A. You are the Director of Product Development at ABC Corp., a firm which manufacturers semiconductors. Your cousin Tim happens to the CEO of DEF Corp., a major competitor of ABC. At a recent family gathering your cousin inquires how things are going for you at ABC and offers you a "part-time job" at DEF working in the same area of product development. Your cousin assures that you can work "remotely" and on "weekends" so as not interfere with your M-F, 9-5 schedule at ABC. While your cousin assured you that all this was on the "up and up", he asked you to download and share with him all your project and development plans at ABC just to get a sense "what was going on at ABC". Using the other concepts, theories and other materials covered in this class discuss the implications of accepting the DEF Corp. part-time offer. You need not have any knowledge of employment law, trade secret law or intellectual property law generally to answer this question. For those of you that do have knowledge in these areas, you will get no extra points or credit for incorporating such "additional information" in to your answer. You should assume that both DEF and ABC have Codes of Conduct/Codes of Ethics very similar to others we have viewed in class.
B. Independent of all this, your cousin, Tim, who makes over $20 million a year in salary, bonus and stock as the CEO of DEF is starting to get very nervous. There is a bill pending for potential passage in the 2020 session of Congress which would cap CEO executive compensation at 12x the lowest paid, full-time employee in that same company. The lowest paid full-time employee at DEF makes $30,000 a year. Thus, if this bill becomes law, Tim's yearly compensation will be capped at $360,000, which of course would be a dramatic reduction from the $20 million he currently earns. Using the materials discussed in class, identify (from an ethical perspective): (1) some of the issues associated with this proposed bill; and (2) possible courses of action for Tim and the ethical implication for each. For purposes of answering this question, assume that since the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S. economy has been experiencing weak growth (with a mini-depression taking place in 2016-18); in the aggregate, overall economic prospects are considered bleak. The disparities in wealth are greater than they have ever been in American history ("the rich get richer, the poor get poorer"). All the while, the level of taxation continues to grow in America affecting all segments of Americans, with the highest marginal income tax rates (both federal and state combined), collectively approaching 80%. Sadly, the prospects for recent college graduates are poor as well, with statistics showing over 50% of all college graduates still having no jobs of any kind after the first 12 months of
graduation.
C. Is there a place or need for ethics in business? I want clear opinions, supported not by idle speculation or flim-flam, but rather by the substantive materials covered in class and from the course readings, including the case studies. You will be graded on the quality and depth of your answer (supported by solid arguments and sources to back them up) as opposed to any specific conclusion(s) you reach.