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Quality Management: Signing Off on a Substandard Product

In: Business and Management

Submitted By goldbe2000
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Quality Management: Signing Off on a Substandard Product
Our lives, mainly because of varying decisions and outcome are challenging enough to trial our ethics as an individual or a business. Business ethics as defined by Kirk O Hanson is “the study of standards of business behavior, which promote human welfare and the good” (Hanson 2012) In other words, ethics is about how we behave and about the standards that guide our judgements and decisions. Lauren company as we see in this context are professionals and are expected to make good decisions because the decisions they make will affect people’s lives and before a final decision can be made on a particular product, they have to weigh the technical side and the impact of such product like safety, usability, cost and affordability.(McFarland 2012). A critical look into this case study is necessary as it affects Lauren as a person, (who is in a dilemma on if she should allow the production of product that is substandard), her company (with the option of either to re do production risking losing the contract or to pass the device risking their goodwill). The customer company who are just growing their products and at a risk of losing their entire line of production if the device fails and lastly the public or end users who will be sold a product that’s far from what is being advertised. In advising Lauren, I will engage the use of ethics tests to support my opinion.
First, I will like apply the ethics utility test by highlighting consequences on each stakeholder. The test asks if the product will be best for all stakeholders. The most affected stakeholders in this case study are the end-users of the product. Passing a product that does not meet specifications will favor this group on the short term, as product will be available at the time needed. This group of people will only be satisfied if the product meets their

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