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 units 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 teams belief that it was the companys unique cultureone 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 livesthat had been and must remain its core differentiator. The contrast between the companys general performance and external reputation, and the situation she was facing in her own role, could hardly be starkeror 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 companys 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 units 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 groups performance, but at a high cost in both time and financial resources. Deshpandes 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 Indias 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 Indias most pressing problems, and by the specter of government regulation whose provisions could be more onerous and less effective, senior leaders at Deshpandes 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 Deshpandes 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 wasnt 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 didnt 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 couldnt go on like thisher unit was steadily losing its tenuous hold on the already limited respect and support it had among many in the companyDeshpande had asked for a meeting with her boss. Their time would be limited and she didnt 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 managements values and commitments and increase the potential for government backlash, it was imperative to do so for reasons related to both her and her units 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 wasnt working on the ground and that she didnt 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.