College of Business Administration

Social and Ethical Issues in Business

Diabetes Golf Tournament

GROUP MEMBERS:

Maxine Gues
Veronica Hernandez
Matthew Long
Edwin Manglicmot

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The purpose of our project is to help people that are affected by diabetes. Statistically, there are about 16 million Americans that have diabetes. We decided to help these people because this disease is the fourth leading killer in the United States. As a group we learned the devastating effect of diabetes on people's lives who are affected with it. So, we decided to organize a golf tournament for their cause. We contacted the American Diabetes Association to see if they would be willing to help us in our group project. After they agreed, we started working on sponsorships, donations, and golfers. Each group member was given a specific task such as getting golfers, prizes, donations or sponsors

Part of the experience that we gained was the dealing with people. We learned that some corporations already donated to this organization, some managers were too busy to deal with their customers and there were a few generous owners that were more than willing to donate whatever they could afford for our tournament. Some managers don't realize that we are possible customers and they should treat us with respect. Another thing was that just because we are asking for something for free they are not entitled to be rude or just really cold to our whole cause. Some managers acted as if we were there to rob them of everything they own. But, some were just wonderful and friendly. One of our group members went down as far as Tijuana, Mexico to ask for some donations. We came to realize that all nationalities are affected by this disease and this disease has no bearing on nationality, it is a worldwide problem that must be solved by all nations. One of our group members passed a hat at a family Thanksgiving party. Also, one of our group members made this a vacation for some friends and relatives by having them come and support this cause and help in the fight for diabetes. Our group felt we had moral and social responsibility to help others.

After reading and hearing about the overwhelming effects of diabetes we felt we could help better the lives of all those affected by this disease. We believe after applying Hosmer's "Eight Steps to Sound Ethical Decision-making," we are on the right track to helping these people. We satisfied most of the ethical theories that we covered in class just by helping out a charity.

First, for the Deontological point of view, we followed "the absolute rule" "that you should be helpful to people regardless of your particular wants and desires." So, what we did was the right thing independent, of course, of its consequences. In other words, it is morally right to help these people in need. Consequently, on the utilitarian side, our action was also right because we acted in such a way that we know will produce happiness to the greatest number of people, which were people with diabetes, our group and the golfers, themselves. Regardless of the outcome of our event we still educated many people on the problems that diabetics have and how everybody in one way or another come face to face with these problems. This is a disease that can be dealt with especially by educating the public on ways they can prevent this terrible disease. Also, organizing this golf tournament, we believe that, we did our part to educating more people to this disease, which is part of the fight for a cure. Even though our project was not as successful as we wanted it to be, the time that we put for these people showed that we care about them. This golf tournament we believe is a fair reward for them. We also satisfied Ethic of care. By organizing this golf tournament, we already showed that we care about these people who has this disease. Not only that, by making the time to do our task to make this tournament successful made us responsible people in caring these people. Also, all the golfers and donors showed that they are caring people. We also fulfilled the Libertarianism's point of view. When asked golfers and donors, the informed them we completely informed them about our motives regarding our project, and they exercised their "personal choice" if they want to get involved. Our character and honesty, not our action, is the only thing that we have in persuading people to join us, which we believe satisfied the Virtue Theory. Lastly, as rational people, we followed moral set of rules to treat and help people that are in need so we can be a model for other members of the society and for them to follow as well, which is under the premise of Social Contract Theory.

As we went along, the important lessons to be learned from this experience were:
-Members will not attend all of the meetings which lends to the lack of communication between the entire group
-Group members must be totally committed or the outcome will not be as we intended it to be- it must be universally agreed upon with no qualms what so ever
-If there is any contract, in any amount, in which a group may be liable, all group members should be notified - with no exception -immediately.
-Do not assume that all group members will agree on any monetary matters.
-If there is a lot of money involved in a project, make sure that the money is collected a head of time and that a persons word is not adequate enough
-For a project to be completely successful that all members believe in the cause and are willing to share the success as well as the blame as a group and not just for each individual
-It must be clear to all members that this is a group project and that equal participation is a requirement

Overall, we feel good about our project even though we did not raise money; we made all of the people happy - the donors, golfers, our group and the community. Our surrounding community is now more aware of the fight for the cure of diabetes. Now we only hope that our project may help in the fight for diabetes and find the cure so those affected may lead a better life.

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