Key Issues in the Case
This issue arises when companies don't fully consider the long-term impacts of their technological innovations.
What is an ethical crisis?
Companies that only react to consumer demands may experience this ethical failure.
What is short-term thinking?
This concept, which allows companies to scale quickly by focusing on specific parts of production, can create ethical challenges.
What is modularity?
This kind of innovation, where companies gradually improve their products, allows them to adjust their ethical practices over time.
What is incremental innovation?
Companies should develop this type of plan to consider the long-term societal impacts of their technology.
What is an ethical plan?
This problem occurs when there is a lack of clear responsibility for making ethical decisions across a company’s supply chain.
What is fragmented accountability?
As technology advances, companies need to raise these standards to maintain public trust.
What are ethical standards?
Companies that outsource key parts of their value chain may lose control over this important responsibility.
What is ethical decision-making?
We learned in class that companies often move along this curve as their technology grows in popularity, making ethical adjustments necessary.
What is the technology S-curve?
Companies should aim to go beyond these legal requirements to ensure they are acting responsibly.
What are laws?
This company, featured in the case, is dealing with the ethical challenges of handling genetic data.
What is 23andMe?
This type of innovation, which disrupts industries, often introduces new ethical dilemmas.
What is radical innovation?
23andMe may rely on these types of external companies for data storage, creating accountability issues.
What are third-party providers?
This type of leadership, discussed in class, involves reacting to issues as they come up, which can cause problems in innovation.
What is reactive leadership?
Leaders should do this to make sure ethical standards are upheld, rather than reacting to problems as they happen.
What is set clear ethical guidelines?
The rapid growth of technology makes it harder for companies to maintain this across the entire value chain.
What is ethical oversight?
This practice ensures that companies take ethical concerns into account at all stages of product development.
What is ethical leadership?
To prevent ethical failures, companies need to do this across their value chain.
What is establish clear oversight?
Companies that are early movers in a new technology field, like 23andMe, face this type of scrutiny.
What is ethical scrutiny?
This is the practice of keeping a close watch over all aspects of the value chain, including external partners.
What is oversight?
These two groups are often interested in accessing genetic data, raising privacy and ethical concerns.
What are law enforcement and insurance companies?
A company that proactively thinks about ethical challenges, instead of waiting for problems to arise, is demonstrating this kind of leadership.
What is proactive leadership?
The importance of setting these for both internal teams and external partners to maintain trust and safety.
What are ethical guidelines?
Ethical leadership, as discussed in class, goes beyond following laws and focuses on anticipating this.
What are long-term societal impacts?
By identifying and managing these early, companies can avoid ethical issues from escalating.
What are potential risks?