The Problem: How the work should be charged?

Melissa is self-employed as a public relations consultant with four main clients. A large part of her work is sending out press releases for the various organizations. Like many consultants she works from home at her own pace, keeps track of her own hours, and gets paid by the job as estimated by the amount of time it takes her to do the work.

Melissa has been consulting for one organization for about ten years. Since she began working for them she has bought a computer, learned how to use it adeptly, and recently upgraded to a faster model.

She is now able to fax press releases using the computer. She simply writes a release, uses an existing list of newspapers she has compiled, and lets the computer do the rest. What used to take ten hours now takes her less than an hour of her own time. The computer time is another two hours.

Melissa decides not to tell the organizations she works for that she now no longer takes as much time doing the job as she did in the past and continues to charge them the same amount.

1.             Do you think Melissa did the right thing?

2.             If you do, why do you think it was right?

3.             If not, why not?

4.             Do you think she was obliged to disclose the information to her clients?

5.             Do you think she would be foolish if she charged them less for the work?

6.             What do you see as the most important ethical value in this case?

7.             What do you think is the major ethical conflict?

8.             What ethical score would you give to Melissa on a scale of one to five, with five being the highest?