“A Case Study of Business Ethics”
“A Case Study of Business Ethics”
(For teaching notes, please contact me on pvariya@gmail.com)
Pathik B. Variya
pvariya@gmail.com
An MBBS – named – Dr. Mehra – was with a very reputed
hospital of Trichi for last seven years. His performance
feedback was exceptional and he had received many
promotions during this tenure. Prior to joining this
hospital, he was the student of medicine in a reputed
University and his behavior and performance as student
were also quite laudable. He was an excellent student with
very good academic track record. His father was a
renowned scientist. Dr Mehra was also involved in a lot of
social activities apart from his job.
The hospital he was serving was also a name to recon with
in the society. It had set high standards of employee ethical
behavior and it was known to follow its ethical code of
conduct “in toto”. In the past, the Chief Medical Officer of
the company was heavily fined (financially) when one of his
actions had violated the code of conduct of the company.
The company did not care “who” violated the code of
conduct and it followed the law of the land to deal with any
deviation in behavior of any employee strictly as per the
ethical code of conduct of the hospital. It was recipient of
many awards like “Best Hospital to Work For” in the past.
The hospital was known to get many rich businessmen /
who’s who of the world as its patients. It also received
donations from many quarters of the world, including from
Europe, USA etc.
On one not so fine Monday morning for Dr. Mehra, he was
served with a show cause notice (by post to his home) from
the HR department of the hospital. The HR department of
the hospital argued that Dr. Mehra had failed to disclose in
his application form to the hospital that he used to serve a
community hospital part time along with his studies as a
student. So, it was a gross misconduct of the ethical code
of conduct and that left no choice for them but to terminate
his services.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mehra received some media attention. He
was called by DSP of that area for inquiring about a dinner
he had taken with one of the wanted mafias. That was
reported in media. The DSP, though, gave him clean cheat,
on record, that, Dr. Mehra was called for only a routine
enquiry and he was not sent to jail. He added that no
evidence was found against Dr. Mehra.
Dr. Mehra was now struggling on two fronts – one was due
to the enquiry of police, the other was the notice from HR
Department of the hospital. Dr. Mehra replied to the notice
that as he was serving a community hospital as a part of
his social responsibility, he thought it was not necessary to
share that information with hospital in the application
form. As generally, many of the doctors who would be
working with private hospitals like this one, had not shared
such information in the past – it was a common practice
not to share such information. So, he should not be
punished.
But the HR Department the company still terminated his
services on the grounds of breach of code of conduct. Now,
Dr. Mehra accuses the hospital that because police took
him under custody for a routine enquiry, the hospital fired
him and he was being targeted for wrong reasons.
What do you think? Who is right? Dr. Mehra of HR
Department of the hospital? Why?
Please share feedback on pvariya@gmail.com
