Case Study: Humungous State University

1. Identify the ethical dilemmas.
One of the ethical dilemmas in this case is how three professors from Humungous State University have scanned and copied a very popular text book, Great American Literature, into a website in order to make it affordable for students whose financial position does not allow them to buy a new text book at the price established by the publisher. These professors decided to charge students, who demonstrated their financial inability to buy the text book, half the original price of the book. By doing so, the professors were violating the publisher policy that prohibits reselling of the text book through retailer including online. Another ethical dilemma is this case is how Eastlane Inc., the publisher of the book,

The pros of this agreement is that it would help student acquire the book without struggling with the high price; in addition, it may incentive other students to take the course. Another alternative is to allow the universities bookstore to resell the used book at a lower price, so students can afford it. Using this alternative the company would be minimizing cost by printing less books, and at the same time more books are going to be in the market, the new ones and the used ones, giving students the opportunity to make a choice and improving market efficiency. As an additional alternative, Eastlane could use (technology) product development techniques to create an e-book. This alternative would benefit the publisher by saving money on printing, storage and transportation of books. In the same way, it will allow students to buy the book at a lower price. In the long run, all these alternatives would help the company develop a more efficient market strategy resulting in sales growth and profit increase. Some of the disadvantages of these alternatives in the short run could be a decrease in profit due to universities bookstore selling used books at a lower price, many students would prefer to buy the book used and save some money. Also, by allowing students to access the book through the website the professors created or the e-book, Eastlane poses the risk of people copying and selling the files to other students or possible costumers, so it is important to protects the publisher’s rights by securing the e-book and its files. Overall, these alternatives would force the publisher to lower the book price since it would cost them less to have an online version rather than a hard copy