COVID-19 Ethical Dilemma in Organisations

Assessment 1: Essay

In this year we have explored the various ways that ethical decisions are experienced, mediated, and managed in contemporary organisations. A variety of different policies and procedures are employed within organisations to attempt to manage ethical behaviour; these processes can not only place demands on us as employees and managers, but also as consumers and citizens, and as members of our families. As Critchley (2007) has shown, such ethical demands not only influence our motivations and actions but can help to shape our very sense of moral selfhood.

For this assignment, which constitutes 60% of your overall module mark on BE439, you will write a 1,500-word essay exploring some ethical dilemmas which individuals have been experiencing within organisations during the current phase of the COVID-19 crisis – a phase during which government furlough and national lockdown policies have come to an end in most countries, and organisations are trying to resume some level of normal activity in the face of labour and supply chain shortages and ongoing health risks for employees.

For this essay you are required to refer to concrete, real-life examples, as reported in the media or in publicly available company documents or government reports in order to develop your argument. You are also required to apply Critchley’s (2007) framework for understanding the nature of individual ethical experience, using his concepts of “demand,” “approval,” “ethical experience” and “moral selfhood,” in order to explore how ethical experience is being shaped for individuals in different positions (managers, various different employees, owners) within organisations during this current phase of the COVID pandemic.

The coursework should fulfil the following formal criteria:

• It should include Harvard style in-text citations for all cited works, and a list of references at the end;
• It should be spellchecked and grammar-checked;
• The 1,500 word limit (+/- 10%) applies to the body of the text (including in-text citations), but not to the reference list at the end.

Your essay must be submitted to FASER by AT 10AM on the day it is due.

Guidance:

1) An analytical/argumentative essay is a text based on reliable sources (academic and quality news sources, and other reliable online sources). It should pursue a line of argument with clear reasoning, based on supporting evidence and examples that support the thesis and any particular claims made in the essay.

2) Include a thesis statement in your introduction, as well as a “road map” for the essay indicating what exactly you will be arguing, and in what order, throughout the body of the essay.

3) Have a clear focus on one or two key issues or cases, and engage with it/them in detail. You cannot cover everything in such a short essay, however interesting the ideas might be. Part of the task in this assignment is to focus on something specific and to discuss it in some detail.

4) Do not explicitly rely on textbooks or popular business books or websites for this assignment. Use textbook(s) only as a guide to key issues and concepts. You may also use academic articles for theoretical framing, but you will need to use recent articles in newspapers, magazines and other online sources in order to find recent examples of ethical issues unfolding within organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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 In submitting coursework online, it must be assumed that you have read and understood the following guidelines about academic offences. Please note that all coursework is being monitored by plagiarism detection software. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the reference database of the respective software solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers.

The university regulations (Academic Offences Procedures 2021-22, available at

file:///Users/sandramoog/Downloads/academic-offences-procedure%20(1).pdf) state that,

“1.1  The University, the Students’ Union and the University’s Partner Institutions expect all students:

• to behave with honesty and integrity in relation to coursework, examinations and other assessed work;
• to be familiar and act in accordance with the conventions of academic writing including appropriate referencing of sources and acknowledgement of assistance;
• to show understanding of ethical considerations and be compliant with the relevant University Procedures.

A student who does not comply with any of these requirements (either intentionally or by negligence) may be charged with having committed an academic offence.

1.  The following are some examples of academic offences and do not constitute an exhaustive list:

1. plagiarism, that is, using or copying the work of others (whether written, printed or in any other form) without proper acknowledgement in any assignment, examination or other assessed work;
2. self-plagiarism, that is, using or copying one’s own work that has previously been submitted for assessment, at the University or elsewhere, without proper acknowledgement in any assignment, examination or other assessed work, unless this is explicitly permitted;
3. false authorship or contract cheating, that is the soliciting of a third party to provide written material that is then submitted for assessment presented as one’s own original work;
4. collusion, that is, submitting work produced collaboratively for individual assessment, unless this is explicitly permitted and acknowledged;
5. falsifying data or evidence;
6. unethical academic practice, for example, conducting research without obtaining ethical approval from the University where such approval is required, or the unauthorised use of information that has been confidentially acquired;
7. introducing, or attempting to introduce, any written, printed or electronically accessible information into an examination, other than material explicitly permitted in the instructions for that examination;
8. copying, or attempting to copy, the work of another candidate in an examination;
9. communicating, or attempting to communicate, with another person, other than an invigilator, during an examination;
10. accessing, or attempting to access, the assessment material (such as an examination paper) prior to it being published, except in cases where it is formally permitted by the University.

1.3  A student suspected of helping another student commit an academic offence may be investigated and dealt with in accordance with the University’s Code of Student Conduct. Action may also be taken against maliciously false accusations of academic offenses.”