Overworking Employers and Work-Life Balance

Instructions

Ethical Topic: Overworking employees and Work-Life Balance

Name of Company: Ernst & Young

1. The basic premise is that you have been hired as a consultant to the top management team of a Ernst & Young company who is having difficulties with the above ethical topic. Your role is to follow the ethical decision model as outlined below to advocate for a complete change in how the organization conducts business by adopting Responsible Management Principles.

• Responsible management Principles
• Responsibility to the Health of the Business
• Responsibility to Workers
• Responsibility to Your Customers
• Responsibility to the Community
• Responsibility to Nature

2. This is not a research paper on your ethical topic. It is not about solving a tactical or operational problem; it is about addressing how should the organization operate more ethically in making all decisions.
3. Scenario: You have been hired as a consultant for the corporate leadership of Ernst & Young company to prepare a white paper on an ethical topic.
   1. Use words with more general meaning such as: a consequential perspective (Utilitarian Theory), a principles perspective (Rights Theory) and a personal character perspective (Virtues Theory).
4. The deliverable is a 15–20-page, White Paper with images, charts, illustrations, tables, and appendices as appropriate.
5. THIS IS NOT A RESEARCH PAPER ON YOUR ETHICAL TOPIC

Required Outline – copy this into your document; including headers guides the reader and keeps the White Paper organized.  Your readers are very busy and it is your job to communicate clearly, succinctly and thoroughly.

1. Introduction
   1. Since the audience for your White Paper is the senior management team introduce your role at the beginning of this section. You can write in the first person
   2. The primary goal of the White Paper is to recommend they adopt Responsible Management Principles (outlined above in Line 1), and the secondary goal is to demonstrate how an ethical decision-making model might be used in a business setting.
2. Background of the ethical topic
   1. State the ethical topic
   2. Conduct research and include data on the scope and importance of the ethical topic within the context of your industry/sector

1. Ethical issues
   1. Identify the ethical issue (s)
   2. This section should be 2-3 paragraphs

1. Stakeholder Analysis
   1. Include an introductory paragraph with a brief overview of stakeholder analysis. Explain salience and include citation for Ali (2017)
   2. Identification of stakeholders, their rights and duties, and stakeholder salience

• Include a stakeholder analysis conclusion

1. Alternative Actions –
   1. Present at least 4 alternative actions and analyze each using the three ethical theories (Utilitarian Theory), a principles perspective (Rights Theory) and a personal character perspective (Virtues Theory).
      1. Must include continue current business model (status quo alternative)
      2. Must include adopting Responsible Management Principles)
   2. Evaluation of alternatives using ethical perspectives should integrate with stakeholder groups
      1. for consequential perspective whether good is maximized or not per stakeholder group
      2. for principles perspective it is evaluating whose rights and duties per stakeholder are protected or violated

• for personal character perspective it is which virtues/values are enhanced or lessened. Helpful: https://www.virtuescience.com/virtuelist.html

1. Recommended action

1. 1. Your recommended action must be to either adopt Responsible Management Principles
   2. Justify your recommendation, specifically incorporating the book and other course materials.
2. References
   1. Use APA 7 formatting for references and in-text citations
   2. Incorporate course materials and outside research
3. Appendices
   1. Tables are numerical values or text displayed in rows and columns
   2. A Figure is any type of illustration (chart, graph, photograph, drawing maps …)
   3. Discuss and reference tables and figures in-text

Note:  The purpose of this White Paper is to ask senior management to think differently about their business model, not to solve a specific problem.  Form your White Paper in accordance with the material presented in this course on ethics, stakeholder theory and corporate social responsibility.