Assignment: Ethics, Responsibility & Governance – Prof. Swati Panda
Case Study - Martha McCaskey
1. As Martha McCaskey, what is your plan of finishing the silicon 6 project? Please map out your detailed plan of action.
The case in question requires Martha McCaskey to perform tasks in relevance to the Silicon 6 project that might hamper her integrity towards work. However, there is a major stake of her losing the promotion that she is expectant and has been promised. Furthermore, Mr. Phil Devon’s eagerness to help her in a sincere way is killing her more in the process of getting the information that she needs from him.
Very primarily, our task, in imagining ourselves as Martha McCaskey lies in making sure to get the insider information from the target competitor of our company’s client. The insider information that we are now seeking is about the manufacturing of a chip for our client, so as to help our client. The constraints and challenges that lie before us in obtaining that information are as follows: 1. The potential information provider, Mr. Phil Devon is sincere in his attempt to share the information, provided that we come forth with specific information, provided by our clients. 2. Our integrity in asking for insider information, the consequence of which might invoke bad temper in Mr. Phil Devon and which might also lead Mr. Devon complaining to the concerned authorities about the whole set-up. 3. The prime challenge ahead is to get the information by hook or crook as is customarily encouraged by our firm, Seleris and its management.
The options that lie ahead to solve this key problem might be explored through the following points: 1. The foremost decision lies in choosing the path that we want to tread, for this assignment. We should work with integrity and try to assimilate the information that we can get from Mr. Phil Devon by going the normal way. Meaning; we go around the second time collecting all the information pertaining to costs, salaries and all other project details (Mentioned in Exhibit 1) and ask for Phil Devon’s opinion on it. a. This exercise, however, does not lead us anywhere because it has already been done in the first attempt. Moreover, this is not the information that we are actually looking for from Phil Devon. Practically, it does not appeal or is useless to our client 2. We might think of letting Kauffman deal with Devon in his own style. However, this exercise might give Kauffman the chance to overthrow us in the race to promotion. Furthermore, keeping in view Devon’s integrity, we might not simply take Kauffman’s approach as potentially successful because Devon might repulse and we shall be made held for the whole scene. 3. We can try to perform a background check on Mr. Phil Devon and find out his history with our target competitor. This might help us in knowing if Mr. Phil Devon would be interested in sharing the exact details of our target competitor’s manufacturing details, which in fact, serves our purpose.
Keeping in view the following eventualities in all practicality, 1. If we do not perform this task on the grounds of morality and integrity, there are people among my peers who would eventually get the task done by any means. 2. We might even back out from the company contemplating reasons of losing integrity in work to perform certain tasks, which does not build up the resume and does not help me land over another good job. 3. Completing this task effectively will help us move high up above the ranks and gives us all that we have dreamed for.
We, as Martha McCaskey would adopt the following procedure to obtain the required information that would help our client. 1. First, we would conduct a background check on Mr. Phil Devon and try to get confirmation as to whether he has been sharing such information at any point of time post his career in our target competitor’s company. We would like to use the services of Kauffman for this and would put him in charge, strictly for this matter. The emphasis would also be in trying to assess the past colleagues of Phil Devon at our target competitor’s company during his tenure. 2. If we have confirmation of this, then we (Martha McCaskey) would approach Mr. Phil Devon, strike a conversation on the specifics of the project and obtain the required information by offering him the extra fee of USD 3000. This possibility, in fact, helps me in keeping Mr. Phil Devon handy for such works. 3. In the event of Phil Devon coming clean in his background check, we shall be preparing a database of the ex-employees of the target company and hire them as consultants for extracting the relevant information. The information gathered can be then analysed and a cost effective plan can be made for the completion of the project, cross checking with Devon on obtaining generic information with the report that we shall be preparing from the information obtained from the ex-employees.
2. What is troubling Martha McCaskey? Do you agree with her assessment of the situation?
Martha McCaskey has brought herself into a situation where she would have to compromise on her values. Primarily, Martha’s doubts about the company’s procedures have become concrete when her second project with the company gets a bit of disapproval from Richardson and Malone about saving the time for performing that particular task. She also had her doubts about the procedures to be followed to complete the Silicon 6 project post meeting Mr. Phil Devon.
Even before she accepted the Silicon 6 project, she had discussions with her colleagues about the practices pertaining to obtaining proprietary information, which she did not clarify upon. These fundamental doubts about the practices that Martha McCaskey was to follow in order to complete the Silicon 6 project started troubling her and question her way of doing things. The opening sentence of the case mentions that Martha McCaskey was both elated and uneasy about completing the Silicon 6 project. This point clearly explains to us the confused state in which Martha McCaskey is finding herself in.

Next, Martha McCaskey was troubled with the following course of events: 1. First, she considered that the presentation to IAD’s client was of paramount importance, which was, in fact, thrashed by the client’s marketing manager. 2. Second, Malone turned around this situation and convinced the marketing manager to increase the billable at the cost of Martha compromise on her values towards work. 3. Third, Hackert and Malone were more confident and enthusiastic when they clarified to go the wrong way of incentivizing Mr. Phil Devon.
This assessment that Martha arrived at put her in the dilemma of whether to be completely happy about her promotion or feel dejected about the way of doing things. Martha’s assessment is completely justified in this case because an ambitious Harvard graduate, on her first job position is treading the path that she would never have imagined to walk. However, this is the reality that she had to face. She might go around cursing it or she can now put herself up against everything and emerge the winner out of it.
3. Was the situation avoidable? How did McCaskey end up in this situation?
In this case, it is quite instrumental for us to evaluate and weigh all the options with an unbiased sense in order to arrive at a point of judging the situation avoidable or not. In the discussion leading to judging whether the situation was avoidable or not, Martha could have avoided joining the company in the first place. Moreover, she had joined the company in a week’s time making it virtually impossible for her to completely know the exact procedures in the company. At the outset, however, she had joined the company and this option can now be digressed here.
Second, Martha could have avoided taking up the Silicon 6 project. This argument is more valid since she had by that time known the company procedure of obtaining proprietary information, which she did not try to push forth for explanation. This puts her in a faulty position, from a peer’s perspective. Even after going into the details of the case, she could have avoided taking up the project for the following reasons: She knew that Lee Rogoff was made to step out of the project only because he was not able to get the right information that has been demanded by the client; literally, the proprietary information of the target competitor. If she was to head the project, she could have evaluated that she would have to use means that is not acceptable by her standards.
Furthermore, McCaskey also had personal motives relating to her growth in the company with respect to accepting to step into the Silicon 6 project. Hence, we can say that McCaskey is responsible for having ended up in the situation where she would have to compromise her values. This argument can be further reiterated based upon the opening sentence of the case where it has been mentioned that McCaskey was elated post her first meeting on being reassured of her promotion.
An unbiased evaluation would help us understand that the procedures at IAD (Seleris) have always been not so acceptable but McCaskey is the one who is new into the situation. She can, now, either choose to ignore that the procedures at IAD (Seleris) are not unethical or can choose to walk out of the whole thing, which in turn results in she compromising on her career.
On the other hand, we cannot even completely agree that Richardson, Malone or Hackert are clean enough since they are directly or indirectly supervising illegal procedures, which may lead them being sued for criminal activity. They have lured McCaskey into the situation baiting her with the promotion offer, which is reasonable for McCaskey to accept.
At the outset, the situation in which McCaskey is right now feeling uncomfortable could have been avoided. And McCaskey had more chances for it. Richardson or Malone and McCaskey’s peers could have done the job of stealing proprietary information without having to conflict with their integrity and morality since they have all been doing it for a long time now.

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