Question:
What is a key component of a successful auditing process missing from this situation?
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Charles worked at Butterfly Corporation for two years involved as well, especially their customers. Charles was after graduating from the University of Texas. He liked his job but the firm was going through some rough the firm. Because Charles knew his data analysis skills times. Because the firm was losing money, Douglas, were not good, he recommended bringing in a commit- the CEO, set increasingly rigorous performance goals. tee of competent coworkers who had been in the orga- Charles noticed a lot of employees were grumbling about nization for years and knew the system inside and out. these unrealistic expectations. He also heard rumors of Healso developed a list of organizations Butterfly could quality control incidents and other problems. One day Charles was called into Douglas's office. analyzed. "Hello, Doug. You wanted to see me?" Charles asked. "Yes, Charles. Come in." Doug looked grim. After Charles sat down, he began to speak. "Look, you know about the tough times we are in. We are losing money left and right. So far I've been able to keep this company afloat by drastically making cuts and speeding up pro- duction. I guess in all this cost-cutting, there have been problems that have come up. A lot of people have called the hotline to complain about ethical problems, such as employees cutting corners to make their quotas. Now I've got the board on my back" "I'm really sorry, Doug. How can I help?" Charles asked. interested in assessing the overall corporate culture of hire to verify the results once data was collected and The next day, Charles turned in his report and waited while Doug read through it. When finished, he looked up at Charles and frowned. "Charles, I can see you put a lot of work into this. However, what you have recommended is not going to suit our needs." "What do you mean?" Charles asked. "First off, I already told you, I don't want to remove people from their jobs to work on this. We're behind schedule as it is. Also, focus groups of employees and customer feedback? That's going to take up time and resources we can't afford to lose. You also propose hir- ing an independent third party? We're supposed to be cutting costs, not throwing money at some organization simply to check our results." "So what would you like me to do then?" Charles asked. "Well, the board requested we perform an ethics audit to make sure everyone is complying with company regulations. As if we don't have enough to worry about. This is only going to increase our costs. Anyway, I want you to lead the audit" Charles was stunned. "Me? But Doug, I've only been charge of the project. You make the decisions. Just make here for two years. Shouldn't you choose a more experi- enced manager to lead this?" Doug shook his head. "We need all our managers to board and get back to work. Maybe you could survey a continue doing their jobs. I don't have the time to pull few employees and get it over with. Just remember to one of them away from their responsibilities just because the board wants us to do an ethics audit." Charles agreed to lead the audit process. That and bring it back to me tomorrow," he said. night he researched how to conduct an ethics audit. He promised to have a rudimentary plan outlining how the ethics audit should be conducted on Doug's desk for approval the next day. As he researched on the Inter- net, he became more excited. He spent hours forming objectives for the audit, determining the audit's scope, and defining what he thought should be the firm's ethi- cal priorities. He created a plan for using focus groups Doug sighed. "That's why I made you the person in sure it's something that won't cost a lot of money. I want this process to go as quickly as possible so we satisfy the make us look good." Doug handed back Charles's proposal. "Revise this QUESTIONS | EXERCISES 1. What is a key component of a successful auditing process missing from this situation?
