As one of the Five Regional Managers, How Do You Handle This Situation?

As one of the five regional managers, how do you handle this situation?

As I approach this task of creating an ethical standard program, one of the first core components to analyze is the ethical culture of the organization. Research has stated that a firm's ethical climate has an effect on its sales force. Salesperson's perceptions of an organization with a positive ethical climate are strongly correlated with their individual commitment to quality and overall commitment to their company. Although it has been said that ethical climate does not have a direct effect on performance, it does have an indirect effect on performance when using individual commitment to quality and organizational commitment as intervening variables (Press, 1990).

In this situation, clearly, there are a vast amount of factors to consider, when proceeding with both the development of the ethical standards program as well as how I will present it to my colleagues in order to gain not only their support, but belief and enthusiasm behind the recommendation. My process must be strategic and assess our current programs in place and any ethical issues. My approach will adhere to The Clayton Act (1914) and the Robinson-Patman Act (1936) as well as overall FTC standards. (Murphy, 2005)

In addition, critical thinking and assessing the impact for all of my stakeholders will be essential. It is a vital relationship between critical thinking and ethics that must be kept in balance if both are to be viable and useful.

Ethical Issues at Hand

There are several ethical issues at hand as it relates to this case study. One primary ethical issue is the aspect of account changes to benefit the sales representatives who have been there longer and therefore, are aligned with older clients which results in larger bonuses for them. This ethical issue relates back to the principle of fairness as it relates to employing, compensating, promoting, disciplining and firing personnel. In addition, the tendency to treat top sales employees with more leniencies is also unethical.

A second ethical issue is the sales quota's, as it clearly apparent that some sales teams are making more money than others and setting such high quota's, which seem unfair can drive unethical behavior in the younger sales representatives, since they are being given customers with a lower sales target, hence, lower commission.

Approaching my Colleagues for Project Support

Clearly, I would outline the issues at hand that I was aware of and work to create a joint solution to the issue, to attempt to "train" my new colleagues on the aspects of ethics in our organization. In providing data to them, my intent would be to showcase the critical importance of ethics and principal of fairness, but also offer a few options to incentive their sales team in an ethical manner, which would align with our corporate code of ethics.

Therefore, after assessing the situation, I would perform an ethical conduct audit to showcase to my colleagues data, reporting channels, corporate & sales culture, perceived reward system, "Warning signs"-Unethical behavior, patterns of potential misconduct and steps to resolve.

Once this step is complete, I would then also combine my prior research, regarding our company and ethical and legal guidelines in order to develop an Ethical Standards Program

Colleagues & Support

The recommendation would clearly highlight the following:

a. Establishment of Explicit Ethical Goals and Criteria for Sales

b. Demonstration of Commitment to Ethical Sales Goals and Criteria

c. Communication of Ethical Sales Expectations and Train Workforce to Enact Ethical Sales Goals and Criteria

d. Assessment & Monitoring of Behavior

e. Maintaining & Evolvement

The