Module 7 Ethics Activity Discussion
Discussion Instructions
To complete this discussion, you must make an initial post responding to the ethical dilemma questions. Please address all the questions in full and cite your sources. Secondly, you must respond to another student's post in which you further the discussion. Start by reflecting on the original post. You may ask further questions, comment on the strength of their reply, address information that is missing, or provide examples that correspond with the topic. Agreement with the initial response is not required, but responses should reflect be supported with analogies, examples, research, or content from the text. All students should respectful of differences of opinions.
Training IT Replacements Ethics Discussion
Recently, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) announced it would lay off more than 80 IT workers and outsource their jobs to India. This change is part of a larger plan by UCSF to increase its technology outsourcing, which over time could save the organization more than $30 million. A large part of UCSF’s IT work focuses on its hospital services, and many other health care facilities have already outsourced these types of “back-end” jobs to foreign countries.
Working through a multinational contractor that will manage the outsourcing process, UCSF has also asked workers who will soon be out of a job to train their overseas replacements via videoconferencing calls to India. One such worker remarked, “I’m speechless. How can they do this to us?”
A UCSF spokesperson explained that the organization provides millions of dollars in charity care for the poor, and that to continue providing those services, the school has to focus on more specialized tech work related to patients and medical research and send other IT work overseas.
UCSF is not alone in sending IT jobs overseas and making the laid-off workers train their Indian replacements. Recently ManpowerGroup, a staffing and workforce services firm with more than 3,000 offices worldwide, issued pink slips to 150 workers in Milwaukee whose jobs were outsourced to India.
Using a web search tool, locate articles about this topic and then write responses to the following questions. Be sure to support your arguments and cite your sources.
Ethical Dilemma: Are UCSF and other companies justified in outsourcing technology jobs to India? Do they have any obligation to find other jobs or provide training for displaced workers? Should organizations ask employees who are being laid off to train their replacements?
Related Chapter Outcomes and Course Goals
This group assignment addresses the following course goals:- Describe the functions of the business manager: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
- Discuss what trends are influencing the way businesses organize.
Grade Value and Rubric
- This discussion activity is worth 15 points.
- The course discussion rubric is applied to this discussion