Toby Groves Case Summary

Toby Groves grew up on a farm in Ohio. As a kid, the idea that he was a person of strog moral character was very important to him (Joffe-Walt and Spiegel). At a very young age, Toby learned that his brother was sent to prison for fraud. Toby being of moral character, makes a promise to his father to never follow in his brothers footsteps. A few years later Toby decided he would open his own mortgage loan company. He would have to borrow money from a bank and when the bank asked about his earnings, he would tell his first unethical lie. Toby felt as though he couldn’t let his father down, therefore he claims he makes around 350,00, when in fact he didn’t. He wasn’t sure why he was lying about his earning. Toby claims it’s the cost of doing business. Toby knew he would have to

There is, she says, a common misperception that at moments like this, when people face an ethical decision, they clearly understand the choice that they are making (Joffe-Walt and Spiegel). However, did Toby know that this was unethical? Is he thinking about the ethics of the situation? Tenbrusel would argue that Toby was not thinking of the “ethical big picture.” Tenbrunsel recently conducted an experiment where she gathered two groups of people. One group was instructed to think about business decisions and the second group was instructed to think about ethical decisions. Tenbrunsel learned in her experiment that the business group acted entirely different from the ethical group. ‘“If you’re thinking about a business decision, you are significantly more likely to lie that is you were thinking from an ethical frame,”’Tenbrunsel says (Joffe-Walt and Spiegel). This experiment illustrates some understanding as to why Toby made the choice to lie on his application. He felt it was the best business decision he could