PS 5035 Developing a Moral Compass Fall 2017 — Individual Assignment #2 UPLOAD TO CANVAS as WORD (or other word-processing doc) by 11:59 PM on FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27. Please do not submit a PDF. INSTRUCTIONS: Carefully read the following case and answer the questions that follow. Expand/contract each cell as needed. While Tirania is a “made-up” country, you may not make up fictitious evidence. However, you can strengthen your argument by supporting it with research you conduct on your own. TOURISM: REPRESSION OR REDEMPTION? The agency you work for, Carroll & Mathey, is small but has a growing reputation for innovative campaigns. Its latest achievement was an industry award for a campaign it created for a small Caribbean island that saw a sizeable increase in tourism. The award has attracted the interest of others, including the government ministers of Tirania, a small country in the Balkans along the Adriatic Sea. They want to hire C&M to work with the country’s tourism board to create a campaign to attract international tourists, including Americans, to the developing country. The agency’s co-founders have asked you to be the lead account executive for the assignment. Tirania has a lot to promote: a rugged, beautiful coastline with sandy coves, rustic villages and medieval castles, mountainous terrain and natural scenery all show great potential for a variety of tourist activities. Added to C&M’s allure is the fact that Tirania has recently come out of years of Communist rule and is only now starting to open its borders to foreigners. It is truly a chance to build a tourism campaign from the ground up! However—there’s always a “however”—Tirania has a dark side. Its new leaders have not entirely thrown off the shackles of years of Communist rule and have shown a disturbing propensity for the same kinds of human rights abuses (including child labor and prostitution) they accused their Communist predecessors of doing. A growing chorus of NGOs and countries in the UN has criticized Tirania’s human rights record as one of the worst in Europe. Tirania flies you and a few other members from your agency to the country for several days. While there, you see that the standard of living is significantly lower than in neighboring Balkan countries like Bosnia or Serbia, probably because of decades of government mismanagement. A “tourism guide” and interpreter are always with your group, dictating where you go and what you see. You hear nothing but wonderful things about the country from people he introduces to your group. But something bothers you, because it all feels very orchestrated. You long for a chance to see the country and meet some people without the guide acting as a filter. One night you slip away on your own to see things for yourself, and after wandering the town a bit you step into a bar and strike up a conversation with a man who speaks some English. The man tells you that “tourism guides” are actually propaganda ministers for the government and that there is no political freedom in the country. He claims that friends of his who were members of an opposition party were arrested several months ago and haven’t been heard from since. Similarly, he lists various radio stations and newspapers that have criticized the government and that are either now owned by the state or that have been shut down. He says government corruption is rampant and that the new leaders are pocketing money meant to help the people. Toward the end of your visit and during a meeting with high-ranking government officials, you diplomatically bring up the issue of Tirania’s poor image on the world stage. The official says that claims of repression are exaggerated and that although there have been some bumps along their road to democracy, the government is trying to emulate democratic governments. But he says they cannot do this without a strong economy that provides for all its citizens, and they see increased tourism as playing a keep part in helping them modernize, increase the standard of living, and ensure that the government stays on the straight and narrow. After all, he says, the more the world knows about Tirania the less likely the government would be able to repress its own people, right? Many of your colleagues from C&M appear to nod their heads. On the flight back home your colleagues and Lisa Mathey, one of the co-founders who accompanied your group, rave about the beauty of the country and the potential for the agency to really make a mark on the tourism industry stage with a largely untouched country such as Tirania. Although you see their points and realize that getting such an account would greatly help your small agency, you can’t quite muster their enthusiasm. You bring up your encounter with the citizen the evening you slipped out, and Mathey does seem to pause as she considers the issues about Tirania’s image and human rights record. She shrugs and says, “Well, we’ll have to talk more about this when we get back to the office” and leaves it at that. A few days after getting back, you attend a meeting in which the agency is supposed to decide whether to accept Tirania as a client or not. Co-founders Jim Carroll and Lisa Mathey are both present, as are the other people who accompanied you on the trip and a couple other people from the office. It becomes clear very quickly that there are some divided opinions about accepting the account or not. Lisa starts off: “I think everyone who was on the trip to Tirania enjoyed themselves,” as she looks pointedly at you, “and that the Tiranians were gracious hosts. The country has great potential as a tourist destination, if it gets some infrastructure built up, and a successful campaign by us could really put us on the map to break into the European tourism market. It could be a real stepping stone for us as an agency.” Jim Carroll then interrupts, “It seems from what I hear you’re right about all that, but I don’t want to get too carried away,” he says. “I’m really worried about their record of human rights and some of the problems the country is facing—wouldn’t we just be helping a repressive regime if we encouraged international tourism?” Alex, one of the people who was on the trip, chimes in. “But it’s not like Tirania is on the ‘novisit’ list from the State Department or supports terrorism. And it’s not our job to act as human rights watchdogs. If we had to consider every human rights abuse for any country we wanted to take as a client then we would never take any country in the world. Heck, you could even make an argument that the U.S. shouldn’t be a client according to those standards.” “The difference is that the U.S. isn’t being criticized by the UN or NGOs for its human rights abuses,” Jim says. You decide to recite your solo experience of the night out to the group, ignoring the glare of Lisa as you do so, also covering yourself by saying that the experience probably doesn’t prove anything one way or the other. “That’s exactly right,” says Erica, who also was on the trip. “You could meet people like that in any bar in America. And who knows if it’s actually true?” “Don’t we also have to think about our reputation?” says Stephen, who was not on the trip. “We’re not so well-established that we have a full-formed brand identity yet, and in the eyes of the industry—and other potential clients—we are defined by the company of the clients we keep. What does it say about us as an agency—our values—if we are seen supporting a repressive regime through a successful tourism campaign? Where do we stop?” Lisa shakes her head in disagreement. “For a small country like Tirania, tourism may be its way out of poverty. Their government officials said they wanted it to be a driving force of the economy and to help the country by forcing the government to be more transparent and live by democratic principles. There is nothing like sunshine as a disinfectant to shine light on bad practices and to get governments to live up to international standards,” she says, “And nothing like a bunch of complaining tourists to whip a poor tourism industry into shape.” “But we have no way of knowing what they may or may not do with tourism money,” Jim counters. “For all we know, the leaders could pocket the money for themselves and the country stays in bad shape. And if their tourism industry is in such bad shape, wouldn’t we be misleading tourists by encouraging them to go there?” “But if we don’t take the account, someone else will, so what’s the big…” Lisa begins. Jim interrupts. “Look, it’s Friday afternoon, and I feel we’re kind of going round and round here. I think what we should do is all seriously consider where we stand on whether we should take Tirania as a client or not. Then we can reconvene on Monday with our arguments for why we should or shouldn’t take them. The most convincing argument will win the day.” You’ve come to the conclusion that C&M should not take the assignment. Further, you’d feel uncomfortable being the lead account executive on the project. You have one shot at persuading the group to turn down the assignment at the Monday meeting. So what are you going to say? PS 5035 Developing a Moral Compass Fall 2017 — Individual Assignment #2 Upload to Canvas by 11:59 pm on Friday, October 27 Student name: What are the important facts of the case? (Write a concise, plain-language summary of the key business case facts in this case in 225 words or fewer.) What prudential considerations must go into your decision? (What does C&M have to gain or lose by taking this assignment?) What legal considerations must go into your decision? (What’s lawful or unlawful?) What ethical considerations must go into your decision? (What’s the right or fair thing to do? Tip: Pose these as questions, as many of you did for “Riding a Fine Line.”) Who are the primary stakeholders* that could be impacted by your decision? What possible positive or negative consequences might they face if C&M accepts the Tirania assignment? Stakeholder Possible positive or negative consequences (In some cases there may be both, so think carefully.) * Not all primary stakeholders are mentioned by name in the case study. For instance, you should consider tourists who visit Tirania because of your campaign, but don’t have to consider everyone who ever sees or reads about your campaign. Your colleagues at C&M: Yes. C&M’s vendors: No. Based on the information presented in the case study, what do you think are the primary drives (the “elephants”) of C&M’s co-founders? Explain why you feel those are the primary drives in a sentence or two each. What rationalizations can you predict you’ll encounter to your argument? (Two or three will suffice.) How would a decision to promote Tirania stand up to the TARES Test and its five principles for ethical persuasion? Taking into account the co-founders drives and potential rationalizations, and your own desire to turn down the account, what will you say at the Monday meeting? (Write a script for exactly what you want to say at Monday’s meeting. Keep in mind you’ll have no more than two or three minutes in which to make your point. Think of this as a real experience, not a class exercise, and be persuasive.) Explain why, strategically, you chose the approach you did. Include in your explanation which ethical reasoning system we’re read about (and discussed) most closely resembles the reasoning you employed in your argument.
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