You are to define the 10 terms below in your own word.

What Would You Do?

Case Assignment

1. Ethics
a. The set of moral principles or values that defines right and wrong for a person or group

2. Ethical behavior
a. Behavior that conforms to a society's accepted principles of right and wrong

3. Workplace deviance
a. unethical behavior that violates organizational norms about right and wrong

4. Production deviance
a. unethical behavior that hurts the quality and quantity of work produced

5. Property deviance
a. unethical behavior aimed at the organization's property or products

6. Employee Shrinkage
a. employee theft of company merchandise

7. Political Deviance
a. using one's influence to harm others in the company

8. Personal aggression
a. hostile or aggressive behavior toward others

9. Ethical intensity
a. the degree of concern people have about an ethical issue

10. Magnitude of Consequences
a. the total harm or benefit derived from an ethical decision

Writing verbatim and/or plagiarism will result in a zero (0) grade.

Below are six (6) effective steps along with examples to assist you with understanding how to paraphrase.

6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing
- Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
- Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
- Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
- Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
- Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
- Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

 Some examples to compare

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.

A legitimate paraphrase:

In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim.

An acceptable summary:

Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

A plagiarized version:

Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

What Would You Do? Case Assignment

American Express
New York, NY

Headquarters, New York. With medical costs rising 10 to 15 percent per year, one of the members of your Board of Directors mentioned that some companies are now refusing to hire smokers and that the board should discuss this option at the next month's meeting. Nationwide, about 6,000 companies refuse to hire smokers. Weyco, an employee benefits company in Okemos, Michigan, requires all applicants to take a nicotine test. Weyco's CFO says, "We're not saying people can't smoke. We're just saying they can't smoke and work here. As an employee-benefits company, we need to take a leadership role in helping people understand the cost impact of smoking." The Cleveland Clinic, one of the top hospitals in the United States, doesn't hire smokers. Paul Terpeluk, the director of corporate and employee health, says that all applicants are tested for nicotine and that 250 people have lost job opportunities because they smoke. The Massachusetts Hospital Association also refuses to hire smokers. The company's CEO says, "Smoking is a personal choice, and as an employer I have a personal choice within the law about who we hire and who we don't."

As indicated by your board member, costs are driving the trend not to hire smokers. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, a smoker costs about $4,000 more a year to employ because of increased health-care costs and lost productivity. Breaking that down, a smoker will have 50 percent higher absenteeism, and, when present, will work 39 fewer minutes per day because of smoke breaks, which leads to 1,817 lost hours of annual productivity. A smoker will have higher accident rates, cause $1,000 a year in property damage (from cigarette burns and smoke damage), and will cost up to $5,000 more a year for annual insurance premiums. John Banzhaf, executive director of an antismoking group in Washington, and a law professor at George Washington University, says, "Smoking is the biggest factor in controllable health-care costs."

Although few would disagree about the costs, others argue it is wrong not to hire smokers. Jay Whitehead, publisher of a magazine for human resources managers, says, "There is discrimination at many companies-and maybe even most companies-against people who smoke." Even if applicants aren't asked whether they smoke, it "doesn't mean that hiring managers turn off their sense of smell." Paul Sherer, a smoker who was fired less than a week after taking a new job, says, "Not hiring smokers affects millions of people and puts them in the same category as women able to bear children, that is, people who contribute to higher health-care costs. It's unfair." Law professor Don Garner believes that not hiring smokers is "an overreaction on the part of employers whose interest is cutting costs. If someone has the ability to do the job, he should get it. What you do in your home is your own business. ... Not hiring smokers is ‘respiratory apartheid.'"

Well, with the meeting just a month away, you've got to prepare for the Board of Directors' questions. For example, on what basis should the company decide whether to hire smokers? Should the decision be based on what's in the best interest of the firm, what the law allows, or what affirms and respects individual rights? The Board is interested in making good decisions for the company, but "doing the right thing" is also one of its core values. Next, is this an issue of ethics or social responsibility? Ethical decision making is concerned with doing right and avoiding wrong, whereas social responsibility is a business's obligation to pursue policies, make decisions, and take actions that benefit society. Finally, given that it's so much cheaper not to hire smokers, the board will want to know whether refusing to hire smokers is a form of discrimination.

If you were in charge at American Express, what would you do?