Essay - The Rules of the Game (Ethics in Leadership)

This assignment should at a minimum contain 2,000 words of content (double spaced) and should be in APA format with at least six (6) references. Please address each question within your essay. Points will be deducted for the questions not answered. Essay should be scholarly written with sound reasoning. Essay will be submitted through turnitin for originality verification. No plagiarism!

After reading the Lesson Seven material, go the the following link and read the essay by Carl Sagan entitled The Rules of the Game: https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-universe-of-carl/the-rules-of-the-game-by-carl-sagan/553135628081163/  (Essay attached)

Afterward, please write an essay addressing the following questions.

1.Which rule(s) do you live by personally? Give specific examples of how you apply the rules you identified in your life. Why do you choose these rules over others? Defend your personal position with sound reasoning.

2. Red Corp hires you to consult on an ethical issue they are facing. Red Corp recently discovered that its customer database has been hacked and published online, along with the customer database of one of its competitors, Blue Corp. Red Corp had no knowledge of or involvement with the hacking until a Red Corp employee stumbled upon the files published on the internet. Blue Corp and Red Corp have always operated with respect for one another, with no prior instances of underhandedness. Red Corp doesn't believe that Blue Corp has discovered the hacking yet, but it believes that if Blue Corp does discover it (or if Red Corp tells Blue Corp about it), Blue Corp will almost certainly use Red Corp's customer information against it (i.e. try to steal Red Corp's customers). What do you advise Red Corp to do? Use the information and go after Blue Corp's customers? Ignore it and hope that Blue Corp doesn't find it? Something else? On which of the rule(s) discussed in the Sagan essay do you base your recommendations, and why?

3. Suppose that Red Corp decides to use the database, and begins under-bidding Blue Corp and taking its customers. Witnessing this, Blue Corp investigates and discovers the customer databases (both Blue Corp's and Red Corp's) online. If Blue Corp does nothing, it believes that Red Corp will continue to steal customers. Blue Corp hires you to consult on a response. What do you advise Blue Corp to do? Retaliate? Ignore the information and the attack by Red Corp? Something else? On which of the rule(s) discussed in the Sagan essay do you base your recommendations, and why?

4. Did you rely on the same rules in your advice to question #1 and #2?

If you did, can you think of a different set of circumstances in which you would have given different advice (and relied on different rules)?

If you did not, why not? How were these situations different such that the difference caused you to change your basis of morality?

IMPORTANT NOTE: For the sake of these questions, you may assume that the published customer databases cannot be removed from the internet, and that law enforcement cannot help. While in reality, these options would be perfectly reasonable, they aren't relevant to the purpose of the assignment.