CASE 10.5 Whistleblowing at the Phone Company Joseph R. Desjardins and John J. M

Question

CASE 10.5 Whistleblowing at the Phone Company Joseph R. Desjardins and John J. McCall Michael J. an employee of the phone company, promote the fund-raiser. When Michael J. brought recognizes that he has divided loyalties. The com his to the attention of his manager, the whole inci- pany has treated him well and, despite some minor dent was dismissed as trivial. After all, the resources disagreements, he gets along quite well with upper were going to charity management and his own department. However the phone company is a public utility, regulated these charitable efforts were betraying the public for the public interest by the state's Public Utlty st. The public, and not private individuals acting Commission (PUC). As such. Michael J. recog as their agents, ought to decide for themselves when nizes that his firm owes a loyalty to citizens that to contribute to charity. As a result, he notified the goes beyond the simple responsibility that other PUC of this misallocation of funds. Knowing that firms owe to their consumers. After some consideration, Michael J. judged that records of calls from his desk could easily be traced, Once a year, as part of a major fund-raising drive Michael J. made the calls from pay phones and from for a local charity, the phone company encourages its his house employees to donate their personal time and money A required by law, the PUC investigated the to this charity. This year, however, Michael J. discov- charges. Although the facts were as Michaeli ers that a significant amount of company resources reported are being used to support the charity. The company is printing posters and sending out mail at its own the public trust. expense and is using employees , the PUC judged that the misallocation was not substantial enough to constitute a violation of However, executives of the phone company were less willing to dismiss the incident. on company time to worth, 1990). From Joseph R. Desjardins and John J. McCall Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wads

Explanation / Answer

Company did not violate any of the rule by checking the record of their office desk. As checking the records of office is a quiet normal process which is usually done in many organisations. It is not unethical to check call records of a specific workplace by the employer. This type of approach increases the safety as well as create a check on activities going inside the organisation employees are using office phones for their personal usage.
PUC has already done their checking on the specific scenario and after the analysis of the specific condition, judgement was given. In this scenario PUC should not investigate father as they already have a decision by proper assessment of factual analysis.

Definitely if large sum of money was involved in any other activities as well as if it has been directly benefiting other employees or being misused to create personal benefits, whistleblowing would have been a totally different approach and a most appreciate able approach by michael.

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