Exam 2: Business and Its Ethical Dilemmas

You work for a construction firm that has had several employees express safety concerns about the procedures your company uses for digging basements. You raise the issue to your supervisor who explains that it would cost too much to do the job safely. Your supervisor has allowed financial pressure to cloud ethical analysis.

Which of the following feels that business is like a big poker game and that bluffing in business is expected and acceptable?

BP had no warnings about its pipeline problems in Prudhoe Bay.

Hubris is at the core of the Bathsheba Syndrome.

The Carnegie Deli in New York City was closed for 10 months because utility workers discovered that the deli had tapped into the city gas lines in order to obtain free gas for cooking. The utility determined that the deli had been siphoning gas for at least 6 years. The utility shut off the gas to the deli building until there could be a proper installation of a metered gas line. Discuss why the deli did what it did, why, and what the costs were.

Goldman tried to avoid "toes-to-the-line" kinds of activities when it came to regulatory compliance.

Which of the following is being used when someone says, "I had no choice"?

During the 1990s, Goldman increased it standards for profitability before doing an IPO.

Who said, "What's good for me is good for all shareholders"?

No one at Penn State was aware of Mr. Sandusky's conduct with minor-aged boys until 2011.

BP's focus on costs influenced its judgment and decisions on engineering issues.

BP had no safety violations prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill.

William Wilberforce was a member of the British Parliament who fell victim to the Bathsheba syndrome.

Goldman's securities offerings in the 1920s were similar to its offerings in the mortgage-debt instruments sold in the 2000s.

BP followed industry standards in its construction of Deepwater Horizon.

The Bathsheba Syndrome causes leaders to be more cautious in the decision-making.

Firing friends is not an ethical issue and is just part of Carr's business game.

Valeant stripped out restructuring and acquisition costs to make its look like it was more profitable.

Only former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was criminally charged in the Penn State case.

What does P = ? (x) mean?