You are the owner of a hotel in a resort town. A core value of your business is openness and transparency with the public. You are aware of recent investigative reports on the cleanliness of hotels across Canada and the States. Curious, you commission an investigation into the cleanliness of your business. (You then find out your competition has done the same for their respective establishments.) The results are disturbing. Coliform bacteria was found on the ice machines. Mould was found in the ventilation system. And methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (a nasty, nasty bug) was found in every room. So the question is, what do you do with this information? You have two options:
1) Go public with the information. By going public you stay true to the core values of your business. And the public will react positively to your proactive stance...but only if your competition goes public with the results of their own studies. If your competition remains silent about the condition of their own hotels, they can use your public confession against you. And you will lose business. In fact you'd go bankrupt, and your staff would all be out of work.
2) Remain silent. If you remain silent you will benefit if your competition goes public with the results of their tests. You could grow your business considerably. Not only would this benefit you, but you could give each of your staff a raise. But if your competition remains silent as well, then everything would remain the same. Neither of you would lose business, but neither of you would gain either. However, remaining silent would mean compromising one of the core values of your business.
QUESTION:
What would you do? Would you go public with the results of the test? Or would you remain silent? For full marks, you must discuss how your decision affects/is affected by your competition.
Provide reasons for your decision (convince me that your decision is the best one given your goals to make money and remain true to your values).