5.1 Theory building activities: "responsibility and incident at

Module introduction

Getting started...

Manuel, plant manager at the Phaust chemical plant in Morales, Mexico, has just died. While he was babysitting the process of manufacturing Phaust's new paint remover (monitoring on site temperature and pressure conditions) an explosion occurred that killed him instantly. The Mexican government has formed an independent commission to investigate this industrial accident.

This commission (headed by your instructor) has ordered key participants to testify on their role in the accident in a public hearing. Your job is to present before this commission from a stakeholder point of view. You will be divided into groups to role play the following stakeholder perspectives:

• Fred, the chief engineer involved in designing the plant,
• plant workers,
• officials from Mexican government regulatory agencies,
• Phaust management,
• representatives from the parent French company,
• officials presiding over an engineering professional society.

You will be assigned roles and given class time to prepare presentations for the commission. Then the class will enact the public hearing by having each group give a presentation from the perspective of its assigned role. Following these presentations, groups will answer questions from the investigating commission. Finally, you will work through debriefing activities to help solidify your practical understanding of the module's chief concepts. Background materials designed to help you with your presentations include sketches of moral responsibility, links to the "Incident at Morales" Case, tasks to help structure your role-playing, and activities to debrief on this exercise. This module is designed to help you learn about moral responsibility by using responsibility frameworks to make day-to-day decisions in a realistic, dynamic, business context.