The code of ethics for Amgen is “doing the right thing” and O’brien followed the code of ethics and raised a red flag to their superiors. Amgen was carrying out illegal activities because they were not reporting the issues they were having with their drugs. He was “doing the right thing” yet was terminated after doing so. Amgen’s reaction to O’brien’s doing was contradictive to their code of ethics.

A whistleblower is essentially a person working within a company and discovers wrongdoings the company or employees are taking part in. the individual will either report these wrong doings to another individual in the company which is internal whistleblowing, or they will report the wrong doing to someone on the outside of the organization, which is know as external whistleblowing. I believe he did take the right steps since he first alerted a senior executive of the company. He was trying to keep it internal and get things fixed before he went any further which I think would be the correct thing to do. After realizing the issues weren’t being resolved he could have blew the whistle externally with in that four-week period before he was terminated.

His job was to improve “compliance processes with high inherent risk to public safety, major criminal and civil liability, or both” for Amgen. From an ethical perspective O’Brien was just doing his job and was doing the right thing especially since safety is a big deal in drug sales. He did the right thing raising a red flag to the senior executive and trying to fix the issue out of concern for the health and safety of their customers. In terms of Kohlbergs model he avoids punishment by reporting to the senior executive, which is level 1. In level 2, he was fair to the company by not taking the issue and blowing the whistle externally. In level 3, O’Brien felt the post conventional effects of his actions from his