Great Plains Combino Case Summary

After reviewing the circumstances leading up to the failure of Great Plains Combines, Inc., J. Buffalo’s violation of today’s professional ethics standards are quite apparent. By persuading his current and former employees to transfer their jobs and benefit plans to Great Plains, J. Buffalo placed the financial status of his employees at risk. As a reasonable employee would not have agreed to the transfer of a benefit plan or job to a party who’s future is uncertain, it can be assumed that Buffalo intentionally mislead employees about the status of Great Plains to avoid paying the retirement benefits and wages after the anticipated failure of the company. This neglect for transparency with his employees can be considered a “Saying Things

By not informing his employees about the substandard sales record and expectation of collapse for Great Plains, Buffalo failed to disclose information that would come to harm his employees. As an ethical breach, Buffalo’s purposeful omission of the concerns for Great Plains during the transfer of jobs and benefit plans can be considered “Hiding or Divulging Information.” Despite the unethical nature of Buffalo’s behavior, the actions in the case does violate the “Taking Things That Don’t Belong to You” ethics breach, as Buffalo did not take any “property under false pretenses” or without permission. The deceitful intentions cannot be considered “Buying Influence or Engaging in Conflict of Interest,” as the benefits reaped from transferring the employees jobs and their benefits to Great Plains were not initiated or proposed by a third

Buffalo’s actions in the case are riddled with breaches of ethics, the lack of response by other employees of J. Buffalo Corp. may also be considered a dereliction of ethics despite not being implicitly stated in the case. As certain employees - specifically those with access to sales data and an awareness of Great Plains’ lack of success – could have raised suspicions about the intentions of Buffalo as employees transferred to work for Great Plains. A basic understanding of the sales record would be enough to deduce the imminent failure of Great Plains. The “tolerance of … unethical behavior” by employees with this knowledge is the “Condoning [of] Unethical Actions” breach of ethics. Although these employees may have rationalized their inaction as “just following [the] orders” of their supervisors, their passivity had serious repercussions for the employees of Great Plains who lost their jobs and the retirees who may have lost their only source of income. Although the description of Buffalo’s actions in the case allow room for interpretation, any presumption about intentions to prevent the failure of Great Plains Combines can be dismissed as “former employees” were also encouraged to “accept transfers of their…. retirement benefit plans” to Great Plains. The transfer of the retirement plans is evidence of a calculated attempt to avoid paying the retirement benefits of former employees and not the result of fruitless attempts to save Great