Martha McCaskey

By Rebecca Smart Bakken

TENG 340
Northeastern University

Problem Description

Martha McCaskey who is a senior associate of the Industry Analysis Division at Seleris
Associates, which is a medium size consulting firm based in Chicago, is currently faced
with a difficult decision within her job that might contradict her values and her integrity.
McCaskey has now been assigned to a new and exciting project called the Silicon 6
project. This project was for one of Seleris’s oldest clients in the high/tech electronics
field, and has previously done a lot of work for this client and they currently accounted
for close to 20% of the division’s revenues. The Silicon 6 projects involved a new type of
computer chip being produced by one of the client’s important competitors. McCaskey
was trying to identify the cost structure and manufacturing technologies of the new chip
produced by the competitor, but found the assignment extremely challenging and morally
incorrect at times. This information McCaskey needs to find is what considered
proprietary information.
After conducting research through ex-employees at the target company she managed to
get in touch with Phil Devon, a consultant in Southern California who is involved in the
design and start-up of plant for one of the European Firms. It also turned out Devon was
the former VP of the target company 12 years ago, and it looked like McCaskey had
finally found a source she could get some valuable information.
When she met with Devon she began to hesitate about asking him about details of the
Silicon 6 project because of the way Devon acted. He was willing to help in any way, and
she got the impression that either he was extremely straight so he might have acted to the
extreme, like calling the police, if she would of asked about the Silicon 6 project, or that
he was trying to find out whom she was working for and then makes contact with the
target company.
She got valuable information from Devon, but decided to not touch on the Silicon 6
project as much as because of the risk. She presented the information she had colleted to
Seleris client and they were not happy with her work, but got ecstatic that they have
contact with an ex-employee with the necessary information if provided with the proper
incentives. Devon’s name was protected all along.
Because of this the clients doubled the fee and said they did not care how they got the
information, as long as they got it.
McCaskey had to now figure out how to handle Devon and how to get the information.
Given the importance of the project the Group Managers Bud Hackert and Bill Davis
suggested that Devon could be offered a per diem consulting fee of $7000 instead of
$4000 and that he would provide several analyses of alternatives for manufacturing state-
of-the-art chips, including the one used at the Silicon 6 project. Hackert and Davis also
gave her the opportunity that she can have someone else like Chuck Kaufmann, another
senior associate, meet with Devon and she will manage the overall project.
McCaskey is not promised and assured that if she successfully completes the Silicon 6
project she will be promoted to a group manager.
She was not faced with either handling with Devon herself and perhaps hire him as an
outside consultant, or have Kaufmann handle Devon, and she manage Kaufmann.

Option 1: McCaskey handling Devon herself

Up to this point McCaskey has had the opportunity to maintain a high degree of integrity
within Seleris Associates and that she was an exemplary employee. She felt that up to this
point none of the choices she had made within the job has compromised her values. Now
she was facing that if she wants to finish the project she would have to follow the plan
proposed by Hackert and Malone. And play the game the way everyone else did in the
company.
The first thing McCaskey has to take in consideration is the new position they offered her
if she completed the project. Is this something she is interested in, and will she go the
extra mile to get this position? She needs to make a decision if this position and this
project is worth a little piece of her integrity, or if she can complete this project without a
feeling that she is doing something morally incorrect. Another issue is also that she has to
make sure that she actually will get this new position 100%. There have been incidents
before that Ty Richardson, the Senior Vice President, and Tom Malone, the Vice
President, would say they wanted you on the management team, but then act differently
by not including these employees on important meetings with clients so they could make
a contribution. You can also get an impression that the environment at IAD is not the best
at this point after many of the employers leaving in 1996 because of burn out in the job,
or they went and worked for clients or competitors. It did not make the situation better
when all the employees go the same about of Christmas bonus, while Richardson and
Malone showed up with brand new Mercedes at the Christmas party. Issues like this will
harm the overall environment of the company. It also seems like the management team
does not appreciate a lot of the employees by saying that they could just hire 10 new
people if 10 quit. However this does not seem to be the case with McCaskey because they
always seem to appreciate her work, and she continually sets new standards within the
division. McCaskey should be sure though that the company will back her up if she or the
company will get in trouble for the actions that might occur. If McCaskey wants this new
position and makes sure that she has this position 100% if she completes this project, this
is a great way to prove that she will take care of important, difficult issues herself, and
not hand the difficult part over to somebody else.
McCaskey’s main issue is if she is willing to loose some of her integrity by completing
this project. If she can set this issue aside, and act smart on her action she can most likely
collect the information needed for the project and complete it. By hiring Devon as an
outside industry consultant that would provide time consuming and expensive analyses of
several alternatives for manufacturing these chips, but this would most likely be
including the Silicon 6 plant. Because of the extra work and effort Devon would most
likely not suspect what she was after. Even though it is time consuming and expensive it
will most likely be worth it if the information will be provided.

Option 2: Kaufmann handling Devon and McCaskey manage it

Kaufmann who has experience in handling many of the division’s projects that required
getting information that a competitor would consider proprietary. He has the reputation
within the division that he has been working on the “sleaze” projects that would involve
questionable practices in contracting and interviewing people who could provide very
detailed information about target companies. This was exactly the situation the Silicon 6
project was facing and bringing Kaufmann in who has more experience on these areas
might end up being a smart choice. Several months earlier Kaufmann revealed to
McCaskey that he had hired an ex-employee of target companies previously. This means
that he does not have as many problems as McCaskey has doing these kinds of actions.
However he has also gotten the impression that he is needed as a group manager in the
division and by her choosing him to handle the hardest part of a project might harm her.
There is an understanding though that management likes to take advantage of Kaufmann
by giving him less pay and important tasks, but he feels that he will one day make it to
become a group manager.
This was also an idea suggested by Richardson and Malone because this might be a good
experience and training for her new position coming up. This might not hurt her integrity
as much because she is not actually handling Devon herself so it is not her choices that
are made during the conversations with him, but still her choices made on the projects
herself and she might end up feeling even worse because she has less control over the
situation and feels that it might be solved more immorally if Kaufmann do it than if she
does it herself.

Solution:

What McCaskey could have done to prevent the situation she currently is in is to maybe
have talked to Richardson at the time she was debating on whether she should contact the
ex-employees or not. Richardson was out of the office for a couple weeks when she was
debating on this so she brushed it off and forgot about it. She should have made more
effort to get a hold of him to get some of his feedback, and maybe he would have directed
her in a different way. Now she was stuck, and the only way to get out of her situation
was to either meet Devon herself, or Kaufmann handle it.
There is another solution that McCaskey has not yet thought about, and that is to gather
the information the hard but moral way, by not contacting former employees or
consultants. She has done this before on her former projects and it is time consuming, but
it is worth it in the end. At this point because everyone is pressuring her she feels she
needs to take the immoral way out, but she is more than qualified and has every right to
say how she wants to get the information like she has done it before. Because the target
company also was a former client of Seleris, you can also go through contacts they had
from this period. She should be able to speak up against the managers, and they should
not pressure her or suggest that she does anything that will hurt her integrity or that is
immorally wrong. This is a tough choice to make, but will in the end be the right one for
her. If she does not get the position based on this, this is probably not the right place for
her to work, where they encourage espionage and other bad behavior within the
company.
However if she decides to choose between the options Hackert and Malone gave her she
should chose the one that will leave her with most integrity. But neither of these options
will be morally correct in any ways and she will most likely be left with a bad taste in her
mouth if she does not get caught.