YOUR KEY DECISIONS :

The given case involves Karen who is working as a senior manager at Union Tobacco Inc , a major
manufacturer of snuff. Janet , her college junior was looking for a job for a while now but with no
success because she lacked experience . She needed a headstart in her career .

Karen informed Janet that there was a vacancy in her firm and suggested janet to join . Now , even
though Janet needed a job badly she was in a dilemma that should she join or not , because the
company Union Tobacco Inc had developed a product development and marketing campaign that
led to the usage of snuff by youngsters , while prior to that the only consumers were older men .

Janet was aware of the policies followed by the company and hence was unsure of taking up the job.
Karen advised janet to take up the job . She said that she had been helping mitigate the harm that
the company can potentially cause to the society , according to her the company’s marketing
strategies could have stooped further down but she had been helping keeping things in control to
some extent. She asks janet to join the company on this pretext that they would together help
reduce the harm the company’s marketing can cause .

The decision that we have arrived is that karen was just using this as a pretext to justify her position
in the company . Her being in the company makes her an equal party to everything the company
stood for . She was aware of how the company was manipulating the youngsters into buying the
harmful cancer causing products and yet she remained a silent spectator .

About janet , we decided that she shouldn’t take up the job One this was the beginning of her career
, she wouldn’t want to start off with company which was doing something extremely wrong morally .
She would have a hard time justifying her stand in the future to recruiters

Rationale for your decision

The decision we have taken is based on the fact that karen was aware of how the company was
manipulating the youngsters into buying the harmful cancer causing products and yet she remained
a silent spectator . She might have done a little bit here and there and changed the marketing policy,
but ultimately the company got away with converting a lot of young customers . This will have long
term , irreversible effects on their heath .The good she might have done , was clearly offset by the
end result or the bigger picture which clearly depicts the company is following unethical means to
capture youngsters who probably aren’t rational enough to gauge the ill effects of what they are
consuming .

Janet, in our opinion shouldn’t take up this job because the case mentions that she was appalled
when she learnt about the firm’s policies , her first job shouldn’t be something she doesn’t resonate
with or something that her ethical conscious doesn’t allow her to do .

Even though she needed the job badly, but in despair if she takes up the job , she might regret being
a part of being something so wrong later on

.Also , a lot of teenager’s parents have filed legal suits , If after investigations , the company lands up
in a soup , every person who was aware of what was happening , might come under scrutiny .
Even though , Karen told her that they would together help reduce the harm the company was
causing , I don’t think she , being a fresher in the firm , would have a lot of say in the decisions of the
firm.

Do you forsee any risk factor including any negative /unintended consequences of your decision

The short term risk is janet might stay jobless for some more time

There might be some harm which they could have prevented and probably the person who comes in
her place , doesn’t care at all about the company selling tobacco to youngsters , and end up
worsening the situation further

What are your plans for taking care of this consequence ?

To avoid the above mention consequences , janet should communicate with karen about how she
plans to mitigate the harms caused by th company

APPALED

Resonate

Fresher

Karen