Your brother-in-law just submitted a purchase request for materials valued at $10,000 for side jobs. What should you do?
1. Approve the purchase. It's not your job to police your brother-in-law, and your sister is aware of what he's doing.
2. Call your sister and express your concern about what your brother-in-law is doing. Let her deal with any potential ethical breaches.
3. Contact your brother-in-law and ask him if he is abiding by the company policy of not doing side jobs valued at over $2,000. If he says yes, approve the purchases.
4. Go to the CEO and let him know about the details of your brother-in-law's purchases. The CEO can then do whatever he thinks is best.
5. Invent other options.
Assume you are the purchasing manager for a small, family-run homebuilding firm. Your brother in- law works in the framing department and your sister is the company's chief financial officer (CFO). The firm has a policy that employees can do small homebuilding jobs (projects valued at less than $2,000) on the side and can purchase their building supplies for these projects through the company. This policy allows employees to make some extra cash while purchasing materials at much discounted rates.
Because of your role, you are aware of all side projects taking place and the dollar amount of materials purchased through the company for these projects. You recently noticed that your brother-in-law has been purchasing raw materials that you suspect will exceed the $2,000 threshold-he purchased $3,000 worth of materials for one project and $1,500 for another. You approved both of the purchases even though you suspect that he is doing projects that are valued at around $5,000-$8,000. These types of projects are not permitted as side jobs because the company itself does work in this price range. You sense that your brother-in-law's behavior is OK because your sister also knows about these purchases, given her role as CFO.