The Travel Expense Billing Controversy

1) Can you identify where ethical issues emerged in the course of the case?

In the case of the travel expense billing controversy there were are number of ethical issues that emerged. This included:

· Most importantly, the large rebates that Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) was receiving on air and car travel, and hotel bookings without passing the savings onto their customers.

· Following this, upon multiple complaints reaching management, PwC agreed to giving clients a 12.5 percent discount whilst still receiving discounts of up to 40%.

· In December of 2003, PwC settled a lawsuit in payments of up to $54.5 million, whilst still not admitting fault.

· On implementation of a new expense claim policy, of 28% for front end rebates, the company still neglected to back pay clients of any savings they incurred previously.

· PwC still kept a further 8% to ‘cover costs’, which far exceeded the transaction fees.

· The possible pay cuts given to whistle blower, Neal Roberts, and giving a reason of not earning the company enough business.

2)Who are the stakeholders and what are their stakes?

Stakeholder Type | Who are they? | What are their stakes? |

PRIMARY SOCIALHave a direct stake in the organization and its success (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2012) | * employees and managers * clients * ethics committee * management committee * travel companies and airlines | * Employees and managers are employed by the company to drive in the clients which the company ended up overcharging. * Client’s using PwC in good faith for a service and ‘product’ at a competitive price. * The ethics and management committees taking control of these ethical issues raised and how to appropriately deal with them. * Travel companies and airlines are primary social stakeholders in this case as they are dealing directly with the organisation and providing these back end deals. |

SECONDARY SOCIALMay be extremely...