Caitlin Bransby
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W 7-9:45
First Case Analysis Report: Empress Luxury Lines
Antonio and Kevin are facing a serious test of morals in this case analysis. If Antonio advises Kevin to report Empress to the insurance company there is an extremely high risk factor associated with this action. Empress has been rumored to have successfully defrauded insurance companies which would mean that upper level management has no standards when it comes to insurance fraud, due to the fact that it has been done before. Not only this but there are no protections in place for employees to report wrong-doing internally, and no protections are available for whistle-blowers. That all being said, if Kevin or Antonio take action, they will most likely lose there jobs. So what this scenario ultimately comes down to is how much these two people value their jobs and what lengths they are willing to go to uphold their moral standards.
Question 1:
The decision Antonio Melendez would most likely reach if he applied the utilitarian approach to his decision-making is a decision that would promote the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Although this is a pressing moral issue, Kevin is only one person within a massive corporation. A true utilitarian approach would choose what would benefit the largest amount of people, which in this case would be the rest of the corporation. It would benefit the rest of the corporation if Kevin and Antonio push this under the rug because due to the financial instability of the company already, if there was a case of insurance fraud many people could lose their job and this could ultimately be the “straw that breaks the camels back” so to speak. With the utilitarian approach, the company would continue with the insurance claim and continue its operations with a computer system upgrade. If Antonio employs the individualism approach he will make a moral decision that promotes his long-term interest. Antonio’s long-term interests will best be promoted if he tells Kevin to report Empress to the insurance company. Even though he could be easily fired for this action, in the terms of preservation of long-term moral goals, this would be the right decision. Antonio would be standing up for what he believes in and following what his initial gut intuition told him. This in turn would be a sound decision with an individualism approach.
Question 2: Realistically if I were in Antonio’s position I would immediately report to upper level management and the CFO. This insurance fraud situation is a really big deal and can and will affect the company drastically. Due to its intense nature, this situation seems way beyond Antonio’s job description. I think that reporting to upper level management will