Ethics in Business & Technology
IDS 450 - Final Exam
Fall 2000 (MA)

Send your completed responses to me via email no later than 10:30pm on Wednesday, December 27th. You may send your answers as plain text in the body of your message, or as an attachment in any word processing format. If you do send an attachment, please note in the body of your email what program/version you used to produce it.

N.B. Please note the time stamp referenced is the one given when my server receives it, not when your server sends it. Since there can be delays, be conservative; don't wait for the last moment to hit the send button. Late receipt (between 10:31pm Wednesday the 27th through 10:30pm Thursday the 28th) will be subject to a 20% penalty. No exam responses will be accepted for grading after 10:30pm, Thursday, December 28th.

The exam is in three parts, and is comprised of a set of objective and essay questions relating to the Motorola case study. You may use your notes, your book, and even work in teams or groups to construct your responses. But each one of you must submit a final exam for yourself for grading; no team or group submissions will be accepted.




Part I. Objective questions. Each of the following questions requires a short answer, meaning 3-5 complete sentences (no sentence fragments) giving sufficient detail to be responsive to the query. There are five (5) questions, each worth three (3) points, for a total of 15 points possible in this part.

1. What is Impact21?

2. Who is Sarah Andrews?

3. Who is Ari Greene?

4. Who is William Landis?

5. Who is Jules Neuringer?



Part II. Essay #1. This essay should run 650-800 words, and is worth 35 points. Longer is fine. Shorter is probably too short to hit all the key points.

Beth Givens claims that Motorola is "asking merchants to violate their trust." This is ambiguous, as there are several separate trust relationships that might be the referent, here. So, just what are these trust issues? Describe two of them in detail (i.e. exactly who are the parties and exactly what is the trust factor involved). Then, using rule utilitarianism, determine whether Givens is correct: for trust issue #1--is it violated? for trust issue #2--is it violated? if yes, why and how? if not, why not?



Part III. Essay #2. This essay should run 900-1200 words, and is worth 50 points. Longer is fine. Shorter is probably too short to hit all the key points.

    Provide detailed discussion of (a) - (c), using any of the ethical theories we have discussed this term:

  1. You are an executive manager at Motorola. What is the best ethical argument you can develop that justifies the Impact21 program as outlined in the article?


  2. You are an independent dealer of Motorola products. What is the best ethical argument you can develop to respond to the argument constructed, above, in (a)? [Note: do not presume that you must disagree with (a); perhaps your best argument favors continuation of the program as outlined.]


  3. You are a customer of an independent dealer of Motorola products. What is the best ethical argument you can develop to respond to the two arguments developed, above, in (a) and (b)? [Note: do not presume you must agree or side with one or the other of them; perhaps your best argument leaves you disagreeing with both.]