Ethical Leadership: ACS Case Study on Mandy's Workplace Dilemma

This case study presents Mandy's ethical dilemma where she discovers employees accessing restricted websites using office computers. Mandy's manager tasks her with identifying the employees, leading to a conflict between her ethical obligations and potential consequences for the employees. The case study applies Chris MacDonald's methodology for resolving ethical issues, emphasizing the importance of clear workplace rules, employee involvement, and defined consequences. The solution advises Mandy to ensure employees are aware of ACS codes of ethics and professional conduct, communicate with the offenders, and encourage the management to formalize the rules. The study highlights the significance of competence, honesty, and professional development within the workplace, referencing relevant ACS codes and providing a framework for ethical decision-making in similar situations. The case study also emphasizes the importance of communication between Mandy and the management to address the issue effectively. The analysis further suggests a one-on-one session with the defaulters to make them aware of their mistakes and the possible penalties.

Running head: ACS CASE STUDY
ACS Case Study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ACS CASE STUDY
Mandy’s ethical dilemma
Mandy found out that some employees at her workplace could be held guilty for
accessing certain web pages in their office hour using the office computer, which are
restricted by the organisation. Mandy was asked by her manager to find out and report
regarding such discrepancy as to who was using accessing objectionable sites like
pornographic sites or online shopping sites. Mandy could easily catch the employees who
were accessing the objectionable sites by the help of the internet history which would result
in penalizing them, even though they were not made to sign any undertaking mentioning that
they were abstained from accessing such sites. Here, Mandy is going through an ethical
dilemma as to whether she should disclose the name of such employees to the management
or not.
MacDonald’s methodology of resolving ethical issue
Chris MacDonald’s methodology of resolving ethical issues is being implemented on
this case study for solving Mandy’s ethical dilemma. This methodology is an ideal set of
method to implement on ethical issues related to corporate field (Liu, Mai and MacDonald
2018). A few of the many rules pertaining to ethical dilemma put forwarded by Chris
MacDonald are discussed bellowed, in relation to the given case study:
a) Implementations needs to be specified expressly so that the employees have
the knowledge of the rules and regulations that are a mandate in the organisation. The
critical and significant rules must be incorporated in the employment contract so that the
employees cannot deny that they were not aware of the rules.
b) Specific rules should be demarcated for specific job role so that there is a
parity and different department be treated differently for they have a different job roles and it
calls for different regulations for different set up (Liu, Mai and MacDonald 2018).
c) The employees must be involved while taking decisions for the organisation
or while new rules and regulations are being framed and implemented. Regular polls and
voting should be arranged for taking their opinion.
d) The rules of enforcement should be clearly laid down before the employees
along with a guideline as to the consequences that would take place in case they fail to obey
them. Mandy must let the defaulters know about their wrong-doings along with warning them
from committing such mistake further.
Advice to Mandy
The employees as well as the management of an organisation must comply with the
regulations laid down under ACS code of Ethics and ACS code of Professional Conduct.
Mandy should ensure that the employee must be aware of the rules and regulations of the
organisation along with the basic professional conduct and corporate ethics. The employees
should be directed to conduct themselves in the workplace with professionalism, integrity
and sincerity. There should be mutual respect among the employees and also between the
employees and the employer. Mandy needs to follow the code of Ethics and code of
Professional Conduct to settle the ethical dilemma. In dire need, she must take legal help
pertaining to her status and position in the organisation in case she does not disclose the
name of the defaulters (Apesb.org.au 2018).
Mandy must have a one-on-one session with the defaulters and must make them
aware of their faults, along with discussing the adverse consequences and penalty that they
might face if the management gets to know about them. In addition, Mandy must ask the
management to put the rules and regulations in words and make all the employees aware of
them so that there is no further non-compliance, especially the regulations pertaining to the
use of office equipment (Acwa.org.au 2018).

2ACS CASE STUDY
Mandy’s communication
Mandy needs to communicate with the defaulters who access the objectionable
websites regularly using the office computer. She must make them understand that they
have been committing a workplace offence which could even lead to termination. Therefore,
Mandy should give them the opportunity to rectify their mistakes. Additionally, a good
communication is required between Mandy and the management where she needs to
convince the management for sparing the defaulters for the first time as they were not aware
of the fact that they were not supposed to access the objectionable websites. Mandy must
ask the management to put the rules and regulations in words and make all the employees
aware of them so that there is no further non-compliance (Apesb.org.au 2018).

3ACS CASE STUDY
List of ACS Code of Ethics:
1. Competence
2. Honesty
3. Professional development (Acs.org.au 2018).
List of ACS Code of Professional Conduct:
1. Honesty
2. Professional development
3. Professionalism
4. Competence
5. Enhancement of quality of life (Acs.org.au 2018).

4ACS CASE STUDY
References:
Acs.org.au. (2018). ACS - The Professional Association for Australia's ICT sector. [online]
Available at: https://www.acs.org.au/ [Accessed 29 June. 2019].
Acwa.org.au. (2018). Code of ethics and Practice guidelines - Australian Community
Workers Association | ACWA. [online] Available at: http://www.acwa.org.au/resources/ethics-
and-standards [Accessed 29 June. 2019].
Apesb.org.au. (2018). Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board. [online]
Available at: http://www.apesb.org.au/page.php?id=12 [Accessed 29 June. 2019].
Liu, Y., Mai, F., & MacDonald, C. (2018). A Big-Data Approach to Understanding the
Thematic Landscape of the Field of Business Ethics, 1982–2016. Journal of Business
Ethics, 1-24.