David Burdick is the CEO of ACME Bubblegum, a successful public company. As one of the cofounders of the company, Burdick has enjoyed speaking and writing about the success of ACME Bubblegum for several years. Typically, he speaks at conferences or directly to the press, but recently, he has been blogging about his firm anonymously. Specifically, he defended a recent advertising campaign that was unpopular among consumers and pointedly attacked one of ACME Bubblegum’s competitors. Burdick deeply enjoys his anonymous blogging and believes that none of his readers actually know that he works for ACME Bubblegum. Should Burdick be allowed to praise his company’s performance anonymously online? Should he be allowed to attack his competitors without disclosing his relationship with the company? How would you feel if the CEO of a company at which you shopped was secretly writing criticisms of his or her competition? How would you feel if you knew a writer for your favorite blog was actually closely involved in a company that the blog discussed?

1. Define the ethical issue?
2. Who are the primary stakeholders?
3. What are the possible alternatives?
4. How could you evaluate the ethical implications of the alternative actions (use appropriate decision rules)?
5. What action would you recommend and why?

Ethical practices is a must in an organization. Organization which practices best ethical practices survives in the market.

Explanation:

1. The ethical issue in the above context is that the company CEO is secretly swaying the buying behavior of the consumers without revealing his identity in favor of the products of his company. As a result, the consumers blindly believes him to be some independent external expert. The CEO of the company is taking advantage of his customer's trust.

2. The primary stake holders are :

   - the readers and the society

   - the consumers

   - the CEO and his teams

   - the owners of the company

3. The possible alternatives :

 -- the CEO should disclose his identity to the readers and should provide constructive criticism to his competitors.

-- by disclosing himself and advertising or writing only about his company's product.

-- stop writing about the products and disclose his identity.

4. With the first alternative, by disclosing the identity of the CEO will help the buyers or the readers to take decisions wisely as they will know who the writer or critic is of the product. This also leads to confusion of the customers as it leads to ambiguity of the market, as the criticism of other players in the market will be similar.

With the second alternative, the consumers will get information or an idea about the products of the company. The readers can read and follow the bloggers of their choice if the identity identity is known to them. It is right practice to disclose oneself and one's opinion about the products and let the readers decide what is good for them.

With the third alternative, the readers and the consumers are devoid of the views of the blogger of their choice. It is not good for any of the readers, bloggers or for the consumers also. If someone is in the CEO position, the freedom of expression should not be curtailed.

5. Alternative second is considered the best alternative because :

- readers are aware of the identity of the blogger.

- the blogger can disclose his identity and continue his blogging

- now the consumer can best choose their product based on their research and knowledge