Questions

1. According to the Ethical Dissonance Model, the ethical person-organization fit helps to define the

ethical culture of an organization and ones role in it. The ethics of an individual influences the

values one brings to the workplace and decision-making, while the ethics (through culture) of the

organization influences that behavior. Throughout The Parable of the Sadhu, Bowen McCoy refers

to the breakdown between the individual and corporate ethic. Explain what he meant by that

and how, if we view the hikers on the trek up the mountain in Nepal as an organization, the

ethical person-organization fit applied to the decisions made on the climb.

The corporate ethic of Nepal and the mountain climbing group would have to be classified low

organizational ethics because the climbers are mainly interested in accomplishing their goal to reach the

peak. It is a pursuit of self-interests mentality. The individuals adopt the group ethic of meeting the goal

and not letting anything get in their way including the well-being of the sadhu. They rationalize what they

have done to make him more comfortable, but never deal with the overriding issue of whether it is

ethically more important to assure the health and safety of a fellow human being (i.e., welfare of

shareholders, creditors, employees) rather than achieve the goal. Bowen considered whether an individual

with high ethics might be turned to one with low ethics if negatively influenced by others in the group who

have low ethics. In other words, does the organization culture dictate whether those in it act ethically, as

they might be prone to do, or act unethically as a result of the corporate ethic? Others in the group seem

to be willing to act on their high individual ethic (Stephen) who recognized the moral dilemma but did not

have the resources to act alone to guide the situation to a more ethical end. In the end the low

organizational ethics overrode the high individual ethics.

2. Evaluate the actions of McCoy and Stephen from the perspective of Kohlbergs model of moral

development. At what stage did each reason throughout the trek? Do you think there was a

bystander effect in how McCoy and the others acted?

McCoy reasoned at stage 3, fairness to the sadhu. At stage 2 reasoning, the individual is focused on

satisfying ones interest but moves into considering the interests of others (i.e., sadhu, group) in stage 3.

The accomplishment of scaling the pass was especially important to him since in a previous attempt he

suffered pulmonary edema. He thought he had satisfied his moral obligation with leaving the sadhu with

Stephen and Pasang, the Sherpa guide.

Stephen reasoned at stage 5, social contract, but could not solve the sadhus problem completely. He was

suffering from altitude sickness. After McCoy left the sadhu for the summit, Stephen tried to get the

Japanese group to lend their horse to carry the sadhu down to the hut. He then asked Pasang to have

group of porters carry the sadhu down. Pasang could not allow the porters to use their energy in that way

when it was needed to get to the summit. The porters did carry the sadhu down about 500 feet and

pointed the way to the hut. Further, Pasang pressed Stephen not to delay any longer. Stephen gave into

the pressure of the group ethics and probably ended up at stage 3, fairness to the sadhu. He hoped later

climbers would come to the aid of the sadhu. That evidences a bystander effect, which is prominent in this

case someone will do what we cant because of other considerations. Stephen was haunted by the

situation and whether others would come to the sadhus aid.

The bystander effect seemed to have affected all the climbers. All the climbers that the sadhu encountered

assumed that the next group of climbers could help the sadhu a little more while remaining on track to

achieve the goal of scaling the summit.

3. What role did ethical fading have on the decision-making of Bowen and other members of the

group? How is utilitarian thinking involved in ethical fading?

The way people frame a decision plays a key role in how that decision is viewed. Ethical fading occurs

when people are so focused on other aspects of a pending decision that its ethical aspects fade from view.

Some think that it is the erosion of ethical standards. In the parable, the goal of the climbers to scale the

summit was dependent on the weather, the condition of the steps, energy, and time of day. It became

easy for each climber to rationalize that he had helped and that later climbers would also help so that the

sadhu would be okay. Utilitarianism thinking looks for the greatest good for the greatest number. The
climbers, Pasang and porters wanted the greatest number of climbers to scale the summit, while the

fewest number of climbers or group members were hurt or sick with altitude sickness. Using this

rationalization or reasoning, meant that the sadhu was considered a small number to be harmed while the

climbers and porters could achieve the goal. However, the (rule) utilitarian approach also recognizes

certain rules should never be violated regardless of utilitarian benefits (of scaling the mountain) including

possibly allowing someone to die because there is not enough time to save him. In other words, do the

ends justify the means?

4. McCoy concludes that the lesson of the sadhu is that in a complex corporate situation, the

individual requires and deserves the support of the group. When people cannot find such support

in their organizations, they dont know how to act. What support in organizations do you think

McCoy is referring to? If such support is not found, what should individuals do when they have an

ethical dilemma such as that in the sadhu case?

If the organization does not provide the support to evaluate and resolve an ethical dilemma, then the

individual must rely on his own values and decision making models. Below is McCoys reflection on the

sadhu 15 years later. He notes that Stephen was reacting to the situation from his Christian ethic of

compassion while he (McCoy) had a utilitarian response. Neither are the only right responses. Many

students will want or state one right response, only.

5. What is the moral of the story of the sadhu from your perspective?

McCoy summarized the moral as When do we take a stand?

When Do We Take a Stand?

By Bowen McCoy
 I wrote about my experiences purposely to present an ambiguous situation. I never found out if

the sadhu lived or died. I can attest, though, that the sadhu lives on in his story. He lives in ethics classes I

teach each year at business schools and churches. He lives in the classrooms of numerous business

schools, where professors have taught the case to tens of thousands of students. He lives in several

casebooks on ethics and on an educational video. And he lives in organizations such as the American Red

Cross and AT&T, which use his story in their ethics training.

As I reflect on the sadhu now, 15 years after the fact, I first have to wonder, what actually

happened on that Himalayan slope? When I first wrote about the event, I reported the experience in as

much detail as I could remember, but I shaped it to the needs of a good classroom discussion. After years

of reading my story, viewing it on video, and hearing others discuss it, Im not sure I myself know what

actually occurred on the mountainside that day!

Ive also heard a wide variety of responses to the story. The sadhu, for example, may not have

wanted our help at all he may have been intentionally bringing on his own death as a way to holiness.

Why had he taken the dangerous way over the pass instead of the caravan route through the gorge? Hindu

businesspeople have told me that in trying to assist the sadhu, we were being typically arrogant

Westerners imposing our cultural values on the world.

Ive learned that each year along the pass, a few Nepali porters are left to freeze to death outside

the tents of the unthinking tourists who hired them. A few years ago, a French group even left one of their

own, a young French woman, to die there. The difficult pass seems to demonstrate a perverse version of

Greshams law of currency: The bad practices of previous travelers have driven out the values that new

travelers might have followed if they were at home. Perhaps that helps to explain why it was so difficult for

Stephen or anyone else to establish a different approach on the spot.

Our Sherpa sirdar, Pasang, was focused on his responsibility for bringing us up the mountain safe

and sound. (His livelihood and status in the Sherpa ethnic group depended on our safe return.) We were

weak, our party was split, the porters were well on their way to the top with all our gear and food, and a

storm would have separated us irrevocably from our logistical base.

 The fact was, we had no plan for dealing with the contingency of the sadhu. There was nothing

we could do to unite our multicultural group in the little time we had. An ethical dilemma had come upon

us unexpectedly, an element of dram that may explain why the sadhus story has continued to attract

students.

I am often asked for help in teaching the story. I usually advise keeping the details as ambiguous

as possible. A true ethical dilemma requires a decision between two hard choices. In the case of the

sadhu, we had to decide how much to sacrifice ourselves to take care of a stranger. And given the

constraints of our trek, we had to make a group decision, not an individual one. If a large majority of

students in a class ends up thinking Im a bad person because of my decision on the mountain, the

instructor may not have given the case its due. The same is true if the majority sees no problem with the

choices we made.

Any classs response depends on its setting, whether its a business school, a church, or a

corporation. Ive found that younger students are more likely to see the issue as black-and-white, whereas

older ones tend to see shade of gray. Some have seen a conflict between the different ethical approaches

that we followed at the time. Stephen felt he had to do everything he could to save the sadhus life, in

accordance with his Christian ethic of compassion. I had a utilitarian response: do the greatest good for

the greatest number. Give a burst of aid to minimize the sadhus exposure, then continue on our way.

The basic question of the case remains, when do we take a stand? When do we allow a sadhu

to intrude into our daily lives? Few of us can afford the time or effort to take care of every needy person

we encounter. How much must we give of ourselves? And how do we prepare our organizations and

institutions so they will respond appropriately in a crisis? How do we influence them if we do not agree

with their points of view?

We cannot quit our jobs over every ethical dilemma, but if we continually ignore our sense of

values, who do we become? As a journalist asked at a recent conference on ethics, Which ditch are we

willing to die in? For each of us, the answer is a bit different. How we act in response to that question

defines better than anything else who we are, just as, in a collective sense, our acts define our institutions.
In effect, the sadhu is always there, ready to remind us of the tensions between our own goals and the

claims of strangers.