Franklin And Franklin's Case Study: Jacob Franklin

The case study of Jacob Franklin, aged 25, offers an analysis of how unethical decisions can damage a company and the repercussions that these decisions cause. Jacob was aware of the unethical situations happening around him, but he was new and unexperienced to the business and it seems that at some point, his hands were tight and he did not have much control to change them. On the other hand, he had plenty of opportunities to make ethical decisions.

Jacob Franklin had recently graduated with a bachelor and MBA from an Ivy League University. He was offered a job at Richardson Drilling Equipment. During a short span of time, he was promoted and he was also offered a job in Seattle. This job seemed to be a better opportunity for his growing family. Although things seemed to be going great for Jacob, he faced different ethical issues.

Jacob was introduced to the company’s policy. Their policy seemed to prohibit bribes, however he clearly realized that one of the ethical issues was inequality of materials that were exported to other countries like Brazil. In this case, the company chose to disobey the rules and provided countries in Latin American countries a lower quality of their products. This was extremely unethical because the company broke the rules and jeopardize businesses in other countries.

Kant theory “believes that the best reason for acting is a sense of pure moral obligations or duty” (Bredeson, 2012, p.21). The company not only exploited poor nations, but employees also follow these unethical practices. In this situation Jacob had a moral obligation to say something, but instead he chose to keep quiet. Deontological ethics consider this to be intolerable and Jacob should have taken the steps and inform the authorities of this