Directions
- Read the following scenarios and the accompanying solutions
- Evaluate the alternatives in terms of the tests described below.
- Choose the one you think best or design your own solution if you believe you can do better.
- Summarize your results by filling in the solution evaluation matrix that appears on the page following the scenario. Notice that the first column repeats the solution alternatives.
- Be prepared to present your matrix to the class. You will also provide the other groups in the class with a copy of your matrix for their ethics portfolios
Bibliographical Note
The six scenarios below were developed by Chuck Huff as Participant Perspectives. They were first published online through the Computing Cases website. (Computing Cases was developed through two National Science Foundation grants, DUE-9972280 and DUE-9980768.) A revised version of these participant perspectives has been published in the anthology, Whistleblowing: Perspectives and Experiences, edited by Reena Raj and published in 2008 by the Icfai University Press, Nagarjuna Hills, Punjagutta, Hyderbad, India. These materials can be found on pages 75-80.
Scenario One: Responding to Organizational Pressure
Frank Saia has worked at Hughes Aircraft for a long time. Now he is faced with the most difficult decisions of his career. He has been having problems in the environmental testing phase of his microchip manufacturing plant; the detailed nature of these tests has caused Hughes to be consistently late in delivering the chips to customers. Because of the time pressure to deliver chips, Saia has been working to make the production of chips more efficient without losing the quality of the product. Chips are manufactured and then tested, and this provides two places where the process can bottle up. Even though you might have a perfectly fine chip on the floor of the plant, it cannot be shipped without testing. And, since there are several thousand other chips waiting to be tested, it can sit in line for a long time. Saia has devised a method that allows testers to put the important chips, the "hot parts," ahead of the others without disrupting the flow and without losing the chips in the shuffle. He has also added a "gross leak" test that quickly tells if a chip in a sealed container is actually sealed or not. Adding this test early in the testing sequence allows environmental testing to avoid wasting time by quickly eliminating chips that would fail a more fine-grained leak test later in the sequence. Because environmental testing is still falling behind, Saia's supervisors and Hughes customers are getting angry and have begun to apply pressure. Karl Reismueller, the director of the Division of Microelectronics at Hughes, has given Saia's telephone number to several customers, whose own production lines were shut down awaiting the parts that Saia has had trouble delivering. His customers are now calling him directly to say "we're dying out here" for need of parts. Frank Saia has discovered that an employee under his supervision, Donald LaRue, has been skipping tests on the computer chips. Since LaRue began this practice, they have certainly been more on time in their shipments. Besides, both LaRue and Saia know that many of the "hot" parts are actually for systems in the testing phase, rather than for ones that will be put into active use. So testing the chips for long-term durability that go into these systems seems unnecessary. Still, LaRue was caught by Quality Control skipping a test, and now Saia needs to make a decision. Upper management has provided no guidance; they simply told him to "handle it" and to keep the parts on time. He can't let LaRue continue skipping tests, or at least he shouldn't let this skipping go unsupervised. LaRue is a good employee, but he doesn't have the science background to know which tests would do the least damage if they were skipped. He could work with LaRue and help him figure out the best tests to skip so the least harm is done. But getting directly involved in skipping the tests would mean violating company policy and federal law.
Alternatives
- Do nothing. LaRue has started skipping tests on his own initiative. If any problems arise, then LaRue will have to take responsibility, not Saia, because LaRue was acting independently of and even against Saia's orders.
- Call LaRue in and tell him to stop skipping tests immediately. Then call the customers and explain that the parts cannot be shipped until the tests are carried out.
- Consult with LaRue and identify non essential chips or chips that will not be used in systems critical to safety. Skipping tests on these chips will do the least damage.
- Your solution....
Scenario Two: Responding to Wrongdoing
Margaret Gooderal works in a supervisory position in the environmental testing group at Hughes Aircraft. Her supervisor, Donald LaRue, is also the current supervisor for environmental testing. The group that LaRue and Gooderal together oversee test the chips that Hughes makes in order to determine that they would survive under the drastic environmental conditions they will likely face. Rigorous testing of the chips is the ideal, but some chips (the hot chips) get in line ahead of others. Gooderal has found out that over the last several months, many of these tests are being skipped. The reason: Hughes has fallen behind in the production schedule and Hughes upper management and Hughes customers have been applying pressure to get chip production and testing back on schedule. Moreover, LaRue and others feel that skipping certain tests doesn't matter, since many of these chips are being used in systems that are in the testing phase, rather than ones that will be put into active use. A few months after Margaret Gooderal started her new position, she was presented with a difficult problem. One of the "girls" (the women and men in Environmental Testing at Hughes), Lisa Lightner, came to her desk crying. She was in tears and trembling because Donald LaRue had forcefully insisted that she pass a chip that she was sure had failed the test she was running. Lightner ran the hermeticity test on the chips. The chips are enclosed in a metal container, and one of the questions is whether the seal to that container leaks. From her test, she is sure that the chip is a "leaker"-the seal is not airtight so that water and corrosion will seep in over time and damage the chip. She has come to Gooderal for advice. Should she do what LaRue wants and pass a chip she knows is a leaker?
Alternatives
- Gooderal should advise Lightner to go along with LaRue. He is her supervisor. If he orders to pass the chip, then she should do so.
- Gooderal should go to Human Resources with Lightner and file a harassment complaint against LaRue. Skipping tests is clearly illegal and ordering an employee to commit an illegal act is harassment.
- Gooderal and Lightner should blow the whistle. They should go to the U.S. defense department and inform them of the fact that Hughes Aircraft is delivering chips that have either failed tests or have not been tested.
- Your solution....
Scenario Three: Goodearl, Ibarra, and the AMRAAM Incident
Now that Goodearl had few sympathizers among upper management, she increasingly turned to Ruth Ibarra in Quality assurance for support in her concerns about test skipping and the falsification of paperwork. One day, Goodearl noticed that some AMRAAM chips with leak stickers were left on her project desk in the environmental testing area. The leak stickers meant that the seal on the chips' supposedly airtight enclosure had failed a test to see if they leaked. AMRAAM meant that the chips were destined to be a part of an Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. Goodearl knew that these parts could not be retested and needed to be simply thrown away. So why was someone keeping them? She also knew that these were officially "hot parts" and that the company was behind schedule in shipping these parts. After consulting with Ruth Ibarra, the two of them decided to do some sleuthing. They took the chips and their lot travelers to a photocopy machine and made copies of the travelers with "failed" noted on the leak test. They then replaced the chips and their travelers on the desk. Later that day, as Don LaRue passed the desk, Goodearl asked Don LaRue if he knew anything about the chips. "None of your business," he replied. The chips disappeared, and later the travelers showed up in company files with the "failed" altered to "passed." So, Goodearl and Ibarra had clear evidence (in their photocopy of the "failed" on the traveler) that someone was passing of failed chips to their customers. And these were important chips, part of the guidance system of an air-to-air missile.
Alternatives: Since they have clear evidence, Gooderal and Ibarra should blow the whistle. Evaluate each of the following ways in which they could blow the whistle
- Blow the whistle to Hughes' Board of Directors. In this way they can stop the test skipping but will also be able to keep the whole affair "in house."
- Blow the whistle to the local news media. In this way they will shame Hughes into compliance with the testing requirements.
- Take the evidence to the U.S. Department of Defense, since they are the client and are being negatively impacted by Hughes' illegal actions.
- Some other mode of blowing the whistle....
Solution Evaluation Matrix
Alternatives/Tests |
Reversibility/Rights Test |
Harm/Benefits Test |
Virtue/Value Test (Also Publicity) |
Global Feasibility Test (Implementation Obstacles) |
Alternative One (Worst Alternative) |
Evaluate Alt 1 using reversibility/rights test |
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Alternative Two (Best among those given) |
Weigh harms against benefits for alt 2 |
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Alternative Three |
What values/disvalues are realized in alt 3? |
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Your Solution |
What obstacles could hinder implementation of solution? |
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