Case Study #
1 :
Is
There Place for Ethics in IT?
1. Discuss
how a CIO might handle Schrage’s scenarios using the virtue ethics approach,
the fairness approach, the utilitarian approach, and the common good approach.
Gantam Gupta
had actually worked under an unproductive meddling boss. He suggested
confronting the boss about the problem at an appropriate time and place. In
addition, as situations  that  required Gupta to convey important
information that might elicit an inference, He develop action plans and
then made firm presentations to his boss. CIOs must consider a company’s
long-term needs rather just the current needs of a special project. Other
argued that engaging in unethical behavior, even for the best purpose, crosses
a line that eventually leads to more serious transgressions. Some readers
suspected that Schrage had published the article to provoke outrage. Dewey suggested that not giving the boss important information could
backfire on the employee.
2. Discuss the possible short-term losses and
long-term gains in implementing ethical solution to each of Schrage’s
scenarios.
Gupta,
Dewey, and others argued that CIO’s must consider a company’s long-term needs rather than
just the current needs of a specific project. Other argued leads that engaging
in unethical behavior, even for the best of purposes. Crosses a line that
eventually leads to more serious transgressions.
3. Must
businesses choose between good ethics and financial benefits? Explain your
answer using Schrage's scenarios or your own examples.
Yes. Because Good
ethical choices must be chosen rather than the beneficial matter like Schrage.
Case # 2
Computer
Associates Is Forced to Cleaned up its Act
Because Mr Schuetze gave his reasons for doing so.
Speculating otherwise could leave others open for libel.
Ex-CA CEO Kumar Points to Others in Accounting Cover-up. http://www.pcworld.com/article/150659/article.html
3. Do you think a company can commit widespread accounting fraud without the knowledge of lower-level managers in the accounting and finance departments?
I believe it can, and it has happened in the past. Look at
Enron and Worldcom. In both cases, executive management perpetrated the fraud
without the knowledge of lower-level managers. In most cases, it is the 'tone
at the top' that has eroded and led to the lapse in ethics (at a minimum).
Case Study #
3
Mckesson HBOC
Accused of Accounting Improperties
1. Make a list of the parties that were hurt by the use of
nonstandard accounting practices at HBOC, identify the harm suffered by each
party.
Additional allegation where made that, to blister its
results, HBOC to questionable sales with two other computer companies. And just
weeks before HBOC and McKesson agreed to merge, HBOC signed to buy $74 million
in software from computer (CA), supposedly for resale.
2. As you
read this case, was there a clear point at which ethical wrong doings became
legal wrong doings? If so, when?
As I read this case, it was also alleged that McKesson
HBOC, INC. and data General, a computer hardware maker based in Massachusetts,
had agreed to a similar deal in March 1999.
In October 2003, former HBOC president Albert Bergonzi pleaded guilty to two counts of securities fraud charges. IN a Plea agreement, prosecutors dropped nine other charges and Bergonzi agreed to cooperate in the government’s case against another McKesson executive, Richard Hawkins. Bergonzo was the fourth former senior HBOC executive to plead guilty to charges stemming from the scandal.
3. What would motivate HBOC managers to use nonstandard
accounting procedures to report increased revenues and earnings?
In one of the drug industry’s largest corporate shakeups, the board of McKessons HBOC INC, ouster some of it’s
for captives over the accounting irregularities .in July 1999, the U.S. attorney’s office for the northern district of California and the
SEC started investigation. Eventually, however, $327 million in overstated
revenue and $191 million in overstated income were uncovered from 1992 to 1999.
