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Business Ethics

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Submitted By cincere7414
Words 2164
Pages 9
University of California
Theresa Carter
Module 1 Case Assignment
ETH501: Business Ethics
Saturday, April 26, 2014

A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty of
University of California
In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of
Graduate Diploma in Master’s Degree in
Business Management

Introduction
The purpose of this assignment is to provide a critical analysis of the 2002 collapse of Adelphia Communications as seen through the lens of Immanuel Kant deontological ethics. This analysis will be accomplished by providing a brief time lime of the Adelphia, identifying and discussing two key ethical problems raised and describing what is meant by deontological ethics. More specifically this paper will show how Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI) applies to this scenario. The latter discussion will apply the deontological framework of business ethics to the two key ethical problems by constructing CI to the Adelphia scenario. The supporting material for this discussion can be found at Harvard University’s 2011 lecture: Justice, What’s the right thing to do? as presented by Professor Michael Sandel8.
To examine the elements of the case, we will inspect the unethical behavior of five key figures culpable in the “rise and fall of the small town saga of epic dimensions8”. John J. Rigas (Founder), his two sons; Timothy J. Riga’s (CFO), Michael J. Riga’s (VP of Operations), James R. Brown (VP of Finance) and Michael C. Mulcahey (Director of Internal Reporting). By reading the case study we will see how the actions of each of these key actors had a direct impact on the company and through the course of this paper we will see how each is implicated in the ethical study of the scenario5.

Adelphia Communications Timeline

Despite the actions of its executives, Adelphia Communications propelled from what most called a “shoestring

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