PART 2 CASE ETHICAL CHOICES IN EMPLOYEE DISCOUNTS Angela isfeeling a lot of stress at work these days and she's worried thather behaviour over the past few months will get her into trouble,not only with her boss and the company she works for, but alsopotentially with the police. It all started a few months ago, whenone of Angela's old classmates came in to the store where sheworked. Her classmate explained that she was just starting a newjob, and she'd had a really tough year, and she asked if she coulduse Angela's employee discount to buy some things. At first, Angelawas surprised because she hadn't seen the classmate in a few yearsand they weren't really friends, but the classmate persuaded herthat it wasn't a big deal since she wasn't stealing or anything—thecompany would never even know that Angela herself wasn't the onebuying everything. Then, a week later another friend came in, whotold Angela that she would owe her a favour if she could also buysome clothing using the employee discount. Angela felt veryuncomfortable using her discount again, but she realized that thecompany was probably still making money, even at the lower pricelevel, and surely the company would prefer to make a sale than tohave the item remain in inventory, so she said yes. Since then,there has been a fairly steady stream of people coming in to useAngela's employee discount. Unexpectedly, Angela received a hugebenefit from allowing her friends to use the discounted rate; aglitch in the computer system used to calculate sales gave Angelacredit for the full price of those purchases, so while she washelping her friends out, she was also able to increase her salesnumbers by a large percentage. The company that Angela works foroffers very generous bonuses for the top three salespeople eachquarter, and Angela quickly realized that if more of her friendsbought at the employee discount price, she could exploit thecomputer system glitch to gain the highest sales for the quarterand win the bonus. While she liked the idea of getting the bonus,what Angela really liked was the idea of everyone recognizing herachievement, because she's been working with the same company fortwo years and has never been recognized for anything Angela feelslike she works as hard as the other salespeople, and maybe evenharder but that for a variety of reasons beyond her control, hersales numbers just aren't as high. For instance, Angela works at astore location that isn't as busy as some of the other stores inher city, and she can work only certain non-high-traffic hours, soshe can't make as many sales as other people who are able to workin busier stores during busier times. Also, Angela is only 23, soshe's much younger than some of her coworkers and doesn't have thesame level of experience as they do, which impacts her ability tomake sales. Also, Angela does a lot of work around the store thatno one appreciates, such as watering the plants and cleaning thewindows that are important to the overall functioning of the shopbut aren't rewarded. Angela feels like she is entitled to earn abonus for having the highest sales this quarter even if she didn'treally make the highest sales, because she's pretty sure that thesalespeople with the highest sales are probably cheating in someanyway. Angela's plan worked really well; her friends came in tobuy merchandise at the employee discount rate, and Angela's salesreflected the full price of those purchases, and Angela became oneof the top three highest salespeople within her company over thepast quarter. However, a discrepancy has recently been noticed bysomeone in accounting, and Angela's boss mentioned that somethingdidn't add up in the quarterly reports for their store. Angela'sworried that her boss will realize she's hiding something becauseAngela is finding it very difficult to continue to act innocent.Angela is considering how best to handle the situation. She thinksmaybe she could approach her boss and say that she's being framedby Becky (a coworker she doesn't like) in order to escape beingblamed and to, she hopes, have that coworker fired.
Apply Your Knowledge
1. Examine components of Angela's personality using “the darktriad . â€
2. How could Angela's boss use Kelley's covariation model toassess Angela's significant increase in sales in the past quarter?What would Angela's boss likely conclude?
3. Describe the role of cognitive dissonance in Angela'sbehaviour
4. Was Angela's behaviour unethical? Why or why not? Considerthe factors that affect ethical behaviour
. 5. Using Maslow's need hierarchy as a framework, considerthe various needs that Angela may meet by achieving the quarterlysales bonus.
6. How might equity theory explain Angela's dishonestbehaviour?
7. When Angela first conceived her plan to achieve the salesbonus, the added work and stress helped her to perform better, butnow she is feeling the negative effects of stress. Describe some ofthe costs associated with unhealthy stress.
