Question

Eric, the owner of a struggling business that supplies fresh product to restaurants, is faced with a decision that will mean either the collapse of his business or perhaps the success of his business: Should he fill customer orders for produce with some older produce mixed in with the fresh produce

Answer 1

Answer: He should go with the ethically correct option which is not to mix the older produce with the newer one.

Explanation:

In ethical dilemmas especially ones involving business it is best to go for the ethically right option. Unethical decisions can give short term results but they are almost always caught out in the future meaning that the business faces ruin in the future. Using the cases of Enron and Worldcom as examples where the companies engaged in unethical accounting conduct that guaranteed short term success, their fall from grace showed that unethical decisions are not sustainable.

With this in mind he should not mix the produce for his business to survive because there is a high chance he will reject it in future.

Answer 2

Answer:

Yes, this is an ethical dilemma because no choice is 100% right or wrong, and both choices are basically undesirable and equally bad.

Explanation:

Eric has two options:

1. Keep selling his products like he has been doing so far, i.e. not mixing older products with fresh products, but most probably will go bankrupt and will have to close his business.
2. Start to save some money by mixing older products with fresh products and hopefully he will be able to save his business, but he will be cheating on his clients and that will eventually come back to bite him.

If he chooses option one, he will probably have to close his business, and if he chooses option two, he will be doing something bad that may eventually cause him to close down also.  

It is easy to say that Eric should do the right thing and sink with the ship, but what if your were Eric? There is an old Cheyenne saying "don't judge a man until you've walked two moons with his moccasins (shoes)".

Eric needs to balance out what is best for him and what is the correct thing to do, and if possible try to come up with a third alternative that isn't so disastrous.