Ethical Issues - The Informant Movie

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Ethical Issues – The Informant Movie Overview The Informant movie is a comedy drama based on facts from a nonfiction book “The Informant” by journalist Kurt Eichenwald. The movie portrays the story of whistleblower Mark Whitacre who, influenced and coaxed by his wife, helped FBI uncover the price fixing practices of the company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The employees who become informants are the people willing to reveal information for personal benefits or to get even with others in personal conflicts. On the other hand whistleblowers are persistent individuals ready to risk their own interest and benefit to expose some transgression as a moral assertion. These people generally act outside normal communication process of organization and put information through to right audience about the unethical, illegal conduct or actions of the organization adversely impacting public interest and/or social obligation in general. Whistle-blowers generally take grave personal risk of relegation, public humility and harm to their property and life. Ethical situations Price fixing, clearly an illegal act and getting competitive advantage and yielding profits makes it highly unethical. But there other imperceptible spots in this feature that accentuate ethics violations and moral misconduct. Some of these are situations listed below:- Intention and purpose - As Whitacre approached FBI, his initial motive and reasoning was of doing the right thing and thus gaining praise, increment and position in the company. His wife on the other hand was coercing him to actually ‘do the right thing’; or she herself would tell and ‘do the right thing’. This may be seen as a minor ethical issue, but Whitacre’s wife is the ‘whistle-blower’ in the true sense here. Retaliation and backlash –The atmosphere and work culture at ADM was such that profits and revenues were of

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