paper
questions are in the to ship or not ship document
T o S h i p o r N o t t o S h i p
Author: Clare Bartlett, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, August 2015
Rachel works as a Quality Assurance Engineer at a large
electronics company. She is responsible for the final
testing of her companys servers and is part of a team
which decides when new products will be shipped to
distributors for sale.
Rachels company has a contract with another company
which makes the chips which are incorporated into the
servers Rachels company makes. The business model for
this product is to release a new generation server
approximately every six months, meaning Rachel has a
limited timeframe to conduct her Quality Control tests.
Because there is such a short amount of time between the
release of each next new product, the Quality and
Assurance department cannot perform every possible test
on the servers to ensure they are defect free. Rachel will
not ship a product if there is any possibility that the server
could malfunction and cause physical harm to the
customer. However, she will ship a product that has a
higher likelihood of failure resulting in data loss for the
customer, because she knows that if she doesn’t, her
company’s competitor will.
Things to Consider:
Is this an ethical way to conduct business? How should she
determine when to ship a product with known defects?
O B J E C T I V E
-Please see the appendix in your syllabus for
clear instructions
-Be sure to incorporate the Ethical Decision-
Making Model from Ch. 2
-Please complete a case analysis worksheet
before beginning to write your case analysis
-DO NOT USE BULLETS IN YOUR WRITTEN CASE
ANALYSIS
-please write in paragraphs/essay format
D U E D A T E :
The final copy of this assignment is due on
Canvas by 11:59pm on
August 6, 2020 Ethics Case Analysis Notes
What are the facts?
What is the ethical dilemma?
Who are the stakeholders?
What are the available alternatives/options? (MUST be MORE than TWO/use your moral imagination)
How do each of your suggested alternatives influence the stakeholders?
Make a decision:
