You are an accountant in the budgetary, projections, and special projects department of Fernetti Conductor, Inc., a large manufacturing company. The president, Richard Brown, asks you on very short notice to prepare some sales and income projections covering the next 2 years of the company’s much-heralded new product lines. He wants these projections for a series of speeches he is making while on a 2-week trip to eight East Coast brokerage firms. The president hopes to bolster Fernetti’s stock sales and price.
You work 23 hours in 2 days to compile the projections, hand-deliver them to the president, and are swiftly but graciously thanked as he departs. A week later, you find time to go over some of your computations and discover a miscalculation that makes the projections grossly overstated. You quickly inquire about the president’s itinerary and learn that he has made half of his speeches and has half yet to make. You are in a quandary as to what to do.
Instructions
What are the consequences of telling the president of your gross miscalculations?
What are the consequences of not telling the president of your gross miscalculations?
What are the ethical considerations to you and the president in this situation?
Post by classmate 1
a. The consequences of telling the president about the miscalculations will mainly revolve around the president having frustration of having to notify the four brokerage firms that there has been a miscalculation. The president will also be frustrated that the projections were not thoroughly reviewed before submitting the information to him. All information should have been looked over for accuracy before submitting to the president to be sure that there would not be any misleading projections.
b. The consequences of not telling the president about the miscalculations in the projection will lead to a bad reputation. You can make the president look foolish since he is presenting the projections to the brokerage firms and investors will no longer trust the company. The miscalculations will make the firms look upon him as a liar, which in fact is your fault because of the misrepresentation of the projections. Any mistakes should be addressed so that the president can call these out to maintain the reputation of the company.
c. The president should have notified the accountant earlier and allowed the accountant more time to calculate the sales and income projections. If this would have been done, there would not have been the rush and the accountant would have been more likely to submit accurate information to the president. The accountant should notify the president of the miscalculation so that the president can notify the investors, to keep the reputation of the company.
Post by classmate 2
A. There are two consequences I see in telling the president of your miscalculations at this point. The first being that the president may be so embarrassed they spoke on wrong numbers they fire you. This is the more extreme consequence in my opinion, but it is very possible. The second consequence I see potentially happening is that the president appreciates your candor and owns up that the calculations were a bit rushed and lets the public know the real numbers.
B. Not telling the president can have two opposite reactions to telling him. First, if you do not tell him and then things do not sell in the way he promised you could be fired for your failure to calculate and project correctly. Another consequence could be that the president finds out you knew that you messed up and you are reprimanded for not speaking up.
C. The ethical considerations here fall on if you care about the customers and overall business. If you truly care about those you are serving and work with you have a due diligence to speak up and own the mistake. By stepping up and owning your mistake you are going to improve your self awareness (Edwards-Fowle, 2020). Whether this will help you in this job or even if you are let go it will help in the future to hopefully not mistakes like this again. If you do not care about anyone but yourself then do not speak up and keep it a secret and hope the poor performance gets blamed on someone else.
References
Edwards-Fowle, L. (2020, August 30). How to own up to your mistakes & why it’s so hard for most people. Learning Mind. https://www.learning-mind.com/how-to-own-up-to-your-mistakes/
