Section I. Each case ends with a decision to be made. First, putting yourself in the role of the person making the decision, indicate your key decision options. What basic choices do you have? In stating your decision options please avoid imagining a solution that would solve the ethical issue in the case, as the purpose of this case is to assess your ability to apply accurately the ethical perspectives. Second, do a stakeholder analysis that lists the stakeholders to the decision, and include an explanation of how the decision would affect each stakeholder. Please present a table with plusses and minuses to summarize your ideas. See the ATTACHMENT for a format for the table.

List your decision options across the top, the stakeholders along the side, and in the table indicate with plusses and minuses (i.e., + & -) the effect of each decision on each stakeholder. If a decision has a strong effect on a particular stakeholder, you can indicate this with more than one + or -.

For example, a generic stakeholder analysis table might look like:

Decision A Decision B

Stakeholders

Stockholders. + -

Employees -- +

Customers. + -

Community - +++

...Etc

[note: for your paper dont say Decision A; use a descriptive label for the decision.]

[note these stakeholders are just examples; your stakeholders will probably be different]

Decision:

To conduct your utilitarian analysis, count-up the plusses and minuses, and pick the decision where the plusses most outweigh the minuses. In the above table, Decision A has 2 plusses and 3 minuses, for a net of minus 1. Decision B has 4 plusses and 2 minuses, with a net of plus 2. So, from a utilitarian perspective, Decision B is more ethical.

Case Study:

MalikJones is General Manager for the Marigold Inn in Augusta, Georgia. Brittany Coombs is Restaurant and Food Services Manager for the Inn. She reports to Malik. Two years ago, Brittany noticed a decline in the room service business, the highest margin portion of her operation. This decline coincided with an increase in the national sales of pizza delivery and carryout firms as well as an increase in the number of empty pizza boxes from these firms being left in guest rooms in the Inn. Her immediate response was to install a pizza oven in the kitchen and offer room service pizza to guests. The effort met with modest success, though it was well below her expectations. Questionnaires completed by departing guests revealed a problem of product quality.

Focusing on this problem, Brittany improved the Inns pizza until blind taste tests judged it at least equal in quality to the products of the two major pizza delivery competitors in Augusta. Sales did not improve, convincing Brittany that the problem was a perceived mismatch between the hotels image and guests expectations of pizza makers. Guests simply did not seem to believe that the traditional steak and seafood restaurant at the Inn could make a high-quality, authentic pizza. Based on this conclusion, Brittany presented the following proposal to Malik:

Sales of room service pizza are stagnant due to guests misperception that our product is lower in quality than that of competitors. This misperception is based on the belief that until we disassociate our pizza from the Marigold Inn name. Therefore, to capture more room service pizza business, we should create a Napoli Pizza image for our guest room delivery service by:

• Preparing Napoli Pizza brochures for each guest room, complete with a phone number with a prefix different from that of Marigold Inn. The number will reach a special phone in room service, which will be answered, Napoli Pizza, authentic Italian pizza from old, family recipes.

• Using special Napoli Pizza boxes for delivering room service pizza to guests.

• Issuing Napoli Pizza hats and jackets to room service personnel for use in pizza delivery. Room service waiters and waitresses will wear these garments to deliver pizza. They will change to their regular uniforms for other deliveries.

  How should Malik respond to this proposal?