Responsibility is one of the most important issues in people’s lives. Although it may seem as it all depends on the person and his moral judgment, but still, there are some ethical rules that sometimes affects those decisions. Responsibility could be represented by an individual or in a group such as a company or a soccer team for example, where every individual is responsible for his actions toward his teammates and the team itself. Engineering, as a serious career, is full of these accountable decisions toward many perspectives, as engineers, usually, are in the number one spot where they are responsible for their work. In The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis case study by Joe Morgenstern, a great example of a professional engineer who faces an engineering problem exists. William J. LeMessurier, and other stakeholders involved are faced with a dilemma when they discover that the building they built is having serious problems that could lead to its catastrophic failure.After finishing the building of Citicorp Center, a fifty-nine-story building, and the
People are already in the building, LeMessurier discover that wind-bracing system he designed for Citicorp, is having serious problems, especially that a massive hurricane is expected soon. LeMessurier then told Citicorp so they can try to find a solution that would satisfy the stakeholders involved. What they are not sure about though, is to whether to notify the people in the building or not about such an issue. Ethically, most people would say that the people have the right to know, especially when it comes to possibly threatening their lives. However, the different stakeholders in this issues have different opinions and have their own analysis of what is good and what is bad for the stakes.
People are already in the building, LeMessurier discover that wind-bracing system he designed for Citicorp, is having serious problems, especially that a massive hurricane is expected soon. LeMessurier then told Citicorp so they can try to find a solution that would satisfy the stakeholders involved. What they are not sure about though, is to whether to notify the people in the building or not about such an issue. Ethically, most people would say that the people have the right to know, especially when it comes to possibly threatening their lives. However, the different stakeholders in this issues have different opinions and have their own analysis of what is good and what is bad for the stakes.
The stakeholders involved here are first of all, the main engineer LeMessurier. LeMessurier is fully responsible to build a safe and a well designed structural building. It would be a plus that the building is cheap and still competitive but that is not necessary. He also has to follow the Code of Ethics for his society, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE. Then there are the builders, Bethlehem, who are responsible for a competitive building with an average cost. The architecture designer here is Stubbens, and he is responsible for designing a safe building and fixing architecturally what is wrong with it, this person, I think, has one of the main stakes in this issue besides LeMessurier. There are the employees in the company who are just following the rules and they are responsible for reporting illegal actions for example. Citicorp the company has an obligation to tell the people the truth about what is wrong with the building and they have the right to whatever is best for their company. The public and the surrounding buildings have the right to know what could affect them and their lives and they can certainly sue any of the other stakeholders if they wanted to. Lastly there are the lawyers and the insurance company, NBIC, as the main thing here for NBIC is to know what is wrong with the building, because they are the ones who would have to pay for any damage, and they do not want to do that, they can affect other stakeholders’ decisions based on their analysis.Now all of these stakeholders have an obligation to do what is better for his stake, but in such situations, they can be more negotiable with other stakeholders so they can work the problem out easily. I want to talk here about Citicorp and its stake, as they represent a big piece of the final decisions that will be made toward any resolutions toward this problem. They represent also the money here, and Citicorp does not want to spend more money after doing their analysis. After LeMessurier have told Citicorp about the problem, Citicorp decided to lie to protect its stake, but this lie could have affected hundreds of people lives. Now that the people are in the building, and a storm is on the way, they would want to know if anything was wrong with the building. It was very serious because LeMessurier had discovered that “the weakest joint was at the building’s thirtieth floor; if that one gave away, a catastrophic failure of the whole structure would follow.”
In a strategic way, I think that Citicorp did what was best for its stakes when they released some words for the public, but I do not think it was ethical at all. First, you do not fix a lie with a lie. On the press release, they said that the wind-bracing system needs to be strengthened and nothing dangerous is involved. They said that although they know that the upcoming hurricane could blast down the building. As a human living on that building I would want to know the truth especially if it is affecting my life, that is the main idea of the people’s stake, the right to know. Citicorp and LeMessurier “did not think that an evacuation plan would be necessary,” and they left the chances open for the fate of the building in a way. Instead of Citicorp to lie to the public, they could have simply told the people to evacuate the building for a period of time, until it has been fixed. Now at least, they would not have to worry about the reactions if the building actually fell because they did what was ethical at least. As a person, I would be happy to know that, especially if it was in the short-term side as the hurricane was coming soon, rather than having a chance of the building falling. Very simple negotiations between Citicorp and the engineers could have worked out between the different stakeholders involved here. Luckily, this ended up safely and the storm was gone, but what if it did not, it would have been another case study and Citicorp would have been gone with the engineers. Not only that, hundreds and maybe thousands of people would have died without knowing the truth.
It is such a dilemma when Citicorp was faced with this decision, a truth vs. loyalty and a long-term vs. a short-term. They knew that this could have happened in the next 16 years, something in their lifetime, so they had to make good decisions in such as issue. Citicorp, as any other company would have done, have done the right decision toward their stakes by lying to the people, but is it ethical, I do not think so. Citicorp knew also that it would have cost them more money if they have not lied. Money is not everything as we all know that, but it may seem it is when it comes to companies. Citicorp just followed its rules to protect its stakes, as everyone would have done so. Telling the truth would have cost them more money, but it would have been the right thing to do from other perspectives as it could have saved the lives of people and the reputation of the company. Protecting the stakes has rules, but sometimes breaking these rules is ‘ethically’ the right choice for us as humans with intelligent minds.The above images are from:
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