Ethical Dilemma Assignment: Case Analysis of Meeker

Question

Task: Consider a hypothetical case of ethical dilemma of Randy and prepare a report on ethical dilemma assignment answering the following questions:

1) How should Randy deal with the dilemma he is facing?
2) What are the implications of comparing Meeker’s practices with those of its competitors?
3) What kind of responsibility does Randy have to the different stakeholders involved in this situation? Does his responsibility to Meeker differ from his responsibility to the hospitals?

Answer

1. Introduction and Backgroundof Ethical Dilemma Assignment
The ethical dilemma is more of a paradox in facing a moral dilemma in making decisions, facing any ambiguous situation and complexity.The dynamic in human interaction and perspective is aligned with a continuous ethical dilemma in granting approvals to take certain steps (Reid et al., 2018). In the current case study related to the ethical dilemma, a person named Randy was hired at a pharmaceutical warehouse, Meekerto distribute and manage inventories to different hospitals. The company management and Randy's supervisor, Cheryl wants to replace their expired medicine with a false label to extend their validity for a longer time. Randy was uncomfortable in conducting this unethical work and frightened of getting caught by the hospital management.

2. Exercise Question
2.1 Randy’s Deal with his Facing Ethical Dilemma
Randy started his career in Meeker with a positive mindset. He was a good student at Pennsylvania University. After joining Meeker a he got extensive training to learn about various laws, regulations, systems procedures, uses of various products, equipment, various precautions while working with medicines, etcetera.

Randy got shocked when his supervisor Cheryl asked him to do his next job.
Cheryl asked him to tamper with the label of over – the -counter medicines of their company. Data of expiration on new labels provided to Randy have been dated three months ahead. Cheryl gave her explanation that if they replace the expired medicines, they have to offer credit to their client. This system would cause a loss of profit. Randy was surprised to see how his superior did not see any harm in using expired products. She had no concern for the patient’s safety. Her only concern was the company’s profit.

Randy though took those labels he felt uncomfortable. He was suffering from a mental dilemma that occurs because of the poor work attitude of Cheryl, the ethical codes he learned during his training, and his personal belief in taking expired over-the-counter medicines (Ahenkan, Afari and Buabeng, 2018). He counters himself by thinking that there is no harm in taking expired medicine which dates were tampered with for just 3 months. Even he used such things that did not cause any harm. He knows the medicines will lose potency to some extent and will be less effective to patients. At the same time if he has not tampered with the labels there will be a loss of profit. They have to be concerned with the financial situation of the company.

Randy has to choose between two alternatives. Either lose the profit of the company or lose the potency of medicine. His selection will reflect his moral principle, a conflict between ethical dilemmas, and conflict within the mind (Figar and ?or?evi?, 2016). He is in an unpleasant situation because he needs to make a choice.

He remembered his training. They were cautioned about expired medicines. Though caution was given only to medicines that would be prescribed by the medical practitioner. No caution was given for over-the-counter medicines. Sometimes patients get responsibilities while buying over-the-counter medicines. Randy has to choose his decision wisely as he has to do something right and something wrong at the same time. If he chooses one right course, then he has to discard another right course. Both the courses are right in their aspect.

He either tampers with the labels without thinking much. It will help to keep a profit. Also, they will able to compete with competitors in terms of the period. Or he will talk to Cheryl once again. Discuss with her the unethical means of their action.He will not be able to differentiate whether his emotions either encourage or discourage him in his ethical decision-making process for his job(George and Dane, 2016). Discus with other means of action which helps them to keep their profit and also not hamper with patient’s health. Randy has to keep his emotion outside of his dilemma.

2.2 Implications of Meeker’s Practices with its Competitors
Meeker was found to be the most dominant organization in the competitive market. Meeker served as a warehouse that serves to provide medical and pharmaceutical products to various doctor clinics, hospitals, and health centers.

2.2.1 Objectives
The main objective of Meeker is to serve their business is to meet three ethics of business planning – voluntary, core, and legal practices to compliance their business strategy. Meeker follows this type of integration practice which manages misconduct risks. The societal and legal forces meet with customs, laws, and few expected organizational activities to meet a reputed establishment. Therefore, meeker concrete a field of competition connects with safety and the number of customers. If the requirement of factors to be considered such as Oxley legislation and implements from the Security and Exchange Commission it affects companies’ implementation a lot. If legislation from Dodd-Frank is considered then the financial factors of the companies are also implemented(Handorf, O’Shields and Richardson, 2020). An overview of Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations with the addition of incentives and recommendations to create a cultural environment. Meeker also examine a few voluntary responsibilities which is required and also to look at how the strategic and marketing philanthropy can control the relationship of stakeholder.

2.2.2 Controlling Ethical Risks
There are three major factors of the strategy of institutionalization: Voluntary activities, Core boundary practices, and mandated practices boundary. Voluntary activities are values, beliefs, and voluntary obligations. Core activities related to regulatory and legal forces according to the industrial trading association. Mandated activities are regarding rules and regulations, law factors, and other activities requirements(Neuhaus and Caplan, 2017). Meeker meets these factors which control and manages the ethical risks to develop their business strategy in the competitive field.Meeker achieved these factors through corporate management governance, risk management, and voluntary management. The improvement of these factors of an ethical environment meets the organization to achieve the goal.

2.2.3 Competition
The primary Objective of Meeker is to differ competitive strategies, which can enhance the welfare of the customer from those that can decrease it. A new way is instance competition to resolve the company espionage. To resolve the problem of computer hacking, theft of information from hackers an Act is also passed by the Government(Lawson, 2019). Almost $50 billion may cost for this strategy. To adopt this system Meeker is developing their place in the market. Competitors of them lagging because they are unable to collect any secret information from anybody.

Meeker then collects the maximum number of orders from the market, which results in Meeker belonged to rank one in the market. The competitors on the other hand lagging since they cannot adopt the business strategies like Meeker. For Legacy strategies, promotion of meeker comes rapid growth and investment during a period. Other company does not provide perfection regarding medicine validity or expiry date. Proper work plans and policies with honesty make Meeker the most dominant pharmaceutical warehouse place in the field of the pharmacy market. The focus of the core policies that can construct organizational policies and integrity regarding business ethics makes the organization development. Whereas other organizations like Meeker which is the nearest competitor suffering from a lack of business ethics which creates resistance to their organizational development.

2.3 Responsibility of Randy with Different Stakeholders Involved in that Situation
Randy works in a medical warehouse called Meeker. The medical warehouse sends pharmaceutical products to different hospitals and health care organizations. Randy got trained for two-month which includes a description of emergencies and how to handle situations like the situation. Where the equipment needs to be supplied also was part of the training. But, in the warehouse, all the medicines expired sooner than the other competitors in the market. The supervisor of the warehouse, Cheryl told Randy about the problem and explained to him to go to the hospital inventory and stick fake labels of expiration dates into the medicines. Randy gets the responsibility to change it.

Randy got confused and having an ethical dilemma about it. He got uncomfortable and told Cheryl that the work is illegal and would be dangerous for the patients of the hospital. Cheryl convinced him to do this. But randy feels uneasy and recalls what he had learned from the training. Randy knows that if he does this unethical work, he would be questioned by the hospital staff and also got involved in illegal work.

Randy’s ethical dilemma is natural because it is unethical to work. He feels uncomfortable and has a dilemma, whether he should do this or not. He should take responsibility and ask Cheryl not to do this kind of illegal work. It is morally wrong. Pharmacy requires extensive care and a striking balance between practitioners and management. Here, Randy should tell Cheryl that it is morally wrong and should affect the health of patients of the health organization. It has shown that many colleagues are insisted to do unethical behavior, for controlling the drugs and giving consumers low percentages of medicines (Rodríguez and Juri?i?, 2018).

Randy should convince Cheryl not to do this unethical work and should generate new ideas to mitigate the company’s loss. Moral dilemma hampers pharmacist mental status and works ethics, and it also hampers pharmaceutical care. Randy’s moral dilemma helps the community pharmacists to improve the professionalism of the pharmacist (Kruijtbosch et al., 2018). Randy should also try to advise Cheryl about moral ethics. It will say that good professionalism between the health profession and pharmacist can be strong work ethics.

Pharmacist values their job more than work ethics. It will harm the ethics of the works. To save the job, pharmacists compromise their work ethics and pharmacists' value. They should value their job values (Rajiah and Venkataraman, 2018). Here, Randy got responsible for doing the unethical job. He felt uncomfortable and have an ethical dilemma. He got confused. He told Cheryl not to do this kind of job, he should tell her that, they should change the manufacturer. They should import medicines which will have a longer expiration date. It will be usable for a longer time and they cannot do unethical works, like to stick labels into the medicines for longer use. It will also give them profit in their business. They can also do business ethically and professionally. 2.4 Explanation on Any Difference Between Randy’s Responsibility towards Meeker and the Hospitals Meeker is facing extreme competition from other pharmaceutical companies that provides a long-term validation to their medicines than Meeker. Cheryl, the inventory and Randy’s supervisor planned an unfaithful activity in changing the old label with an extensive validity duration to not face any financial constraints. The ethical dilemma comes with prioritizing any work and facing conflicts during the result related to the company and other individuals (Tibbetts, 2020). In this case, it is natural that Randy will face difficulties in understanding his responsibility towards his company, Meeker and its aligned hospitals,

2.4.1 Responsibility towards Meeker
Randy was shocked during his encounter with Cheryl in handing over label replicas for over-the-counter medicines at the inventories of the hospitals. He felt uneasiness due to the betrayal to the hospital with fake medicine durations in saving some profit. Randy was unable to tell anything to the hospitals against his company. In the healthcare sector, ethical challenges make dilemmas in fulfilling the responsibilities in health research studies (Groot et al., 2019). Randy was also facing the same situation and seeking help from his previous experience in using expired medicines. Randy was wondering that if he would be asked by the hospital administrator about anything suspicious, he needs to come up with an effective explanation to sustain the Meeker’s loyalty to its customer hospitals.

2.4.2 Responsibility towards Hospitals
It is utmost unethical to Randy and his company to hide the label changing factor to the hospitals. Each time when Randy will go to the hospitals and change the old labels, the hospital will be expecting to receive credit for the expired medicines. It will be difficult for Randy to cope up with this ethical dilemma against his organization. The issues regarding ethical dilemma are related to the legitimate requirements from a group or individual people(Feeney and Freeman, 2016). Randy can explain to the hospitals by sharing his experience in not being affected by expired medicines, or provide them with better strategies in utilizing their inventories earlier and only assess the medicines according to their requirement.

3. Conclusion
Being honest with the hospitals and to his company, Randy can provide some planning on utilizing the inventories without wasting any medicine and maintain loyalty with the clients. It will also help Meeker in sustaining their competition to the current market.

4. References
Ahenkan, A., Afari, M. B. and Buabeng, T., 2018. ‘Ethical Dilemma of Health Professionals in Ghana: Experiences of Doctors and Nurses at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital’, African Journal of Management Research, 25, pp. 29–44.

Feeney, S. and Freeman, N. K., 2016. ‘Ethical issues: Responsibilities and dilemmas’, Young Children, 71(1), pp. 86–89.

Figar, N. and ?or?evi?, B., 2016. ‘Managing an ethical dilemma’, Economic Themes, 54(3), pp. 345–362.

George, J. M. and Dane, E., 2016. ‘Affect, emotion, and decision making’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, pp. 47–55.

Groot, B.C., Vink, M., Haveman, A., Huberts, M., Schout, G. and Abma, T.A., 2019. Ethics of care in participatory health research: Mutual responsibility in collaboration with co-researchers. Educational Action Research, 27(2), pp.286-302.

Handorf, W. C., O’Shields, R. and Richardson, A., 2020. ‘An Examination of the Factors Influencing the Enactment of Banking Legislation and Regulation: Evidence from Fifty Years of Banking Laws and Twenty-Five Years of Regulation’, NC Banking Inst., 24, p. 93.

Kruijtbosch, M., Göttgens-Jansen, W., Floor-Schreudering, A., van Leeuwen, E. and Bouvy, M.L., 2018. Moral dilemmas of community pharmacists: a narrative study. International journal of clinical pharmacy, 40(1), pp.74-83.

Lawson, E. T., 2019. ‘A guide to lessons learned and best practices in using the statutes in the economic espionage act of 1996’.

Neuhaus, C. P. and Caplan, A. L., 2017. ‘Ethical lessons from a tale of two genetically modified insects’, Nature biotechnology, 35(8), pp. 713–716.

Rajiah, K. and Venkataraman, R., 2018. ‘Community pharmacists’ perceptions on ethical dilemmas, pharmacy values and decision-making’, Indian J Pharm Pract, 11, pp. 168–176.

Reid, A.M., Brown, J.M., Smith, J.M., Cope, A.C. and Jamieson, S., 2018. Ethical dilemmas and reflexivity in qualitative research. Perspectives on medical education, 7(2), pp.69-75.

Rodríguez, J. V. and Juri?i?, Ž., 2018. ‘Perceptions and attitudes of community pharmacists toward professional ethics and ethical dilemmas in the workplace’, Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 14(5), pp. 441–450.

Tibbetts, C., 2020. ‘Subjectivity as Conflict: Taking Responsibility for Ethical Dilemmas’, University of California.