Business Ethics in Organizations and Society

A CASE STUDY by Rosemary Hartigan and Paula O’Callaghan* Just four years out of college, Alex Sharkey was a fast rising junior account executive at JPW, a full service advertising and public relations agency, working in the firm’s main office on Madison Avenue in New York. Through family connections Sharkey obtained a position with JPW and went to work following graduation. As a graduation gift from Dad Sharkey received a copy of Never Eat Alone, the popular relationship building self-help book by Keith Ferazzi (2005). Sharkey deeply absorbed and applied the advice in this bestseller and over four years took the time to get to know everyone in the office, every competitor and every media contact . That investment of time seemed to pay off. Alex’s boss, Sam Cypher, the Vice President of the PR division gave Sharkey especially positive feedback on people skills on each performance review. Over time Sharkey found that information gleaned from socializing with one person could be useful. So, Alex shared. It was easy; people would offer things – and Alex would pass along that information to those who could gain the most benefit from it. Alex experienced new-found popularity in the office as someone who was always “in the know.” Sharkey began to take a more active approach, taking the initiative to ask questions, encouraging lunch mates to share ever more specific details about the accounts they were working on, or intimate details about people with whom they worked. One Monday, during lunch with an associate from a competitor firm, Sharkey learned that a female account executive at JPW, junior to Alex in tenure, was about to be promoted to senior account executive in the PR area. Sharkey was shocked and finished lunch with temper barely under control. Alex remarked to a companion, “I can’t understand why all his networking hasn’t paid off? I didn’t even know we had a senior exec position open. Why Sheila Sharpe, and not me?” The lunch mate told Alex to “Get over it” adding, “she’s probably sleeping with Cypher; isn’t that how these things usually happen?” Sharkey was deeply distressed about being “passed over” for the promotion and couldn’t let it go. Sharkey began to analyze -- why would Sheila Sharpe be worthy of promotion? She’d been with the firm only one year and Sharkey considered her to have inferior client development skills. Over time the informant’s remark took root. Was it possible that Sharpe could be sleeping with Cypher? The more Alex thought about it, it seemed the only logical explanation for Sharpe’s sudden rise. The following weekend JPW held an off-site company retreat for the entire staff. Sharkey had the perfect opportunity to test the theory while alone at the breakfast buffet with Cypher’s secretary. Alex casually asked if the boss’s marital troubles had worked themselves out yet. Without missing a beat the secretary said, “Sadly, no, Sam’s still living at the Residence Inn. It’s his kids I worry about – did you know he has twins in the first grade? What must they think about him running around with that young woman?” Caught a bit off guard, Sharkey quickly recovered and replied casually, “I guess you mean Sheila Sharpe?” “Well, you didn’t hear it from me,” was the terse reply, made with a wink and a smile. Later that day Alex tried out the theory on two peers during happy hour at the off-site. Of course, Alex had to reveal Sharpe’s impending promotion to gain their interest. One of the companions raised her eyebrows and said, “Why, yes, I have seen Cypher and Sharpe together in the office after hours. I thought they were working on the Westheimer account, but now that you mention it, Sheila wasn’t even on that team at the time.” It wasn’t quite the positive confirmation Alex was seeking, but that statement did seem to add some credibility to the theory. Sharkey sent off a quick email to the competitor who had originally revealed Sharpe’s promotion. Alex repeated the theory about Sharpe and Cypher and asked if the competitor had heard anything about such a relationship. The competitor replied, allowing that indeed he might have heard something about that; he would ask around his firm and see if he could learn anything more. The Monday following the off-site weekend, a memo was circulated from Sam Cypher, announcing that Sheila Sharpe had been promoted from junior account executive to senior account executive in the PR division. Bitter and displeased, Sharkey went to lunch that day with two peers from the PR department. It happened that they were the same two co-workers in whom Sharkey had confided at the off-site. Sharkey repeated the conversation with Cypher’s secretary. All three agreed that the promotion seemed suspicious and an improper relationship seemed likely. They agreed to ask around and see if anyone in the office knew more. Everyone, how could Sharkey's behavior impact other top performing employees who do not want to work in such a gossip laden environment? If an employer decided to allow poor management and structure to result in the separation of talented staff (i.e., - leaving for better work environments), would that be an example of Corporate Darwinism? If a capitalist society is dependent (to a degree) on competition, and an employer decided to drive away staff, instead of retaining them; isn't that a benefit to the competitors of that firm? Could competitor firms actually have a competitive advantage and result in measurable benefits (such as increased retention, lower turnover, lower recruitment costs, etc.) if Cypher continues to permit employees like Sharkey to engage is disruptive, unethical (and potentially illegal) behavior? In my primary business, I visit my client organizations and identify problems and provide solutions. I have continued to be intrigued by the number of client firms that I visit that can attribute the predominant financial issues to simply poor management. Even when they are shown the data that identifies the issue, they are reluctant to make changes with management staff that they "like" and are "friends with." The higher up the chain of command the poor manager/ leader is, the more reluctant the organization is to act. They then continue to suffer negative consequences (which compound over time), until a "catastrophe" occurs and they are forced to make changes. Are my observations actually beneficial for the business environment overall? Should we feel sorry for these firms or accept that their voluntary choices are destructive, but that they do have the right to self-destruct (and that action will benefit their competitors)?