Question

Process:

• Read the scenario below.
• Answer the following questions.

1. Identify unethical behavior of Rudy from the scenario
2. Recall the concepts of moral awareness, moral judgement, and moral intent. Which one do you think Rudy does not have? Justify your choice.
3. Come up with three ideas for reducing theft in this grocery store.

Scenario

Alex Grant recently graduated from college and is excited to be starting his first job as a store manager for The Grocery Cart, a large supermarket chain. The company has a very good management training program, and it is one of the fastest growing chains in the nation.

If Alex does well managing his first store, there are a number of promising advancement opportunities in the company. After completing the store management training program, Alex met with Regina Hill, his area supervisor. She informed Alex that he would be taking charge of a medium-volume store ($250,000 in sales/week) in an upper-class neighborhood. This store had been operating without a store manager for the past six months. The store had also not made a profit in any of the monthly financial reports for the last year.

Hill also shared the following information with Alex: Because the store has been without a store manager for the last six months, the assistant manager (Drew Smith) has been in charge. Drew is known for being highly competent and a solid performer. However, there have been complaints that he is frequently rude to employees and insults and ridicules them whenever they make mistakes. Turnover among sales clerks and cashiers at this store has been somewhat higher than in other stores in the area. The average pay of clerks and cashiers is $7.25/hour. The last two semiannual inventories at this store showed significant losses. There has been a large amount of theft from the store stockroom (an area where only employees are allowed).

Given that the store has generally done well in sales (compared with others in the area) and that most expenses seem well under control, Hill believes that the profitability problem for this store is primarily due to theft. Therefore, she suggested that Alex’s plans for the store should focus on this priority over any others.

When Alex arrived for his first day of work in his new store, he saw that Drew was in the process of terminating an employee (Rudy Johnson) who had been caught stealing. Alex immediately went to the break room of the store where the termination interview was being conducted to learn more about the situation.

Drew informed Alex that Rudy had been a grocery clerk for the past six weeks and that he had apparently figured out how to tell if the alarms to the stockroom doors were off. Rudy would then open the back stockroom doors and stack cases of beer outside the store to pick up after his shift. After Drew caught Rudy doing this, Drew had a conversation with one of his friends who works as a restaurant manager down the street. Drew’s friend noted that he had hired Rudy a few months ago and that he’d been caught stealing there too.

Turning to Rudy, Drew asked, “So, Rudy, what do you have to say for yourself?” Rudy quickly replied: “Look here, [expletive], you don’t pay me enough to work here and put up with this garbage. In fact, you’re always riding everyone like they’re your personal servant or something. So I was trying to get some beer. I’ve seen you let stockers take home damaged merchandise a dozen times. So just because they cut open a box of cookies, which we all know they do on purpose, they get to take stuff home for free. For that matter, we’ve all seen you do the same thing! I’ve never seen you make a big deal about this stuff before. Why can’t I get a few cases of beer? What’s the big deal?”

Answer 1

1. Rudy Johnson had been caught stealing from the store, by the assistant manager of the store, Drew Smith. When the alarms of the stockroom doors were off, Rudy used to open the back stockroom doors and stack cases of beer outside, which he used to pick up after his shift. Moreover after being caught red handed, Rudy did not have guilt or remorse for his act. Instead he was trying to justify the same. This is clearly an unethical behavior portrayed by Rudy.

2. The primary components of ethical behavior portrayed by a person are moral awareness, moral intent as well as moral judgement. Moral awareness is basically the degree of understanding in the individual that a moral issue exists in his act or has been violated by his actions. Clearly Rudy lacks moral awareness as he does not find anything wrong in his act of stealing. Moral judgement is the skill which helps one in identifying what is right and what is wrong. Rudy has been behaving as if his act of stealing is not a big deal and is quite common in the stores. He lacks moral judgement and is not able to categorize his act of stealing as a wrong action. Moral intent depicts the extent to which an individual sees himself as a moral person or a person having morality. Clearly we can see that Rudy does not claim himself to be a moral person or a person abiding by morality. Hence we can conclude that Rudy lacks all the components of ethical behavior.

3. Three ideas of reducing theft in the grocery store are as follows:

• Most of the theft cases happen as the employees and workers feel that they are underpaid and are not valued by the company. Alex needs to develop a paternalistic culture in the store where employees are valued and respected. Decision making must have representation from all employee roles. This way employees will feel inclusive and responsible for the store and will not conduct any kind of theft.
• Come up with ethical workshops and trainings for the employees to inculcate the competencies of honesty and accountability among the employees.
• Develop an anti-theft policy having severe consequences and hefty punitive measures. All employees must have clear awareness about the terms and conditions of the policy.

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