The ethical issue started with Sister Gormley noticing that Cypress doesn’t have any women or other race people on their board therefore she contacted the CEO complaining about it. The sister described the corporation as “immoral” for not having to diverse genders and race on their board. On the other side, the CEO T.J. Rodgers described her allegations as “politically correct.” The stakeholders in this situation are Rodgers and Sister Gormley.
Sister Gormley suggested that corporate morality requires racial and gender representation which complies with the Catholic Social Teaching principle of equality in running business. However, Rodgers counter idea of equality or “moral” is different than Gormley’s; his idea that a board of directors exists for profit maximization, and there’s no point of adding someone who have been involved in different types of societies that can bring in the idea of human freedom and keeping dignity in the workplace.
To best solve this problem the board of directors need to ask themselves “Is Sister Gormley right? Are we being fair with our shareholders? Consumers?” At that point they will realize that they actually are not knowledgeable in this matter. The board need to consider a broader view of societal good to run their corporation to a better and more diverse work environment, which eventually will lead to better results, more shareholders and profit maximization.
Reading through history, it seems that Sister Gormley is on the “right” side of this case, not only because she’s a nun, but her perspective about Corporate Social Responsibility is to ensure a societal good, where workers are being treated with dignity, working in a community among themselves, being paid fairly and in a work environment that is safe physically and morally. On the other hand, it seems that Mr. Rodgers perspective about the matter of having a broader view in the board of directors of the company is that it will not