Professional and Business Ethics

Professional and Business Ethics
Insert Name
Subject
Date
Institution
Professional and Business Ethics
Hacking into Harvard
Harvard Business School (HBS) rejects applications from students who allegedly hacked into the admissions site (Shaw, 2011). The students accessed the site to find out whether their applications were successful. HBS has a third party site called ApplyYourself that enables interactions between them and the applicants. The applicants were to know their status of applications on March 30. Someone discovered that a week earlier that some of the applicants’ admission and rejection letters were available on the website, ApplyYourself.
The applicant could access their letters by creating a special URL. There were no hyperlinks in the website. The instructions for creating a special URL was available on an online forum that the HBS applicants frequented. Applicants could see either a blank page or a reject letter. The blank page applicants had presumption that HBS was to admit the student or the decisions to admit were pending. 119 Harvard Business School applicants used the instructions and this led to their rejection of their application calling it a breaking of ethics. The reaction of the students to the rejection of application is unknown (Simpson, 2012).
Several debates on the issue set off for several weeks with T-shirts with words, “Save the Harvard 119” sold (Shaw, 2011). Some people saw the move by HBS as an insensitive because the software was faulty and lacked security while others thought the school, especially, the dean Clark response shows the attributes of a role model in ethics. Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business one of the B-schools followed the HBS lead.
The issue of HBS is surprising because the staff took a lengthy period to inform the applicants on their status of admission to school. Those rejected applicants needed to know the reason as soon as possible so that they could take another course of action. Harvard had taken time to inform all applicants on the website, ApplyYourself, and not the individuals. There is no valid reason for HBS not to disclose the information to the applicants. It was unfair that the individuals were able to see their rejected letters without a password.
The anxiety of waiting to join a prestigious business school like Harvard would make the applicants curious to know if they qualified. This is what mandated them to access the site by following instructions to create a URL, which was a better way than waiting indefinitely for the answers (Simpson, 2012). The applicants were not aware that they were hacking the website; they would have restrained themselves from accessing the site. HBS could have communicated as soon as possible to avoid a problem of students of looking for ways to hack to the website.
In the case study hacking in Harvard lacks deontology ethics. The moral outcome in the case did not look at the wrongness or rightness, but at its moral importance. Hacking in Harvard adopts utilitarianism in that the students acted out of their self-interests.
Parable of the Sadhu
The parable of the Sadhu is a tale of the journey of Bowen McCoy’s walk through Nepal alongside his Anthropologist friend Stephen (Goodpaster, 2004). McCoy and Stephens half way through the 60-day trip to the Himalayan Mountain at 15,500 feet they came across a naked, barefoot Indian holy man suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia. Apart from McCoy, Stephen and their porters and Sherpa there were three climbing parties that included teams from Japan, New Zealand and Switzerland.
All the representatives gave some assistance to the Sadhu although finally they abandoned him with clothing, food and drink at least a two-day walk to the nearest village. The teams pressed on to reach their goal of climbing the summit. The fate of Sadhu remained unknown whether he made it or not.
McCoy and Stephen debated the issue of Sadhu for several days on their behavior towards the Indian holy man (Lategan & Hooper, 2009). The climbers assisted to the level that was convenient. When the situation became a bother they shifted the problem to someone else and they left. There was no one in the groups that took the full responsibility of the Indian holy man.
A New Zealander was the first to offer help by carrying him down the mountain to McCoy and Stephen. McCoy and Stephen treated him from hypothermia while the Swiss gave him clothing and warmed him up. The Japanese give him food and water while the Sherpas carried the Sadhu to where the Sun was and showed him the direction to the nearest village.
The issues that arise are why a group of people with diverse backgrounds cannot disrupt their lives for a lost pilgrim who is at the brink of death. The Sherpa’s and their lack of interest in helping beyond the point, they left him. There is a thought of what could happen if the situation was different and the Sadhu was a well-dressed Nepali or what the Japanese could do if the Sadhu was a well-dressed Asian or whether the individual was a well-dressed Western woman.
In the journey of life, every individual meets their own Sadhu, these are situations in life that require one’s attention and by helping, one is distracted from his goals. In normal circumstances, one tends to focus on his goals. In the case study, the climbers’ main goal was to reach the summit and at this level they were exhausted and the oxygen was insufficient. Making a decision at that point is hard and requires one to make selfish decisions. The question arises on what one can do when encountering such a situation; whether to help or focus on the goal.
McCoy and Stephen were able to relook into the situation after it had happened. As an individual with beliefs in Christian values, it is important to help another person than fulfilling a personal ambition. It is more important to keep in touch with the moral principles and this gives more meaning to life. Deontological ethics apply in the case study because despite of the climbers catering for the needs of the Indian holy man, Stephen and McCoy later question whether their behavior was morally right or wrong.
Housing allowance
The case study involves Mutambara and NewCom. Mutambara was born and raised in a slum in Stanley the capital of Rambia (Shaw, 2008). Mutambara was ambitious and received a scholarship to study in the United States to earn an MBA. NewCom employed Mutambara and after working for the company for three years he got a chance to relocate to Rambia to work in their branch office. NewCom was to receive a house allowance of $ 2000 monthly to enable him leave in a safe neighborhood and thus maintain the company’s image.
Mutambara did not move to a location that the company wanted and instead falsified the monthly expenses reports to NewCom to enable him provide for his family who fended for him when young. The questions that arise are whether what Mutambara did was right or wrong. Mutambara needed to educate eight nephews and nieces. This gesture is a show of kindness and generosity in virtue ethics, but defrauding NewCom and this is against the virtues ethics. Mutambara, under utilitarianism, viewed his action as giving him his greatest satisfaction since there...