Case 14
For the past three years Dave Odell, Ethel Harris, and Mark Goldstein have been collaborating upon a book that deals with ethics and values for organizational development consultants. Organizational development (OD) is a field that involves application of research in organizational psychology and sociology to a broad and diverse array of problems that can impede the effectiveness of organizations. Dave, a practitioner in the OD field with twenty–five years experience, has worked as an in–house consultant for two Fortune 500 companies, and also has considerable experience in external consulting with many different kinds of organizations. He has a strong interest in the subject of ethics as it relates to OD consulting practice, and for the past five years, has worked actively on a committee of major OD professional organizations to draft a statement of ethics and values for OD consultants. Ethel is a philosophy professor who specializes in ethics. Mark, who formerly taught courses on OD in the college of business in the university where Ethel is a faculty member, now works as Director of Educational Research for a large private foundation.
The book, which was originally Mark's idea, will be the first of its kind. The plan is for the book to have two main parts. Part one, which will take up approximately one fourth to one third of the book's text, will have three chapters. Chapter one, to be written by Mark, will discuss the concept of a profession, as it relates to the field of OD. Chapter two, to be written by Ethel, will provide an overview discussion of philosophical theories of ethics, with the aim of introducing various concepts for thinking about ethical issues in connection with organizational development consulting. Chapter three, to be written by Dave, will describe and discuss the statement of ethics and values for OD professionals he has worked on developing for the past five years. Part two of the book, which will take up the remaining two thirds to three fourths of the text, will be a collection of twenty case studies, prepared by Dave, Ethel, and Mark. Each case study will be followed by at least two commentaries written by various scholars and/or OD practitioners. Mark, Ethel, and Dave estimate the completed book will have a text of five hundred to six hundred pages.
In working on their book over the past three years Dave, Ethel and Mark have all read, reviewed, and proposed editorial revisions of each other's contributions. They have also all edited the contributions of the commentators, most of which (thirty out of forty) have now been received. This procedure, which requires sending large amounts of text back and forth among the three co–authors, is very time consuming, but they all regard it as indispensable to assure the quality and coherence of the final text of the book. Every six weeks Dave, Ethel, and Mark confer by way of a telephone conference call (they live in different cities) to discuss editorial matters.
Working relationships among the three co–authors have been harmonious, productive, and efficient. Hardly any disagreements, and no major ones, have yet arisen. For the past two months, however, Ethel has put off dealing with an issue she fears will be very troubling. Three months ago Dave suggested, in reviewing the latest draft Ethel had written, in connection with the chapter dealing with ethical theory, that the chapter be expanded to include a substantial amount of material written by himself. This material of Dave's sets out a model of a seven–step procedure for analyzing critical issues when making an ethical decision. Ethel has big problems with this. She has strong philosophical grounds for doubting that ethical reasoning can be thought of usefully in terms of a discrete step by step decision making model. Furthermore, she believes that the reasons for her philosophical doubts are implicit in the material she has written for the ethical theory chapter. Ethel thinks, for this reason, that including Dave's material in the ethical theory chapter would not only inject philosophically dubious ideas (from her standpoint) into the chapter, but also make the chapter intellectually disjointed in virtue of containing two lines of thoughts on the same subject that seem to move in opposed directions.
It's clear to Ethel that Dave very much wants his model of a seven step procedure for ethical decision making to appear in the book. Ethel's problem is not that she would consider this a gross embarrassment. She realizes that reputable OD scholars and practitioners, who are not trained in philosophy, view the kinds of ideas underlying Dave's model as intellectually respectable. Her problem, rather, is that, in her opinion, these ideas are fundamentally mistaken from a philosophical standpoint. Ethel has expressed some mild reservations to Dave and Mark about including Dave's material in the ethical theory chapter, but she hasn't forcefully expressed to them the full extent of her dissatisfaction in this regard.
The next scheduled conference call meeting between the co–authors is next week.