Martha Mcaskey Case Analysis
Martha Mcaskey Case Analysis
Akshay Shende – IS 578
The Problem
The major parties involved in this case are the group managers and executives within Seleris Associates’ IAD division, and Martha McCaskey (senior associate). From the management’s perspective, the problem is to find the most effective way to glean useful competitive information for the division’s clients. This is essentially the mission of the division and its very raison d’etre.
Martha McCaskey being a part of the IAD division is generally bound to the same mission as her managers. However, as an individual, she is also bound by a personal code of ethics. This means that McCaskey has two challenges: to abide by the overarching goals of her employer while simultaneously being true to her ethical code.
In the specific case of the Silicon 6 project, the managers of IAD – particularly Tom Malone – seek to get a hold of some highly secretive competitive information for a crucial client. To achieve this result, they are willing to pay a knowledgeable insider (Phil Devon) for proprietary information. McCaskey shares the same common goals with her employer, i.e. to get the competitive information on Silicon 6. However, she is not equally committed to paying off Phil Devon to achieve the same.
The Solutions
One possible solution is for Martha McCaskey to re-align her code of ethics to match the requirements set upon her by her employer. McCaskey has already in some ways compromised by being part of the IAD division whose most basic mission is to get secret information about clients’ competitors. She has already misrepresented herself in information gathering interviews, claiming to be from a trade publication etc. So she has at certain level accepted the nature of the work, and perhaps stretching her ethical code a little more to include bribery would not be asking too much. The negative side of this approach is obvious: making compromises regarding ethics is a slippery slope. If McCaskey gives even
Akshay Shende – IS 578
The Problem
The major parties involved in this case are the group managers and executives within Seleris Associates’ IAD division, and Martha McCaskey (senior associate). From the management’s perspective, the problem is to find the most effective way to glean useful competitive information for the division’s clients. This is essentially the mission of the division and its very raison d’etre.
Martha McCaskey being a part of the IAD division is generally bound to the same mission as her managers. However, as an individual, she is also bound by a personal code of ethics. This means that McCaskey has two challenges: to abide by the overarching goals of her employer while simultaneously being true to her ethical code.
In the specific case of the Silicon 6 project, the managers of IAD – particularly Tom Malone – seek to get a hold of some highly secretive competitive information for a crucial client. To achieve this result, they are willing to pay a knowledgeable insider (Phil Devon) for proprietary information. McCaskey shares the same common goals with her employer, i.e. to get the competitive information on Silicon 6. However, she is not equally committed to paying off Phil Devon to achieve the same.
The Solutions
One possible solution is for Martha McCaskey to re-align her code of ethics to match the requirements set upon her by her employer. McCaskey has already in some ways compromised by being part of the IAD division whose most basic mission is to get secret information about clients’ competitors. She has already misrepresented herself in information gathering interviews, claiming to be from a trade publication etc. So she has at certain level accepted the nature of the work, and perhaps stretching her ethical code a little more to include bribery would not be asking too much. The negative side of this approach is obvious: making compromises regarding ethics is a slippery slope. If McCaskey gives even