Ethical Dilemma Decision Time:

Chances Are What They Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them!

Futuristic Electronic Technologies (FET) recently released a new advanced electronic micro system to be used by financial institutions, large corporations, and governments to process and store financial data, such as taxes and automatic payroll payments. Even though FET developed the technology used in the creation of the product, FET’s competitors are expected to possess similar technology soon. To beat the competition to the market, FET introduced its new micro system a little earlier than originally planned. In fact, laboratory testing had not been fully completed before the product reached the market. The tests are complete now, and the final results suggest the micro system might be flawed with respect to how some data are retrieved and processed. The tests are not conclusive, though, and even if additional testing proves that a flaw does exist, according to FET, it is of minuscule importance because the problem seems to occur for only one out of 100 million retrieval and processing attempts. The financial ramifications associated with the flaw are unknown at this time.

Assume that you are one of FET’s senior executives whose annual salary is based on the performance of the firm’s common stock. You realize that if FET recalls the affected micro system, the stock price will suffer; thus, your salary for the year will be less than you expected. To complicate matters, you just purchased an expensive house based on your salary expectations for the next few years—expectations that will not be realized unless the new micro system is a success for FET.

As one of the senior executives, you will help determine what course of action FET will follow with respect to the micro system.

(1) What should you do?

(2) Should you encourage FET to recall the micro system until further testing is completed?

(3) Or can you suggest another course of action?