Monday 19 October 2015

Do you think that Mr.A is better or Mr.B is better?

I believe that nowadays everyone would be accustomed to hearing the word corruption quite well, especially about political corruption problem. Each country has also the similar problem with the different degrees, but there would be no nation never having encountered with such problems. The root cause of a corruption problem is conflicts of interest, while its results are varied upon the way in which people do: bribery and conspiracy just to name a few. Moreover, it seems to be quite difficult to address this problem completely in many countries; however, I suppose that if every sectors—the government, private section and people—corporate to cope with it seriously with the right solutions based on the characteristics of the society, a corruption problem would be abated significantly.

World football has been convulsed by the US investigation
Yet, corruption is not a critical problem only for politics, but also in other fields such as industrial section, educational section, sports section etc. According to “FIFA corruption crisis: Key questions answered” (2015), The sporting event in which people watch most in the world is not Olympics, but the football world cup—held by FIFA, which generate a great deal of revenue (nearly many billions of dollars). Recently, there have been arrest and investigation for doubts about the honesty as well as transparency of football world cup event in terms of the steps of allocating tournaments, electing the president, funding and so on. Ultimately, 14 FIFA official and associates have been indicted by the U.S. with accusations of serious corruption after deciding to select Qatar—small island but rich—as a place where the 2022 World cup will be held. This organization and its member has been investigated by FBI of the U.S., particularly about the bidding process for the Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 world cups by speculating back at its dealings over the past two decades. 

After reading this news, what comes to my mind is a question I was once asked by my teacher. The following is such a thought-provoking question. Let’s say. There are two persons—Mr. A and Mr. B. who are working in your company, and the company have had a project for both of them with the same amount of budget (100 baht). Mr.A swindled 80 baht and spent the remaining budget (20 baht) to make the company be still happy and get as high profit as 100 bath. On the other hand, Mr. B is a very honest man but has a lower ability and productivity. He spent full amount of budget (100 bath), but got very low profit, only 5 bath. Based on this situation, if your company were able to select one person to be a CEO instead of you, who would you select? 

This question led to the debate in my class. Some people agree that the excellent result is more important. No matter how Mr.A has done, getting the highest benefits and profit matters for the company to grow and survive. Nevertheless, others contend that the way (principle or morality) is more essential. The action of Mr. A is to corrupt the company. Although Mr. B have tried to get as much profit as possible—but still very low, it is better to swindle others’ money (corruption). Thus, no matter how the result is, it does not matter.

By the same token, if this were your company, in that situation, who would you select to be the next CEO of your company? Why?


_______________________________________ 

My question is:
Who do you prefer (as the next CEO that leads prosperity to the company)? Mr.A or Mr.B?
___________
Reference
Fifa corruption crisis: Key questions answered. (2015, September 2015). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32897066

9 comments:

  1. Excellent question, with plenty of context provided to ensure that we clearly understand what Feem asks us to decide between. I look forward to the responses, and supporting reasons.

    Another question that occurred to me as I was reading Feem's very topical post was whether I agree with his claim that "The root cause of a corruption problem is conflicts of interest." I think that this might be what tempts people, but a necessary enabling condition is the believe that they will be able to get away with it with their good reputation and social respect left in tact, and this is made possible by laws against free speech. I don't think it's an accident that the most corrupt countries are the ones that have the most censorship to stop people seeking and speaking honestly held opinions on various topics or about various people.

    Thankfully, the censorship protecting the undeserved respect and good reputation of FIFA criminals could not be strictly maintained, so the truth could be discovered and spoken as it should be.

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    1. Thank you Peter for sharing me another aspect regarding the root cause.

      Your comment sounds quite reasonable and I also see your point about most censorship, especially freedom of speech, in the most corrupt countries.

      Well, to my mind, speaking of free speech or freedom of opinion, it is rather essential in our society because without freedom to express our viewpoints, this means to force everyone to think as well as believe in the same opinions. In fact, the freedom of expressing opinion should be not only limited in speech, but also other ways like action, behavior etc. so that it helps see different aspects of others or exchange ideas one another freely.

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  2. It's really difficult question.
    Actually, I will not prefer both of them to the CEO of company as one of them is a cheating man and the another is a non talent guy. Our life don't have only two choices.

    However, if it must be one of them, I will choose Mr. A with a condition of limited budget to get the aim in a period. If he can get more than the target, he will get that as a reward. I mean only for answer your question that it's not useful to choose Mr.A surely in reality. - I mean as above, neither Mr. A or Mr. B should be chosen in real with more complex situations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neither of them much appealed to me, either.
      Sometimes it hurts us to do what is right, but perhaps that's expected - if it was always easy and natural to do what is right, human society would be much nicer. But the reality is otherwise.

      And that seems to me to suggest a reason why it might be better to choose the less competent but moral job applicant. However, it also seems important to me to answer the strong opposing argument that Feem presents in favour of the corrupt applicant. What do you think? (You here means "anyone / everyone.")

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    2. It is probably true as you said. In the real world, there would be more choices and the situation might look more sophisticated; therefore, it might be more difficult to make an optimal decision based on what factors and conditions we have. Thank you Poy for sharing your good answer to me and others about such a situation. I am looking forward to seeing others’ good ideas as well.

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  3. For me, I'd choose Mr.A because I think that if he could make a lot of profits, he might has more ability and know how to manage the business well so that cause my company could continue and might be more successful. Well, It would be a opposite result for my company if i chose Mr.B even he was very honest but didn't know how to make a profit for my company.

    However, I would not allow corruption happened in my company, so when I knew what Mr.A had done, I would asked him the reason why he did that, and actually, I might let him have 80 bath as a commission on the profits he made.

    I think there might be some reasons when people do some bad things, so for me I don't want to lose his ability that why I would try to negotiate with him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Does anyone not have a reason for what they do, however bad? The worst mafia bosses are often very sincerely motivated to kill, threaten and bribe because they care for their families, who they want to ensure have a good life.

      And a lot of murders are committed for very understandable reasons of passion when Mr. A ditches B. for Mr. C.

      I think Patt's ideas raise another interesting set of questions.

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    2. I wrote another comment exploring Patt's interesting solution to turn corruption into a commission and therefore not corruption, but I'd like to see what others think first.

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    3. Not only is Patt's solution rather interesting, but also it makes me surprised. I've never thought like that before.

      Thank you Patt for your intriguing idea.

      Delete

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