Activity 1: a Question of Ethics

Chapter 2: Developing self-awareness

Activity 1: A Question of Ethics

Online Privacy at Work

As the CEO of a small, publicly held, high technology firm that designs web-based applications for clients, you realise that it is essential for your firm to have high-speed internet access available to all of your clients. However, after reading a recent article on CNNFN entitled ‘Cyberveillance at work: Surfing the wrong Internet sites on the job could get you fired’ ( that indicated that unauthorised cyber-activities may have been costing American companies as much as $1 billion a year, you have started noticing that not everyone at the office is using their access for business-related purposes. In fact, you guiltily realise that you, yourself, recently used an online auction service during business hours to purchase some football tickets and you noticed that one of your employees was actually on a site called ‘I Should be Working’.

Your vice-president of information services has come to you with a plan to monitor and control employees’web-surfing activities during business hours and to monitor their e-mail to ensure that it is being used strictly for business purposes. As the CEO it is your decision whether or not to install this software. Should you install the software? What are the ethical implications? How would this decision hold up to the standards introduced in Chapter 1? For example, would this pass the dignity and liberty test (i.e., would it preserve the dignity and liberty of others?) How about the front page and golden rule tests?

Activity 2: The Value of Ethics

Can We Afford Ethics?

Chapter 1 discusses ethical decision making and helps you assess your values and ethical decision-making style. Why do we study these issues in a management course? Do ethics and ethical decisions impact organisational profits? Elizabeth Pinchot, the author of ‘Can we Afford Ethics’ ( thinks so. What do you believe? Is there a necessary level of ethics that a company needs to survive? Can a company spend too much time, effort, and money on developing and ensuring ethics?

Activity 3: Locus of Control

Locus of Control Test

An individual’s locus of control is a key element of an individual’s orientation toward change. The following website provides an instrument that you can use to examine your locus of control: What does your score on this test reveal about your locus of control? What are the implications of this style? Do internals or externals tend to perform better in stressful situations? Can locus of control shift over time? If so, how?

Activity 4: Emotional Intelligence

Exercising EI

Demonstrating a high degree of emotional intelligence is a crucial aspect of successful management. A key component of emotional intelligence is the ability to correctly identify another’s emotion and respond to it appropriately.

View the picture at: It shows a gathering of people viewing a fireworks display. What is the woman with the grey hair holding the two girls in the centre of the picture feeling? What is each of the two girls feeling? What is the woman in the tan coat covering her mouth to the right of the grey haired woman feeling?

Suppose the young girl on the right wearing a hat tells her grandmother (the woman holding her) that she is scared and wants to go home. The grandmother knows the girl’s sister (the one on the left) is enjoying herself and really wants to stay. What would you recommend the grandmother do to appease each child? Suppose the woman in the tan coat confesses to her friend (the lady behind her wearing glasses) that she is finding the large crowd oppressive and is having trouble breathing. The friend is finding the fireworks display very exciting and pleasurable. What would you recommend the friend do to address the situation?