White Lumber Case Study

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The ethical issues involved in this case study is that White Lumber was $5000 below breakeven point and in order to reach the breakeven point used unethical practices. One among them was that they did not carry scaffold plank. Scaffold plank are wooden suspended planks between metal supporters. These scaffold planks were often used many floors above the ground in the construction industry. A close substitute of this plank was an ordinary lumber. The lumber had to be highly disinfected of the natural drawbacks it carried. Therefore, this construction lumber was altered with thickness of 3-inch instead of 2-inch claiming to have high strength in flexing. The grading rules on scaffold plank were comprehensive and restrictive. The difference between a scaffold plank and ordinary lumber was very difficult to identify. Hence all could be misguided except the trained eye. The second ethical issue was that Bob an employee received an order with Stan Parrish from Quality Lumber one of the company’s best retail dealer account. The order was said to be of ordinary lumber. Bob knew …show more content…

Since the company already has a slow start of the month additional loss of a best retailer would prompt sacking of employees who had been part of the organization for many years depending on the organizational benefits like Steve and Janet who are uneducated and are dependent on the current job wholly. Furthermore, White Lumber will not be able to achieve its break even sales and therefore it would run into losses, making it difficult for the company to meet its operating expenses. The other practical concern is that White Lumber will not be able to procure scaffold plank within the given time frame but can start looking for dealers in the neighboring areas to meet the future

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