Do you give the customer what he wants or what you think he should have? This may not sound like an ethics test, but it is. I asked people what they would do if their employers asked them to do something they thought was not in the company's best interests for technical, business or ethical reasons. People appear to fall into categories as to how they explain their perspectives.

Crusaders

• "If we all just took instructions blindly and proceeded without expressing our concerns, they should be able to find someone cheaper to do the job or eliminate the position altogether."
• "In this age of knowledge workers, if you don't use the knowledge you have to protect and benefit the company, then what good are you?"

Loyal soldiers

• "My job is to support my management. I won't always agree on what needs to be done, but as long as they understand my position, then I should do what I'm asked to do."
• "I try to keep the perspective that I may be wrong, and therefore am prepared to move ahead with a project even if I don't agree with it."
Pragmatists
• "I've owned a small business for over 30 years and I am acutely aware that some business decisions are/must be made that defy technical or ordinary business logic."
• "I would generally try to talk them out of it, and failing that, figure out some way to go along. Rationalize. If the ethical violation was particularly egregious, I think I would resign."
Jurists
• "If my authority flows from above, I have an obligation to state my professional opinion and support any decision taken within the boss's authority. If there is something done outside their authority, I have the obligation to go to the person with that authority and advise them. This especially applies when something unethical is being done. A good company will have clear limits to authority."
• "It's your professional and fiduciary responsibility to express these concerns. If I were overruled without adequate investigation and justification, I would ask that someone else take this action, because I could not."

How we react depends on us.

A crusader wrote, "I protested the decision and quietly conducted a pocket veto by refusing to carry out the order. The reason was simple; it was clearly a lie to a party outside the company and would eventually be discovered."

A loyal soldier commented, "I have been wrong many times in the past, both on technical and business fronts. In the unlikely event I cannot get closure, I will work around the problem by seeking a transfer for unrelated reasons. If that fails, then I will simply follow orders."

A pragmatist reported, "I witnessed a truck picking up a company-owned pump and carrying it to a rig working for another company in which my boss had a financial interest. It was virtually impossible to see any action that would result in anything corrective taking place, so I did nothing."

A jurist recommended, "Write a memo to file documenting that you first objected to your superior and that you did whatever it was with extreme reluctance. This covers you if all hell breaks loose, but conserves the all important element of trust and loyalty between you and your boss."

Eve Sprunt, evesprunt@aol.com, is an oil industry executive. Responses in quotes come from her broad network of contacts in the industry who respond to her e-mail surveys.

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