A Brief Description of the Issue
The ethical issue that I am going to describe and analyze had occurred when I was in my first year at the university. There was a girl named Katie who would always stay away from the company and not participate in group activities. Even when there were team projects, she would always choose to ignore the team and do whatever she wants. The most prevalent outcome was that she would get the grade with the rest of the team while procrastinating on purpose. No one ever knew if she indeed had the knowledge and experience to complete projects either on her own or together with someone else. Therefore, the problem with Katie was that she would never accept teamwork, as she would always spoil the project rather than collaborate. Professors were still supportive of Katie, but she never realized that partnership could bring mutual benefits. The whole class remembered her for individual projects and achievements, but no one had ever seen her working in a team.
Existing Violations
As may be seen from the story outlined above, the key ethical principles that were violated are a concern for others, integrity, and fairness. Katie chose not to display any concern for others because she always believed that she did not belong to any of the teams in her class. Even if that could relate to issues in interpersonal relationships, the inability to empathize with others and work together with them still is a major problem that has to be resolved. If this was a company, and Katie was one of the employees, she would probably hinder the whole organization’s performance with her behavior (Lehnert, Park, & Singh, 2015). Other teachers did not like our class because of Katie and her attitude toward teamwork. Knowing that collaboration is one of the moving forces for team projects, all the participants of the educational process were discouraged by Katie’s usual actions. The violation of the principle of concern for others created issues for a long list of people who would have liked to help the girl but could not do it because of her closed-mindedness.
Despite being loyal to her individualistic philosophy, Katie also broke the principle of integrity. This happened due to her inability to find ways to overcome the pressure and proceed differently at least once. The unwillingness to display conformity might have been a strength to Katie, but the remaining children in the class would always remain demotivated because of her actions. This is a clear sign of the inability to maintain integrity, as the interests of the group should be superior to individual objectives when it is about a team project where everyone has to play a definite role to achieve the best possible result. Even though Katie never showed any sign of hypocrisy or expediency, such behavior might be detrimental on a bigger scale within an organization where the managers would have to rebuild the team to exclude Katie from all the projects where collaboration with others is required (Drumwright, Prentice, & Biasucci, 2015; Schwartz, 2016). Therefore, there may be no integrity where there are individualistic beliefs that overrun team spirit and collective objectives.
Katie has also violated the principle of fairness many times, as she would never explain her behavior or apologize to her team members after she would do nothing to contribute to the project. This was very unfair to the teams because no one had ever been able to gain insight into why Katie never participated in team-based activities. Teachers would always try to get her involved, but Katie tended to respond negatively to the majority of inquiries. When she did participate in certain activities with the remainder of the class, she seemed to do it out of inexorableness. As a potential team member within a large organization, Katie would have become a serious obstacle to normal activity scheduling, as her unfair behavior would reduce the team’s performance and confuse managers (Zeni, Buckley, Mumford, & Griffith, 2016). Even though such behaviors might be predicted in the future, the overall verdict is that the lack of fairness, integrity, and concern for others might slowly destroy even a team with a strong bond.
Alternative Options
Given that I could have done something differently, I would talk to Katie in a private setting to find out more about why she would misbehave when asked to participate in team-based projects. Looking back at the situation, I think that we tended to remain unaware of something important about her that she would always try to display with her nonconformist behaviors. Based on all the ethical principles that Katie violated, I would recommend she to join my team during one of the projects and complete at least a small assignment that would reduce the group’s overall burden. Together with the team, we would then celebrate Katie’s contribution and let her know that she was valued and respected. If Katie agreed to participate in a team project at least once, she would feel what it was like to be a part of a team trying to achieve a common objective. As a manager, I would also reach out to Katie from time to time to make sure she is feeling fine. It would be an ethical decision to make sure that Katie’s knowledge may be applied to every team project in the most useful manner. It is crucial to be able to communicate the need for personal contributions from every team member, especially in the case of complex projects that feature a tight schedule and a limited budget.
References
- Drumwright, M., Prentice, R., & Biasucci, C. (2015). Behavioral ethics and teaching ethical decision-making. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 13(3), 431-458.
- Lehnert, K., Park, Y. H., & Singh, N. (2015). Research note and review of the empirical ethical decision-making literature: Boundary conditions and extensions. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), 195-219.
- Schwartz, M. S. (2016). Ethical decision-making theory: An integrated approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 139(4), 755-776.
- Zeni, T. A., Buckley, M. R., Mumford, M. D., & Griffith, J. A. (2016). Making “sense” of ethical decision-making. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(6), 838-855.