation," said Rosie. "I don't normally like to create commotion,
but I felt this was a necessary battle I had to fight."
In Rosie's mind, Conor had not only lied to a client and implicated her, he had also
damaged her professional reputation with a longstanding client. She looked unreliable.

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Rosie approached Conor the following day and said that all he needed to tell Ms. Fitz was that he
had forgotten or hadn't gotten a chance to look at it yet. Either way, each answer would have
made him appear busy-something completely justifiable to the client. And even if Rosie had
messed up, she told Conor that she would expect him to either fire her or cover for her-not
damage her reputation and leave her unable to defend herself.
Surprisingly, Conor agreed and apologized to Rosie-and later apologized to Ms. Fitz.
Commentary
I chose this case study because I personally strongly believe in a manager being
ultimately responsible for his team (within reason). This manager decided he was too busy to
answer the email and passed it off to his subordinate. This was perfectly acceptable until the
subordinate asked for help and was not provided it. Then the manager blamed the subordinate for
the lack of a detailed response. In my opinion the manager failed on multiple fronts here. He first
passed a long a task to a subordinate that was clearly over her head. He then did not offer her any
support and ultimately blamed her for the failure. Terrible management practice!
Case Study No. 4
Family Business Topic: Compensation/Discrimination
http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ethics/AA/mgmt01-case.pdf
Characters: Jane, Manager, Payroll Department for R&S Electronic Service Company Brad,
Owner of 1tdcS Electronic Service Company Eddie, General Manager Greg, Service Technician
and Eddies brother
Jane has just been hired as the head of the Payroll Department at R&S Electronics
Service Company, a firm of 75 employees. She was hired by Eddie, the General Manager of the
company, who informed her of the need for maintaining strict confidentiality regarding employee
salaries and pay scales. He also informed her that he fired the previous Payroll Department head
for breaking that confidentiality by discussing employees salaries. She was also formally
introduced to Brad, the owner, who told her to see him if she has any questions or problems.
Both Brad and Eddie made her feel welcome.

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After three months of employment, Jane begins to wonder why Greg makes so much
more in commissions than the other service technicians. She assumes that he must be highly
qualified and must work rapidly because she has overheard Brad commending Greg on his
performance on several occasions. She has also noticed Brad, Eddie, and Greg having lunch
together frequently.
One day, Eddie gives Jane the stack of work tickets for the service technicians for the
upcoming week. The technicians are to take whatever ticket is on top when they finish the job
they were working on. After putting the tickets where they belong, Jane remembers she has a
doctors appointment the next morning and returns to Eddies office to tell him she will be
reporting late for work. When she enters Eddies office, she sees Eddie give Greg a separate stack
of work tickets. As she stands there, Eddie tells her if she mentions this to anyone, he will fire
her. Jane is upset because she understates that Eddie is giving the easier, high-commission work
to his brother. Jane also realizes that Eddie does have the authority to hire and fire her. Since she
has only been at the company a short time, she is also still on probation This is her first job since
college. She wonders what she should do. Author: Dr. Marilyn M. Helms, Associate Professor of
Management, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Commentary
I chose this case study because I currently work for a family owned organization and can
see how this behavior could become an issue. Though the preferred treatment of Greg doesnt
seem fair to the other technicians, I am not sure it is anyones business other than the owners of
the company. I am a believer in that the owner of a company should be able to run the company
how ever they see fit. If they want to pay a certain employee more than another, in my opinion
that is their prerogative. They run the risk of others finding out and maybe facing the backlash
of their response, but they also have the right to find another job if they dont like working for
this organization.

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Case Study No. 5
A Good Team Player
http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ethics/AA/mgmt06-case.pdf
Topic: Leadership Characters: Steven, Assistant Department Manager Kristin, Newly appointed
supervisor of Steven's work section
Having done well as a staff accountant in the accounts payable section of a major
industrial firm for several years since his graduation from college, Steven felt that he had learned
much about the ins and outs of survival in an intensely bureaucratic organization. It is thus
not surprising that he was relaxed and unconcerned about his circumstances at the company as he
entered the employee lounge to attend the late-afternoon welcoming reception for his new
supervisor.
The new manager of accounts payable, Kristin, had been transferred to Stevens division
from a similar position in another subsidiary of the company because of her proven talent for
organizing and improving the efficiency of operations there. A no-nonsense type of manager,
Kristin was experienced and determined to perform her new assignment with the same vigor that
had brought her so much success throughout her career.
At the reception, Kristin circulated through the room, introducing herself to her new
subordinates and asking each of them if they had any suggestions that would help make the
payables section a better place to work. When she approached Steven, he told her about
something that had been on his mind lately: that people seemed to him to gain promotions and be
given opportunities to work overtime based on who liked them, and not on the quality of their
work. In reply, Kristin politely stated that she would do everything that she could to see that
whatever it was he was referring to would have no place in the team she would lead.
Upon his arrival at work the next day, Steven received a phone call from Kristins
secretary asking that he meet with his new boss later that morning. He had barely entered her
office for the meeting when she looked him straight in the eye and said, I will not tolerate

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individuals in this organization who are not good team players. Yesterday afternoon you led me
to believe that there are people in this office who are not acting in the best interests of the
company, and I want to know who. I want you to tell me the names of the managers you were
referring to note, and keep me informed if you see anyone hurting this company, or Ive got to
think that maybe youre part of the problems around here. Stunned by both the tone and content
of her statement, Steven quickly tried to think of a way to respond.
Author: Michael G. Bowen, Assistant Professor of Management, University of Notre Dame
Commentary
I chose this case study because I feel as though the overall success of a team is dependent
upon the individual team members and how they relate to one another. This newly appointed
manager came into her new position with a vigor and no-nonsense approach. While this is not
necessarily bad, she is putting Steven in a really bad position in forcing him to divulge
information about fellow teammates. She is in fact not being a good team leader.
Case Study No. 6
But My Textbook Said This Would Work
http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ethics/AA/mgmt14-case.pdf
Topic: Performance Appraisal
Characters: Alice, a new manager of Training and Development in a large bank Belinda, a tellertrainee who is black
Alice was hired last year as a first-line manager in the Training and Development
department of the bank where she has worked part-time for several years while earning her
bachelors degree in business. Her main responsibility is to train bank tellers. The bank is very
big on promotion from within, so most people start as tellers. The bank is also trying to hire (and
eventually promote) more racial minorities, because there arent a lot of minorities on the staff.
In fact, the bank has been the target of several discrimination lawsuits the last few years and now
wants to change its image of being a racist organization.

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The banks classroom facility has training work stations of tellers equipment. When a
trainee is hired, training takes an entire work week, and each trainee is either passed or failed at
the end of the week. Each class of new trainees usually consists of about a dozen people.
Alice has been using written and audiovisual materials developed by the bank. Also, she
took a class in Training while a student. Consequently, she knows that adults learn more
effectively when they are given positive reinforcement (for doing something correctly) and
constructive criticism (for making a mistake). So far, this has worked pretty well. Today,
however, three days into a session, she has been hit with a potentially serious complaint.
Belinda is a black teller-trainee. She seems to have a very hard time learning some of the
material, much more so than some of her counterparts. All of the other trainees happen to be
white. Because much of the training involves objective quizzes and hands-on computer work,
Alice knows that Belinda really did make a lot of mistakes. Alice had been careful to point out
Belindas many mistakes and explain how to correct them. Belinda, however, does not appreciate
the constructive criticism. She insists that Alice is treating her differently because of her race and
wants to file a formal complaint unless Alice lets up on her: Youre picking on me because Im
black. I don't see you picking on the white girls. Id better pass this training, or your company is
in trouble.
Author: Sue Margaret Norton, Assistant Professor of Business, University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Commentary
I chose this case study because of the issue of race equality and the issues that can arise in
organizations as a result of mishandlings of it. This seems to be an increasingly problematic topic
and is something that needs to be addressed. I could not be more in support or equal rights for all
Americans, regardless of race, gender etc. But I do have a serious problem when race inequality
is used as a strategy for getting ahead in an organization. This topic has become so sensitive that
it is near impossible to deal with. All people should be treated equally regardless of race.

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Method
I chose to interview two individuals from the organization I currently work for. The first
is Jason whom is the President and owner of the company and the second is a partner of the
company named Eric. They both are professional land surveyors and have been with the
company since its inception. I felt their background and experience in this industry could provide
invaluable insight in the topic of ethics.
I chose to derive questions from each of the case studies that I felt pertain to the professional
services industry, they are as follows:
1) Have you found yourself in a position where you have had to instruct an employee to
sacrifice the quality of the deliverable due to time constraints?
2) What were the ethical values you considered to be important when starting this
company and why?
3) When faced with a situation where an employee has made a mistake on a project and
the client brings this to your attention, how do you respond?
4) What is your stance on how employees are compensated and do you think there should
be some sort of equality in the level of compensation each employee receives?
5) Have you ever had an individual within the company with an attitude that was not
beneficial to the rest of the team of threatened the teams cohesiveness?
6) Have you ever had to make a decision within the organization that had ones race or
gender as an undertone?

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Interview Results
Interview with Jason
Jason is the President and majority owner of a medium sized land surveying company. He
has been practicing land surveying for nearly twenty years and has gained invaluable experience
in the professional services industry in this time.
1) Have you found yourself in a position where you have had to instruct an
employee to sacrifice the quality of the deliverable due to time constraints?
In the land surveying industry we are constantly up against tight deadlines, some of
which are modified mid-stream of a project. In order to meet the clients timeline, sometimes we
are forced to cut back on the level of detail we may put into a survey that has a more reasonable
deadline. We never justify the quality of our work though. If we do omit some details of the
survey, we communicate this to the client and typically issue a revised survey that includes the
omitted items a couple of weeks later.
2) What were the ethical values you considered to be important when starting this
company and why?
When this company was started, we all believed on a strong set of ethics to run the
company by. Honesty and integrity were the two that we all agreed were the most important. We
had worked for a company previously that did not place any value on honesty and integrity and
this was not something we wanted to offer our clients.
3) When faced with a situation where an employee has made a mistake on a project
and the client brings this to your attention, how do you respond?
I strongly believe that the client is always right, well most of the time anyway. If an issue
arises I personally will take full responsibility for the mistake if it in fact was a mistake that we
made. It if was not our mistake, I will politely explain to the client why this was not our mistake
but we will do what ever we can to rectify the problem. I would speak with the employee that

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made this mistake after the fact to let them know what transpired in order for them to learn from
the situation.
4) What is your stance on how employees are compensated and do you think there
should be some sort of equality in the level of compensation each employee receives.
In this industry there are many different levels of knowledge, experience and skills that
can be taken into consideration. Just because two employees have the same position doesnt
mean they perform their responsibilities at the same level or effectiveness. For this reason I
believe that the employees compensation is solely dependent upon performance.
5) Have you ever had an individual come into the company with an attitude that was
not beneficial to the rest of the team of threatened the teams cohesiveness?
We did hire an individual at one point that did not gel with the rest of the employees. It
came to my attention that they would treat me vastly different than they would the other
employees. This one individual created an atmosphere of animosity within the organization and
we eventually had to part ways.
6) Have you ever had to make a decision within the organization that had ones race
or gender as an undertone?
There has been many different employees from all backgrounds come and go from this
organization over the course of time. I have felt the need to consider the sensitivity that can be
associated with decisions that could be interpreted as having something to do with gender or
race. I have never personally made a decision based upon these factors and have never had any
issues with the individuals that were involved.
Interview with Eric
Eric is a professional surveyor and a minority owner of the organization. He has also
been with the company from its inception and has been practicing surveying for nearly thirty
years. Eric has been employed through various companies over the years and has gained a lot of
invaluable experience but also witnessed a lot of examples of what not to do.

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1) Have you found yourself in a position where you have had to instruct an
employee to sacrifice the quality of the deliverable due to time constraints?
There are times on a construction site when the site superintendent is asking for
something that is either ridiculous or beyond our scope of services. We have a tight schedule of
various jobs we must visit each day and thus only can spend so much time at each site. This
schedule is based upon the request for staking by the contractor prior to us visiting the site. When
on site and asked to do extra tasks than what was initially scheduled, I do everything I can to
accommodate them, but there are occasions when time does not allow for extra work to be
completed. It is in these times that I may decide to provide the staking requested, just not to the
level the contractor asked for. I would never sacrifice the quality of the staking though.
2) What were the ethical values you considered to be important when starting this
company and why?
I believe that being upfront with clients and charging fair prices for the services
performed are important ethical values I see as being important. We know that if a client can trust
us and believe that we are providing what we believe is a fair price then they will always respect
us as an organization. They may not always like the price and may choose to go somewhere else,
but they know that we are not trying to gouge them.
3) When faced with a situation where an employee has made a mistake on a project
and the client brings this to your attention, how do you respond?
As I mentioned in my answer to the previous question, I believe honesty is the best
policy. If we made a mistake then we need to own it. I am not a fan of throwing individuals
under the bus and in doing so dont usually solve the problem anyway. We need to own our
mistakes and do what is needed to resolve the problem.
4) What is your stance on how employees are compensated and do you think there
should be some sort of equality in the level of compensation each employee receives.
Employee compensation is something that needs to be taken into consideration for each
individual employee. This is not a business where the employees complete redundant tasks
which the performance of the employee can be measured solely by analyzing the speed and

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accuracy. The tasks are complex and each employee will complete these tasks in a different
manor. Thus there are many variables that are taken into consideration when evaluating an
employees compensation.
5) Have you ever had an individual come into the company with an attitude that was
not beneficial to the rest of the team of threatened the teams cohesiveness?
We have an individual working for our company presently that does not perform to the
level he should and at times takes advantage of the company as a whole. The other employees
notice this and do not appreciate it much. This causes a lack of cohesiveness between the team
members as some may support this individual and others do not agree with his actions.
6) Have you ever had to make a decision within the organization that had ones race
or gender as an undertone?
I dont believe race or gender has anything to do with our organizations decisions. I base
my decision solely off the performance of the individual. If a woman can do the job better than a
man then she deserves to have the job. Conversely, if she cannot perform the job as well as her
male counterpart then he deserves to have the job. I have worked with both men and women and
people from many different ethnicities and never had a problem with this.
Discussion
Ethics in the business world can mean different things to different people. There are some
organizations that do not appear to be run by any sort of ethics and then there are those that pride
themselves on the ethics their company is founded upon. The company I currently work for is
fortunately a very ethically sound organization. All of the owners as well as the employees fully
buy into and support the ethics that define the organization and I believe this is a very strong
reason this organization made it through the economical downturn while many other
organizations ended up closing their doors. The ethical concerns I brought to light within the
interviews I conducted provided valuable insight to these topics. In reviewing these interviews
and my own experience in this line of work, I believe the pragmatist approach would serve me
best in this field. According to Thompson, ethics is not about proving what is good or right

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but about an ever-changing process that we engage in to discover a more enlightened way of
living(Thompson. pg 17).
The first case study I chose focuses on a situation where the overall quality of a product
was sacrificed to be able to meet the clients deadline. This is a very real problem that can be
faced in the professional services industry and land surveying particularly. The projects we work
on typically are relatively short and have tight deadlines. As revealed in my interviews, these
tight deadlines can put our organization in a bind. If we do not meet our deadlines our clients can
stand to lose extremely large sums of money. Being the ethical organization we are we do
everything we can in order to meet these deadlines and not sacrifice our ethics. One great way to
accomplish this is to inform the client that they will receive a survey on time but some of the
detailed items will be omitted until a later date. The communication aspect of this is key and
something the client can only respect, even if they do not like the fact that they are not receiving
a 100% completed survey.
Ethnical values was the topic of the second case study and something I have always
prided myself upon. It was no surprise to me that the individuals I interviewed responded as they
did because this was the main reason I came to work for this company in the first place. I
previously worked with these individuals at a company that was as unethical as it could be. I
witnessed the difference in how the two organizations were run after Jason and Eric started their
own company, and I was drawn to this. John Deweys pragmatic approach to ethics reveals that
ethics is not about proving what is good or right. Rather, ethics is a way of living that enables
enlightened conduct (Donaldson, pg 89). Everyday when I leave work, regardless of what has
transpired that day, I know I can be proud of the company I work for because we strive to be
morally and ethically sound in all of the decisions we make. We also learn from the mistakes we
make and apply those lessons to future decisions.
The third case study I chose dealt with a manager who appeared to be more concerned
with his own image with the clients than he was with empowering and standing behind his
employees. This case is directly applicable to my daily experience at work as I manage multiple
projects at any given time. I do a lot of the work on my own projects, but also have other team

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members who complete some of the work as well. It is a valuable lesson that I learned from these
interviews that I need to take the full responsibility to the client for issues that arise. I also
learned that these issues need to be treated as a learning experience for the team member that
made the mistake rather than an opportunity to prove ones superiority.
Employee compensation on the surface seems to be a fairly straight forward component
of business, but can be actually be very complicated. This is especially true of the land surveying
industry. All positions within this industry are filled with individuals of varying levels of
professional experience and capabilities. These are two very important factors in the level of
compensation an employee should receive, but there are others as well. Reliability and tenure are
also both important aspects to consider. It does not matter how talented an employee is, if they
do not show up regularly, they are not of much use to the company. I believe it is the
responsibility of the owner(s) of the organization to determine what the level of compensation
each employee will receive. There are many factors that can impact this decision and this should
be at the sole discretion of the owners(s). The interviews supported my initial perceptions of this
topic as an individuals compensation is very dynamic in nature. This in my opinion goes hand in
hand with Deweys philosophy that ethics are dynamic and that we should consider each
situation individually and not try to apply a static set of ethics to all decisions (Donaldson, pg.
90).
The cohesiveness of the team is extremely important to the overall success of the
organization in most industries. This is not an exception for the land surveying industry. Most
every project that we work on relies upon multiple individuals to complete their tasks efficiently
and accurately. These individuals must work well together in order for these individual tasks to
all come together to make the final deliverable. It can take just one individual who does not gel
with the team to throw all of this off. This is especially true if they do not buy into the ethics and
values the company embraces. It is good to have a diverse group of teammates but I believe they
all must share the ethical denominator in order for the organization to remain successful over
time. If an individual does not support these ethics, the result can be dysfunction amongst the
other team members and even worse a misrepresentation of the organization to the companys
clients.

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The final case study involved a racial issue that arose within an organization. While I am
a huge proponent of equal rights for all, independent of ones race or gender, I am not supportive
of anyone who uses their gender or race to take advantage of an organization. It is highly
unfortunate and in my opinion unethical that we as a society have to be so careful of any issue
that is dealing with a member of a minority group. This topic has been leveraged too many times
and has become a source of resentment amongst all members of society. Discrimination is
intolerable and should not be accepted in any case. Treating a member differently, in neither
positive nor negative way, because of race or gender should not be tolerated and is not
acceptable. Dewey states that the best hope for the common good is in each person being aware
of the implications of his own conduct, especially the meaning of his conduct in the context of
social action (Donaldson, pg. 90). If someone is using their gender or race to leverage a
companys decision, this will have a negative impact upon everyone involved. My interviewees
have both been pretty lucky and neither of them has had to deal with a hard situation relating to
gender or ethnicity. This is not to say they never will and it is very beneficial to be prepared for it
if/when it does arise.
I have been in this profession for some time and have learned quite a bit over the course
of the years. In doing this analysis I did learn some things and different ways of approaching
situations. The main thing I will take away from this experience is that if one strives to apply
their ethical standards to every scenario, they will more often than not succeed in what they are
doing. This has been proved to me time and time again in my experience in the organization I
currently work for. We, as an organization, strive to keep our ethics in the forefront of our
thoughts with every decision we make. In doing this we have been rewarded with extremely
loyal clients and longevity in this field that few realize. Deweys pragmatist approach resonates
with me as I believe a dynamic perspective on ethics is best for me in both my personal and
professional lives. You cant go wrong if you go through life applying what you have learned and
applying your personal ethics to each experience individually. I look at this as continually honing
my ethical standards so that each situation I am confronted with is dealt with an even greater
sense of ethics.

Hall 19

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