Problem
Based on their love of the outdoors, John and Ann started Company ABC, a small outdoor equipment business a few years ago. The company has expanded so rapidly over the past few years that it is now a publicly traded corporation. The corporate world has been challenging for John and Ann to adapt to. Technology use, as they transact lot of business online has been a major challenge, their new CIO, Steve manages the website and technology. The financial element was also a challenge, and John and Ann recently hired Victor as their CFO to manage. One afternoon, Steve and Victor are having lunch, and Steve tells Victor that there has been a major issue, the company's database that stores customer information (names, addresses and profile information) has been hacked. He isn't sure yet how much information has been compromised, but it's pretty substantial. After lunch, Victor immediately sells all his shares in Company ABC, resigns, and moves to a tropical island. Two days later, information becomes public that Company ABC had a major data breach and all their customer information was compromised.
In addition, a lawsuit has been filed against Company ABC for damages. A customer was injured and had to have his arm amputated after rock climbing using equipment from Company ABC. He claims that the line snapped and caused him to fall, and that his injury was due to faulty equipment.
Ethical Issues:
Based on the scenario, discuss which issues were ethical issues and make recommendations for regaining the trust of customers.
i. Recommend corporate responsibility best practices that will help the company to move forward
ii. Describe the legal and ethical technology issues in the scenario, providing specific examples of what happened, and how the issues could be handled better in the future
iii. Describe other ethical issues or concerns presented in the scenario for...
iv. Recommend an ethical test that the company may consider using to ensure that it uses ethical practices in its future operations.
v. Recommend ethical theories that the company might consider adapting for informing its future operations
vi. Discuss strengths and weaknesses of ethical tests and theories for identifying potential gaps.