Jenny Larson was a senior human resources executive reporting to the Vice President of Employee Relations of a major company. One of her responsibilities was administering the psychological assessment program for, and maintaining the assessment profiles on, all senior executives. The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors asked for a summary profile on each senior executive for succession planning purposes. Jenny felt that to prevent misinterpretation these summaries should be prepared by the consulting firm that had done the original assessments, and therefore she instructed them to do so. The consulting firm completed the summaries as instructed and forwarded them to the Vice President of Employee Relations for review. He then passed them along to Jenny, who was to prepare the final compilation for the Executive Committee. The next week several revised summaries came from the Vice President. He had made significant changes to the consultants’ summaries. On one summary, for example, the Vice President had changed “promotable” to “not promotable.” Jenny was appalled at the changes, and concerned about what to do. The modifications violated her sense of ethics, but she was afraid if she questioned them, she would place her job and her future in jeopardy. The more she thought about it, the more concerned she became. Was it possible someone above the Vice President level had requested these changes?
1. What would you have done if you were Jenny? Why?
2. What consequences would you have expected? (Be sure to explain your answer using complete sentences)