Kick Back

Kick Back

Introduction and Key Question

Joseph Freberg is currently employed at Alcon as the sales manager. He is new to the company and is still learning the ins and outs. Although the sales figures are good, a regular checkup revealed that one of the sales personnel, Carl, was offering kickbacks to some of his client in order to increase his sales. Although this is normal in the business, in which the company is operating, this is unethical and Joseph believes that these practices need to be discontinued as soon as possible.

Joseph's Vice President, Kathryn is very strict when it comes to the implementation of policies in the organization. Joseph has heard news of people being fired on the spot because of an error that had taken place and along with the salesman who was fired, the sales manager was also asked to resign because such a mistake had happened for the second time.

Keeping in mind the attitude of Katherine, Joseph is nervous and confused whether he should report this to his boss or not. The chain of command at the organization is such that if Joseph wishes to communicate the issue, he would have to do so to Katherine. This is a major issue as Joseph is afraid that he may risk losing his job. Along with this, Katherine has also offered Joseph's wife a job at the company thus making the issue even more complicated.

Possible Options

After coming to know that three out of ten salesmen are taking kick backs in order to increase their sales, the first thing he does is to check the company rules. He determined that there is a strict “no kick back” policy in place but he also found out that this policy is often relaxed when sales are low. This shows that taking kick backs are part of the culture of the organization. Passing on this information to the Vice President could result in severe consequences; therefore, Joseph decides to arrange a meeting with the sales men himself and ask them to discontinue such practices. However, this move was not successful because the employees claimed that it was common for salesmen to take kick back and considering the fact that they need to support their families, such practices had to be carried out.

Reporting this issue to the Vice President is an option but Joseph fears that it may result in him losing his job. At the same time, since he is younger compared to his salesmen, it seems difficult to make them change their mindset since they have been following such practices since a long time.

Another option that Joseph has is to call for another meeting and force the salesmen to stop such practices. The advantage of this decision is that Joseph will subsequently find himself at a better position to control his sales team and improve the situation at the organizational level. However, the first meeting was not successful due to which the probability is high that further meetings would also not be ...