Read the course document on Ethics and Leadership Analysis and Application located in the Doc Sharing area. The Ethics and Leadership Analysis and Application paper is a Learning Assessment System Assignment (LASA). LASA assignments are explained in a document in the Course Home. Some of the material covered in earlier modules is integrated into this LASA assignment. If you have questions about what is expected of you in this assignment, bring them up immediately.

After reading it you will be choosing one of the following topics to write about:

Illegal downloading of music
Sale of low-end wines to poor areas
Kathy Lee Gifford and unethical practices of supplier factories
Environmental damage from the BP oil spill

1.      What are the relevant facts of the case? What facts are not known?  Do you know enough to draw a conclusion? What, if any, additional information would you seek?

2.      Is this issue about more than what is legal or what is most efficient? If so, how?

3.      What was the role of company leadership in this case?  How did they impact the case in both the positive and negative way?

4.      What individuals and groups have an important stake in the outcome? Are some concerns more important than others? Why do these groups take precedence? Do you agree with this precedence?

5.      What are the options for acting? Evaluate the options by asking the following questions:

• Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm? (The Utilitarian Approach)
• Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake? (The Rights Approach)
• Which option treats people equally or proportionately? (The Justice Approach)
• Which option best serves the community as a whole, not just some members? (The Common Good Approach)
• Which option leads you to act as the sort of person you want to be? (The Virtue Approach)

6.      Could this decision or situation be more damaging to someone or to some group? What are the cross cultural dimensions involved? Does this decision involve a choice between a good and bad alternative, or perhaps between two “goods” or between two “bads”? How can all the relevant persons and groups be consulted?  

7.      Considering all these approaches, which option best addresses the situation? 

8.      How can the action decision be implemented with the greatest care and attention to the concerns of all stakeholders?  Be specific about the cross-cultural dimensions to your answer.  Discuss how all stakeholders might be persuaded to this course of action, pointing out cultural issues, as appropriate.  In your paper, show how you would present the relevant information as it would be communicated to various stakeholders at a level of detail and sophistication needed to be persuasive.

9.      What can the stakeholders learn from this specific situation?  What have you learned from this case that you can apply immediately in your own career or life experience?