Using the case below, answer the following questions.

1. What is the ethical issue?

2. Who are the stakeholders?

3. How would you apply each of the 5 moral principles when attempting to assess the issues?

4. Which option is best?

Defining Moments: Fair to Whom?
Anaya Deshpande stared at the blank screen in front of her. Scattered around her desk were several
depressing reports on her unit’s projects, a glowing newspaper article on her high-tech, global employer as a
model company for India, and an internal memo reiterating the top management team’s belief that it was the
company’s unique culture—one focused on unwavering commitment to world-class quality work, high ethical
standards, and manifest desire to help Indians build fulfilling careers and upper-middle-class lives—that had
been and must remain its core differentiator. The contrast between the company’s general performance and
external reputation, and the situation she was facing in her own role, could hardly be starker—or more
paralyzing. Deshpande was angry and scared. She knew she had to do something, but none of the obvious
options were attractive or tenable.
Upon becoming the head of one of the company’s major internal R&D units 18 months ago, Deshpande
had inherited a number of PhD-level employees whose core job functions were research, data analysis, and
report writing. Her elation and optimism about what her unit could accomplish had faded relatively quickly as
she received report after report revealing underwhelming progress on almost all of her unit’s projects. Looking
into the issues more closely, Deshpande found that, of the 15 researchers working for her, 12 lacked anything
close to the level of sophistication in theorizing, research design, and data analysis to which she had been
exposed during her schooling in the United States. The employees’ work revealed gaps and flaws in their
understanding of the existing knowledge base and logical scientific reasoning, reliance on a narrow set of
relatively simplistic analyses, and writing that ranged from amateurish to indecipherable.
Deshpande had already spent countless hours working to help the floundering associates. She established
partnerships with external academics, enrolled the employees in continuing education coursework, and worked
directly with those struggling to try to close the gaps in their performance. These efforts had produced some
increase in the group’s performance, but at a high cost in both time and financial resources. Deshpande’s group
was behind on most of the objectives she had established with her own boss (a member of the top management
team) and, because of the individual attention she had to give to these remedial efforts, Deshpande had also
fallen behind on the higher-level tasks she was supposed to be working on as the leader of this high-profile
unit. Deshpande estimated that despite all her well-documented efforts with each struggling employee, she had
six employees who were at best “C” players and another six who were clearly “D” or “F” on even a generous
curve.
Beyond the normal problems associated with handling employee underperformance, Deshpande had
learned there was a particularly vexing cultural factor at play in this situation. Most of these ineffective
employees, Deshpande found out informally, had received admittance to their universities and postgraduate

programs through India’s “reservation system.” Established by the Indian constitution,1 the reservation system
required that public-sector government and higher education institutions in India reserve a significant
percentage of jobs and admissions, respectively, for applicants from traditionally unrepresented communities.
The reservations were intended to amend the historic oppression of those from historically “lower” castes of
the country (called the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes) who had been
systematically discriminated against and had access restricted to educational and vocational opportunities, thus
causing massively disproportionate underrepresentation in employment, education, and government. Though
the Indian government had not yet mandated reservations in private-sector organizations, discussions about
doing so had been ongoing for years.2 In the current political climate, there were many who believed that if
private firms did not work harder to proactively address the employment situation for members of Scheduled
Castes, and show demonstrable improvements, federal regulation would come soon.
Prompted both by a genuine belief that the private sector must be part of any viable solution to India’s
most pressing problems, and by the specter of government regulation whose provisions could be more onerous
and less effective, senior leaders at Deshpande’s company had been outspoken in their support for more
inclusion of members of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes in the company. They had argued not just that this
was the right thing to do ethically, but also that it would add economic value to the firm over the long term.
The company had thus recruited heavily not just from the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (the IITs) but
also from lower-tier schools where there were more Scheduled Caste students. It had also invested massively
in programs to help bridge the gap between the preparedness level of many Scheduled Caste graduates and the
needs of firms like Deshpande’s that were competing globally against companies staffed with the most talented
engineers, programmers, and social scientists.
Deshpande understood the long legacy of caste-based discrimination in India, including that members of
Scheduled Castes and Tribes continued to be mistreated by teachers and students alike at university, and by
coworkers and bosses at work. She had read, for example, about multiple suicides by students who had written
or talked about the systematic discrimination, abuse, and humiliation they faced at their university.3
Deshpande also felt she was drowning in her attempt to swim against the current of this massive societal
problem. She simply wasn’t sure she, or her organization, had the capacity or responsibility to help these
employees overcome all the challenges they faced. Employees from Scheduled Castes and Tribes faced so much
hostility, resentment, and misunderstanding from those of other castes that they often became reclusive,
depressed, and unwilling or unable to seek help. Within their own communities, they sometimes also faced lack
of role modeling or support, with some who earned opportunities via the reservation system feeling sabotaged
by relatives or friends who didn’t understand or feel comfortable with their upward mobility. All of this left her
wondering if she should tarnish her own reputation, and possibly lose her job, by trying to fix something so
much bigger and seemingly beyond the direct mission or expertise of her company.

Knowing that she couldn’t go on like this—her unit was steadily losing its tenuous hold on the already
limited respect and support it had among many in the company—Deshpande had asked for a meeting with her
boss. Their time would be limited and she didn’t want to get derailed by her emotions during the meeting, so
Deshpande had set herself the task of sketching out her recommendation beforehand. At a broad level, she saw
two options:
A. Report that she planned to fire and replace at least half of the 12 underperforming employees,
explaining that while this appeared to disregard senior management’s values and commitments and
increase the potential for government backlash, it was imperative to do so for reasons related to both
her and her unit’s current ability to perform and to notions of fairness and accountability among all
employees.
B. Ask for more resources for improving these 12 workers, along with ideas for what else might work.
Espouse support for the program but also be clear that it wasn’t working “on the ground” and that
she didn’t know what more to do. Acknowledge that it was unlikely that she and her unit would be
able to hit, for the foreseeable future, many of the objectives that had been jointly set and suggest that
they be reset to more realistic levels.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1The ethical issue at hand is whether or not it is fair for Anaya Deshpande to fire the 12 researche... View the full answer