Applying Kidder’s Ethical Decision-Making Checklist, Essay Example

Introduction

Often when making tough ethical decisions, individuals tend to rely simply on intuition. Individuals quickly make a value judgment or come to a conclusion without thoroughly analyzing the situation or all of the potential outcomes of one’s decision. By adopting a particular ethical lens, however, individuals can better make a decision, one based on sound reasoning. Presented here is a case study on an executive decision to respond to a public relations crisis in a relatively new media through three ethical lenses.

After a video went viral that showed two Dominos vulgarly tampering with food before claiming to deliver the food to customers, Dominos executives were forced quickly to decide how to most appropriately respond to the video. With more than 1 million views, the video was quickly diminishing Domino’s reputation as a quality pizza maker. On one hand, Dominos could stay quiet and hope the negative social media attention would fizzle out on its own. Not wanting to draw further attention to the video, Dominos first took this approach, not responding to the issue. However, this quickly backfired as Dominos was characterized as skirting the problem, which, itself, draw considerable attention in the media. Soon after, Dominos issued an apology through the very media channel in which the problem surfaced: online video. The video that began on social media, however, had traversed to other medias, and the response via online video may have been too limited in scope to adequately address the issue.

Kidder’s Ethical Checkpoints

The ethicist Rushworth Kidder developed nine ethical checkpoints that can be used to make an ethical decision in given circumstance. The nine chronological and logical checkpoints guide decision makers towards an ethical decision with simplicity, in order to help the decision maker achieve a grounded solution (Gregory, 2010).The nine checkpoints are as follows (Baker, 2013):

1: Recognize that there is a moral issue.

2: Determine the actor.

3: Gather the relevant facts.

4: Test for right-versus-wrong issues.

5: Test for right-versus-wrong paradigms.

6: Apply resolution principles.

7: Look for a third way.

8: Make the decision.

9: Revisit and reflect on the decision.

Applying the first checkpoint, recognize that there is a moral issue, to the case study concerning how Dominos executives should have handled the problem, the moral issue is identified as choosing how to respond to an internal attack on the character of the company and the quality of the company’s product when the fallout from this attack is spreading rapidly through the media. Determining the actor involves figuring out who is in a position to make the decision. In this case, Dominos executives ultimately made the decision on how to respond to the internal attack. Gather the relevant facts is the next checkpoint. The facts were gathered, in this case, through astute observation of both the video, in which it was determined who the employees were, and the media, in which it was determined that the video and discussions of its content were spreading.The next checkpoint, test for right-versus-wrong issues, is used in identifying the options for deciding how to proceed once it was discovered that the video was spreading rapidly. It would have been wrong to completely ignore the issue, in part, because it seems wrong to simply allow the misinformation to be spread throughout the web unaddressed, considering the fact that the food was likely never disseminated.

The fifth checkpoint, test for right-versus-wrong paradigms, is relied on to identify the correct ethical perspective. Utilitarianism may be used here, showing the executives that it would maximize utility if the company addresses the issue. After all, even though the video provided some entertainment, it was also creating a disgust factor in consumers, one that would hurt Dominos stores and their employees. Applying the proper resolution principles, or ethical standards and perspectives, means applying a Utilitarian calculation to determine the best courses of action. It does not appear that the Dominos executives, in practice, did this. In fact, it appears that no moral calculation was performed and the executives tried to simply hide from the problem once it manifested. Lookingfor a third way refers to a compromise that may have to be made. On one hand, the Dominos executives must meet their own needs and attempt to preserve the reputation of Dominos as much as possible. On the other hand, they should also make the best ethical decision. In this case, both seem to point to addressing the issue head on. The question truly is, now, in what media should the response be made? Dominos decided to keep the response in the social media realm, without realizing that the harmful information had already spread to other media. Nevertheless the eighth checkpoint, make the decision, occurred quickly. Revisit and reflect on the decision is the final checkpoint. In retrospect, Dominos executives would have likely brought forth a much more comprehensive response, one that covered all of the relevant medias, rather than simply social media. This is because the initial video spread much more rapidly than the video response, with the former spreading across several media, while the latter was stuck mainly in the video social media space

SAD Formula

The SAD formula of moral reasoning relies on three fundamentally unique parts: situation definition, analysis, and decision (Johnson, 2013). Defining the situation is a fact-finding mission, in which all of the relevant information is gathered. In this case, unfortunately, the rapid spread of the video made it difficult for the company to do a thorough fact-finding job. The company executives did get to gather information from the media and the video, enough to find the perpetrators and measure the negative media attention. The next step, analysis, means analyzing the data and possible outcomes of each potential decision. Laying low and seemingly avoiding the problem may have allowed the video and discussions of its content to die out, minimizing damage. Thus, the decision, the third step, was made and the backlash from this decision was felt quickly. A new decision, thus, had to be made, one that addressed the issue head on. This decision was to promptly put out a video response to the initial video. The SAD formula features a rather broad description of what to do, allowing individual decision makers considerable flexibility in how they approach the decision.

Nash’s Twelve Questions

Laura Nash presented twelve questions to help decision makers, and in particular business decision makers, make ethical decisions (Furman, 1990).

Nash’s twelve questions are as follows (Nash, 1981):

• Have you defined the problem accurately?
• How would you define the problem if you stood on the other side of the fence?
• How did this situation occur in the first place?
• To whom and to what do you give your loyalty as a person and as a member of the organization?
• What is your intention in making this decision?
• How does this intention compare with the probable results?
• Whom could your decision or action injure?
• Can you discuss the problem with the affected parties before you make your decision?
• Are you confident that your position will be as valid over a long period of time as it seems now?
• Could you disclose without qualm your decision or action to your boss, your CEO , the board of directors, your family, society as a whole?
• What is the symbolic potential of your action if understood? If misunderstood?
• Under what conditions would you allow exceptions to your stand?

In relying on Nash’s questions, the Dominos executives likely would have been in a better position to make the correct decision for the company and ethically. Certainly, it seems, the ethical decision was not to avoid addressing the issue altogether. Answering the first question, the problem is addressing a problem that is growing and that came internally. These are both important factors, as the problem must be handled with care, otherwise the attention that it has already gathered will increase. Defining the problem from a third person perspective, or from a consumer perspective, can help address it. The situation occurred when oversight failed to stop Dominos employees from doing horrid things with the product and post the video online. The problem may have been containable and future actions to prevent such measures must take place. The intention in making the decision should be both ethical and rational. The intentions and the probable results. The decision could reduce injury to the franchise. A discussion with the media is the response. A long-term analysis of the decision shows that Dominos likely did not response well initially to the video. The decision would not have gone over well with society. The symbolic potential of the action was the problem. In other words, the public perceived the problem as Dominos not caring. Finally, the final Nash question asks under what conditions would the decision maker allow exceptions?  The answer is none of which are applicable to this case.

The decision made by Dominos executives was likely the wrong one initially, both for the company and ethically. Avoiding the issue in the hopes that it would go away is not practical in today’s world of social media.

References

Baker, S. (1997). Applying Kidder’s ethical decision-making checklist to media ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 12(4), 197-210.

Furman, F. K. (1990). Teaching business ethics: Questioning the assumptions, seeking new directions. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(1), 31-38.

Gregory, R. (2010). Moral and ethical leadership in administrator preparation. International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, 5(3), 1-6.

Nash, L. L. (1981). Ethics without the sermon. Harvard Business Review, 59(6), 79-90.

Johnson, C. E. (2013). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership. Sage.