FOLLOW DUBIOUS ORDERS OR SPEAK UP

At first, Susan Kim wasn’t sure whether she’d heard her new manager correctly.

The phone line was relatively clear for a call between San Francisco and Seoul, but she still asked Sukbin Moon
to repeat himself.

Mr. Moon (as Susan had been told to call him by her half-Korean father) was the Seoul office manager of
Zantech, a technology security firm with headquarters in Amsterdam. Susan was just starting her summer
internship with the company, and she was supposed to be in Seoul working with Mr. Moon’s team, but there
had been complications with her visa. Emma Visser, the head of the company’s intern program, had suggested
she get started from afar.

One of her primary duties during the summer would be helping Mr. Moon with market research by reaching
out to other technology firms, including direct competitors, for information on products, services offered,
customers, sales, and other data. He’d already e-mailed her a list of target companies and contact names. Now
he was telling her that when she contacted people on the list, it would be best to use her university e-mail
address and introduce herself as an MBA student.

Perhaps sensing her hesitation, Mr. Moon added, “This is common practice. It’s the only way to get accurate
information.”1

Susan shifted uncomfortably in her chair. This was her first conversation with her new manager, and she wanted
to make a good impression.

“You won’t get the information otherwise,” Mr. Moon said, filling the silence. “This is what other interns have
done in the past. You don’t need to worry.”

Still unsure how to respond—or how frank she could be since her father had also told her that direct
confrontation was frowned upon in most Asian cultures—she simply said, “OK.” She asked a few more
questions about the information she was supposed to get and then hung up.

Susan had badly wanted this internship. Her first job out of college had been with a management consultancy,
and she’d been staffed right away on a project with a cybersecurity firm. From the start, she was fascinated with
the work. She decided to go back to school to get her MBA and planned to eventually join a company on the
forefront of this exploding field. In an industry expected to generate $170 billion in revenue by 2020, she knew
she’d have many opportunities. And she was elated when Zantech made her an offer. If she played her cards
right, it could turn into a full-time job after she graduated. But now Mr. Moon was asking her to
misrepresent herself.2 She understood that gathering competitive intelligence required “creativity”—after all,
you were seeking information that your rivals wanted to keep private—but this seemed like it might be crossing
the line.

In one of her father’s many mini-lectures on how business works in Asia, he had mentioned that expectations
and even ethics would be different in Seoul—but that knowledge didn’t ease her anxiety now. Was
shading the truth “common practice” in Korea or common practice at Zantech.

PUT IT IN PERSPECTIVE
When Susan woke up the next morning, she already had several e-mails from Mr. Moon, with sample inquiries
attached. She noticed right away that he had cc’d Emma Visser and a man whose name she didn’t recognize. A
quick search showed that he was Zantech’s head of market research for Asia.

She was supposed to start making calls on Monday, and it was now Thursday afternoon. She had to figure out
soon what she was going to do about the request. Rather than answer right away, she went out for a jog, hoping
to clear her head. But 30 minutes in, she was still ruminating about what Mr. Moon had asked her to do.

When her phone rang with a call from her dad, she was happy for the distraction—and hoped to hear some
sound advice. This was one of their routines. He’d call her around lunchtime on the East Coast, catching her on
her way to a morning class or out for a run. Their conversations were always short, but Susan looked forward to
them.

After she explained what was going on, her dad started in on a monologue about the importance of having a
good job and building a career. Susan listened for a while until she couldn’t stand it.

“Dad, stop with the life lessons. I know I need this job.”

“I just want you to make a good decision, honey,” he said.

“James thinks I should quit. He says people have a right to be told the truth when they’re asked to disclose
sensitive information,” she said. She and her boyfriend had been together for two years, but her father still
hadn’t entirely warmed up to him.

“That’s easy for him to say. Does he plan to pay your rent this summer? Or get you a job next year? Susie, you
need this internship. You know Mom and I would love to help, but we’re on a fixed income these days.”

“Fixed income” had been her dad’s favorite phrase ever since he retired. Her parents had supported her and
her brother through their undergraduate years, but they’d made it crystal clear that from then on, they
were on their own. She’d saved some money during her three years of consulting before business school,
but not enough to pay San Francisco rent.

“So you’re saying I should just do it?4 Forget everything you taught me about honesty and integrity and
do whatever they ask?” She knew she was being melodramatic, but she often fell into t

“Susie, keep this in perspective. What Mr. Moon has asked you to do isn’t illegal. It’s not even untruthful.
You are an MBA student. And if one of these contacts asks whether you have any corporate affiliation, you can
always tell the full truth. Besides, it sounds like it’s all aboveboard at Zantech. If the head of market research
knows about it, then you know that Mr. Moon isn’t hiding anything.”

“I just don’t feel comfortable with it, Dad. It seems like lying. I think I need to go back to Mr. Moon and
tell him how I feel. Or maybe talk to the intern manager, Emma.”

“Those are perfectly good options. Just be sure to tread carefully. You don’t want them to think you’re
difficult to work with.”5

She sighed loudly into the phone. “The irony is not lost on me that a company that tries to prevent people
from misrepresenting who they are just asked me to misrepresent who I am.”

“Welcome to the real work world, honey. It’s full of contradictions.”

“I thought you’d be in Korea by now,” Melinda Sussman said, as she sat down at a café table. Melinda was a
principal at the consultancy where Susan had previously worked. Staffed on a few of the same projects, the two
had hit it off and subsequently tried to work together whenever they could. When Susan decided to leave for
business school, Melinda had written her a recommendation letter, and since both were still in San Francisco,
they’d stayed in touch.

“Not yet. Thank you so much for meeting me on the weekend.”

Susan explained about the visa issues, her conversation with Mr. Moon, and her debates with James and her
father. “I’ve even talked to the CEO.”

“You talked to the CEO? About this?”

“No, no. Not about this. He just called yesterday to apologize about the visa issues.” Peter Carlssen had come to
Berkeley last fall to participate in a panel discussion on cybersecurity. When Susan had approached him
afterward, he told her that he’d been impressed with her questions and encouraged her to apply for the
internship. She’d been shocked to hear his voice on the phone and wondered if he typically checked in with
interns or was taking a special interest in her. The conversation with Mr. Moon on her mind, she’d been
tempted to bring up the issue with the CEO—but didn’t.

“I was thinking maybe I could go to him about this,” she told Melinda. “When I saw him speak, he talked about
how important ethics were in this field.”6

“I’m sure he has bigger fish to fry than this. Besides, ‘intern rats on manager to CEO’? I don’t think that’s the
kind of reputation you want to get. How big is this company?”

“About 1,500 employees worldwide, but it’s a really friendly place. Other than this situation, I’ve had nothing
but positive interactions—from my interviews to my conversations with HR and even my first few e-mails with
Mr. Moon. Everyone’s gone out of their way to make me feel welcome. There weren’t any red flags.”

“There’s no way you can put the project off until you get over there?” Melinda asked. “Or what about talking to
this Emma person? She’s your manager too, right?”

“That’s not entirely clear. It seems like I report to both of them. I just couldn’t get a read on Mr. Moon over the
phone, and since he cc’d Emma on that e-mail, it’s not like she doesn’t know what he’s asked me to do.”

“This would, of course, be easier if you knew how any of these people were going to respond to questions. If
you raise this issue with anyone—Mr. Moon, Emma, HR—you have to be prepared for the worst.7 It’s possible
that they’ll allow you to get the information in another way, but it’s also possible—and I don’t want to scare
you—that they’ll rescind your internship offer. You’re not even over there yet, so that would probably be easy
to do.”

“I’d hate to have to explain that to my parents.”

“And future employers. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that your career prospects could be on the line
here. But if you agree to misrepresent yourself and are discovered by these companies, you might have
trouble finding any job in your field at all. And you have some obligation to the university, too. If you
present yourself as a student working on a project for school, and these companies discover there’s no
such thing, it could reflect badly on your MBA program.”
Susan’s shoulders slumped; she hadn’t thought of that. She really didn’t know what to do.

GUIDE QUESTIONS

1. Does knowing that the company has done this before make the request more acceptable?

2. Four questions for students to consider should they be confronted with an ethical dilemma: (1) Am I
comfortable with the likely consequences of this action? (2) Am I fulfilling my duties and respecting others’
rights? (3) Am I respecting the community and its norms? (4) Am I meeting my and my company’s
commitments?

3. Should a company’s practices differ across its offices? Many globalizing firms have difficulty effectively
implementing a common set of values and behaviors.

4. Many people think that the hardest part of an ethical challenge is deciding whether you believe an act is right
or wrong. But it is equally important to decide exactly how to handle a situation once you’ve determined what
you believe.

5. If Susan shares her concerns with Mr. Moon about not disclosing her connection to Zantech, does she risk
looking like someone who won’t be easy to work with in the future?

6. Given Susan’s previous interactions with the CEO, does it make sense for her to talk to him directly about
this issue? Would he be open to hearing about her concerns?

7. If she decides to speak to someone at Zantech about the issue, what, exactly, should she say? How should she
frame her concerns about ethics? What alternatives, if any, should she propose?

FINAL QUESTION: Should Susan voice her concerns about Mr. Moon’s request?