Question

You are a business student with the dream of owning your own business some day. You've participated in a few events like learning how to write a business plan and giving a pitch. Recently, you entered a regional business plan competition, and you took third place! Another student you know took home the grand prize. At first you were not upset, but a friend called you last week and told you she read the winner's business plan; it was remarkably similar to one published on the Internet a few months ago. You obtain a copy and sure enough, the product concept is the same, the analysis of the competition is pretty much the same (though the names are different), and the only real difference you find is that the name of the business is different than the one found on the internet. Though some numbers in the financial analysis were changed, a majority of the document is the same. Tomorrow is the banquet honoring the winners of the competition, and the winner will of course be there.

1. In your initial post, describe what you would do.
2. Which of the Four Approaches to Resolving Ethical Dilemmas (pg.95) do you feel is most applicable in this situation.
3. In your replies look for students who have a different viewpoint.

Answer 1

Ans 1. According to my point of view we should firstly discuss with the authorities of the competition because if this news came into public then it will also negatively affect the reputation of them. Secondly we should talk to the person who did this so that he can accept his mistake in front of the authority and become safe from the humiliation in front of everyone. If both the authority and the person are agree to do so then the name of the winner should be corrected and changed in front of everyone and the price is given to the person who got 2^nd position in the competition. It is important because if we encourage this then next time the participants do the same thing and only copy paste the data from the sources and not put their efforts to think about it and no new ideas came into existence and this is unethical and illegal because there is copyright issues and the suffered person can take actions against it. We must take against action action this because it is our duty to raise our voice high if we saw, hear or feel something wrong around us.

Ans 2. The 4 approaches which I thought most relevant in this situation are as follows-

1. The justice approach- it assumes that everyone is equal so they should be treated equally as well. No discrimination should be there. In this case we can see that the one who did unethical practices won the competition and the one who work hard and participated fairly loss the competition or came below position then him.
2. Idealism approach- person should have clear thoughts about what is good or what is bad. The unethical work or stealing some other person’s work and write own name on that work is the illegal according to the Intellectual property rights act.
3. Balance sheet approach- this is most important in this situation because if the matter came into public then there is negative impact on reputation of the related person and authority. This approach defines that we should write down the pros and cons of the decision we take, so it become easily for us to decide what we should do in a particular situation.
4. Engage people up approach- it says that we should discuss this situation with experienced and relevant persons before taking any decision because many persons thoughts, ideas and experiences are far better than single person’s.

Some other things that we can do in this situation are- look for the relevant law and case which happened earlier what decision took at that time, think about the outcome, find out this issue is more about legal or ethical, listen to the opinion of the person who copy paste the article. These are the some approaches which I think we should follow before taking any decision because the decision will affect the lives of many peoples.

Ans 3. Some peoples have different opinion in this situation, some of them are as follows-

1. According to my one friend- we should talk to the authority in personal and not made this thing public and tell them that they should understand the seriousness of their position and responsibility, this time we leave them by giving them warning and next time they announce the winner after seeing all the aspects.
2. According to another person- we should type a mail to the person whose actual business plan is this and the rest leave it on him/her, what he/she do in this matters and what steps he/she take.
3. According to another person- we should tell the newspapers and news channels about the matter so that next time this thing never happen and law take steps against the person and the related authority.