[Christain Business Ethics] Case study

apply Christian principles and scripture and analyze the questions with the Holiness-Justice-Love framework from Alec Hill

Although many large public companies still operate after filing for bankruptcy, many employees lose their jobs, and the other stakeholders suffer the consequences noted. However, some employees actually get cash bonuses, and typically, the only employees in the some category are executives. Such decisions are made by the companys boards of directors, as one of their key responsibilities is to determine the compensation of top executives. Some boards of directors decide before filing to pay the CEO, and occasionally other executives, large cash bonuses. For instance, during the economic devastation due to COVID-19, J. C. Penny paid its CEO $4.5 million; Whiting Petroleum paid $6.4 million to its CEO and nearly $15 million to other executives; Neiman Marcus' CEO received $2 million, and Hertz paid $16.2 million to 340 director-level and above executives, and $700,000 to its CEO. It is worth noting that the actual practices are legal and have been common for years. Nearly one-third of large companies filing for bankruptcy due to the coronavirus awarded bonuses to executives within a month of filing for bankruptcy

1. Explain how a board member or a CEO in a bankruptcy-bonus-granting firm might rationalize this practice. Work through all eight mechanisms (four stages) of moral disengagement. To clarify, give an example of what this person might think or say for each mechanism to justify this practice. (Behavioral: moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison. Agency: displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility. Outcomes: disregard or distortion of consequence. Victimization: dehumanization, attribution of blame)

2. Assume you are the CEO of J.C. Penny, who received a multimillion-dollar bonus, while hundreds of stores were closed, thousands of employees lost their jobs, and the company was saddled with piles of debt. Now assume you are taking the TV Test and have to justify your bonus on the national evening news. What will you say?