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This case present the dilemma of an employee who, having been terminated in a manner he deems is unfair, has to decide whether to cash or return a $2,500 check wrongfully sent him by his former employer.

Marketing tactics such as pricing, promotion, placement, and product decisions all help business owners create a need for their products or services. What managers seldom realize, however, is that the marketing decisions they make primarily to increase sales and market share have a great impact on society at large and thus have significant ethical implications. These seven caselets, which cover a variety of topics (including “the article of the half-truth,” “creative interview tactics,” and “truthfully representing your company”), explore the ethical implications of decision making in the marketing arena.

Gender in the workplace. Is it still an issue? While it is increasingly easier in the early 21st century for women to work, manage, and take positions of high responsibility in American business, some issues and difficulties still remain. This series of vignettes touches on some difficult situations—for both women and men—involving sexual and romantic relationships in the workplace, decisions on whether to start a family, dress codes, family obligations, and sexual harassment.

John Hume, a veteran game farmer and founder of the Mauricedale Game Ranch in South Africa, was deeply troubled by the record upsurge in black rhino poaching incidents and black-market horn thefts in 2010 and 2011. While the endangered black rhino represented only one segment of Mauricedale's hunting and farming businesses in 2011, the animal's survival was an important component of the ranch's and industry's growth potential in the future. As both a businessman and a rhino advocate, John Hume was contemplating an innovative idea that might help stop the decline of the black rhino: the creation of a market for legalized black rhino hunting. As he pondered the possibilities and alternatives to determine what his next move should be, Hume had several questions on his mind: Was the legalization of the international sale and trade of rhino horns a viable solution? Was it Hume's responsibility to save the black rhino, and was the animal a good investment?

The owner/editor of the small Davis Press encounters a dilemma when she is given the opportunity to publish a novel set in the Islamic holy city of Mecca. Given the events of the last 16 years—the angry fallout after Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, the continuing Iraq War, and the recent controversy of Koran desecration at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay—publishing the novel presents a host of various ethical dilemmas, including whether she should put her staff at risk. This case discusses the ethics of a free press and challenges the profit motive in the face of jeopardizing political and religious world affairs.

This case presents the dilemma of a multinational oil and gas company, ExxonMobil, as it factors in the ethical issues related to the environment and cultural differences in deciding whether to proceed with building a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, two of the poorest and most corrupt developing countries in West Africa. The many players in this project included the World Bank--which cofinanced the project and put restrictions into place that would hopefully prevent pipeline-related government corruption in both Chad and Cameroon--and many environmental and human rights groups that warned of potential disaster. The case also covers the environmental and social analysis of the areas that would be affected by the pipeline.

This chapter suggests that there are at least five main challenges to the development of stakeholder theory as it currently stands. We need more research on understanding what counts as the total performance of a business; accounting for stakeholders rather than accounting only for investors; explaining real stakeholder behavior; formulating smart public policy given stakeholder theory; and rethinking the basics of ethical theory. The chapter explains the issues involved in each challenge and suggests ways to meet the challenge. It is a preliminary report of research in progress as well as a blueprint for how others may join the conversation to develop a more useful stakeholder theory.

Stakeholders are typically described as those who may affect or be affected by the actions of a firm. The purpose of this chapter is to present an argument that stakeholder theory should pay specific regard to what I term marginal stakeholders, that is, parties affected by a firm’s actions but who nevertheless have no actual or foreseeable influence to shape its strategic goals. Several key proponents of stakeholder theory maintain that these groups are not legitimate stakeholders and therefore do not warrant consideration. For example, marginal groups are routinely excluded from discussions of stakeholder fairness. Alternatively, theorists presume that advocates with leverage will protect these groups, or appeals to human rights will be sufficient. In contrast, I contend that there are cases where the firm has benefitted, but identifiable and discrete stakeholders have been negatively affected by corporate action in an environment where rights are ignored or there is no significant legal recourse. Drawing on foundational literature on fairness and insights from social psychology, I conclude that fully realized stakeholder theory means that a corporation has to consider its duties to all those affected by the impact of a firm, including the powerless.

Rarely acknowledged, particularly in business and communications, is that animals have interests in decisions that affect them. This chapter raises questions about how stakeholding is defined and explains why the circle of ethical consideration has been limited to human beings but should be expanded when so much of what we do impacts animals – animals who often labor for our benefit, not theirs, whose bodies are used as food, whose skins are used for fashion and furniture, and who are experimented upon, all without their consent, nor representation of their interests beyond essential physical needs. Animals as laborers/workers for our interests is an important expansion to business and public relations (PR) ethics. While labor is deeply raced and gendered, it also is species dependent. Many practices allowed with animal workers would never be permitted or certainly regarded with concern, if among human beings. Freeman's (1984) two-tiered sense of stakeholders is applied and the argument made that animals should be included in the array of stakeholders, the argument being they are not only silent but also silenced as have been marginalized human groups. This chapter offers a textual analysis of the cover of the December 09, 2013 issue of Time magazine and a response article which serve as a case study for considering animals as stakeholders integral to PR–corporate social responsibility–diversity, equity, and inclusion intersection. I examine deer in the urban landscape and ask whether their perspectives are included in decisions about population, habitat, and health. If communications are to be ethical, inclusive, and socially responsible, animals must be affirmed as part of DEI commitments. Action steps/recommendations for doing so are included.