Rescue

Situation 2:

Kate Essex is the supervisor of the customer service representative group for Enovelty.com, a manufacturer of novelty items. The group spends its workday answering calls, and sometimes placing calls to customers to assist in solving a variety of issues about orders previously placed with the company. The company has a rule that personal phone calls are only allowed during breaks. Essex is assigned to monitor each representative on the phone for 15 minutes a day, as part of her regular job tasks. The representatives are aware that Essex will be monitoring them, and customers are immediately informed when they begin their calls. Essex begins to monitor James Olsen, and finds that he is on a personal call regarding his sick child. Olsen is not on break.

Situation 2 - (1) What should Essex do?  (2) What ethical principles help guide decision making in this situation?  (3) What management practices should be in place to ensure proper behavior without violating individual rights? 

Situation 6:

Google, Inc has a unique advantage as of March 2012. By combining information about user activity from its many popular applications (such as Gmail, Google+, and Youtube), Google algorithms were able to alert users when things might be of interest. This vast amount of information analyzed properly, gave Google a way to compete. By combining data with information from Internet searches, Google could better compete against applications such as Facebook.

But this was a departure from its earlier privacy policy. In June 2011, the Executive Chairman of Google had declared “Google will remain a place where you can do anonymous searches without logging in. We’re very committed to having you have control over the information we have about you.”

This may be possible for users who don’t login to a Google account, but for those with Gmail or other personal accounts or on an Android mobile phone, its more difficult to remain anonymous. Offering a counter...