DS Company Case Study

There are different ethical issues, which come out from the case study. One of the ethical issues concern the issue of discrimination. According to the policy of DS, there is an opposition of racial and sexual discrimination (Marx, 1990). Individuals in the workplace should be treated equally without showing discrimination based on race or gender. This is an ethical element in the DS company. However, the company is discriminatory when it comes to the issue of providing employment; during job screening, the company does not hire individuals with certain conditions such as obesity. This is unethical for the company. Besides, cellular telephones are only provided to a selected few (Marx, 1990), which is a depiction of inequality in the workplace that is unethical.

On the other hand, different ethical dilemmas emerge in the case study. One of the ethical dilemmas, which emerge in the case study concerns as to whether the company is justified in carrying out urine tests in its effort to implement the zero tolerance smoking policy. Although smoking in the company premises is unethical, the company goes too far in coming up with a policy that will only allow nonsmokers to work with the company. A question that emerges is, does it mean hiring smokers who only smoke when appropriate is wrong? This is a show of discriminatory policies that the DS Company has formulated. Another ethical dilemma, which emerges in the case concerns the use of the company’s resources such as the internet in searching for a job elsewhere. As long as the person using the company resources is an employee of the DS Company, it is acceptable for the person to use the resources in searching for a vacancy in another company.

References

Marx, T.G. (1990). The Case of the Omniscient Organization. Harvard Business Review.