Daniel Josef M. Aloroy                                                                                                                   2.12.08

 ITETHIC                                                                                                                                                 O0B

A Book Review on “The Right Thing” by Jeffrey Seglin

CHAPTER 2: HIRING

                Whatever the reason for layoffs, what ethical responsibility do employers and employees have to each other? If a layoff is imminent, do these employees who know that they are safe owe any loyalty to the company? And do employers owe any loyalty to employees who have knuckled down in tough times and helped the business survive?

This chapter talks about issues with regard to the hiring up to the firing of employees. Of course not all those who applied for the job will be accepted, and not all of those who are accepted are assured of job security, because not everyone performs and/or has the same ability as the other has. For the company’s part, they should make sure that whenever they do a lay-off, those employees who are laid-off must be assured very well of a dismissal pay, and make sure also that those who have remained are well-deserving and essential to the growth of the company. With the growing production of technological services, the manpower resources are also decrementing in number as they are replaced by machines already.

CHAPTER 3: BOSSES

                ‘From a managerial point of view, you should have a strong prejudice toward being clear, direct and honest,’ because lying ‘becomes a bad habit’ commented Professor Badaracco. ‘What is more, you might get caught. You set a bad example. The people who work with you probably aren’t dumb; they’ll copy what you do’....

                ...Once a leader blurs rules about what is acceptable – say, during sworn testimony on national TV – then no one knows the boundaries any more. Many in the rank and file will conclude that they are free to, and perhaps ought to, emulate the boss.

Bosses are our superior in an organization or just in any small groups. We follow them respectfully and do whatever is commanded to us by them. We know that because they are above us, they should be more appropriate in decisions and actions for the company. But if the bosses themselves make an anomaly not only within the organization, but also maybe in the country, they set a bad example for their subordinates to follow. There have been such similar cases already in the Philippine context. This chapter helps readers to full understand situations that could arise to their bosses. It says that if we were given a favour by our boss, we should also give back to what they did and also the other way around. However, it is already our duty to know what is really ethical when the boss would give some directions for us to execute right away. We must also investigate on what really is the motive of his/her actions. In return, the bosses must be professional enough in his own craft because he is always emulated by the employees on his own ways.

CHAPTER 5: LYING, CHEATING, STEALING 

                Ms. Bailey,37, was talking about a short profile that appeared in the June 2001 issue of Smart Money magazine. In it, she recalled how she had made her company, a start-up website aimed at executive mothers, appear to be larger than it actually was. She told the reporter how she had added the names of freelancers and part-timers to the biographies in her business plan; used fake email addresses to give the impression that there were other people staffing her non-existent departments; and suggested to prospective clients that she had executives from companies like Blockbuster and Alamo on staff, when she had only received free consulting services from people there. 

In this chapter, it exemplified a realistic case about a woman who owns a start-up website and namedrop executives who are really not in his company. With her confidence of being recognized as a respectable company, she published fake email addresses to show that she employs them. On the other articles in the chapter, there are also stories regarding lying and cheating within organizations. These organizations have had their own story on these topics. Stealing is also a big issue here because some people tend to be too poised and used to stealing already just like what happened to some of the people in the chapter.  It is treated differently from other cases because of their severity to the public.