What is Susan risking when she speaks up to her boss?
I personally think that in the situation that Susan is in now, she’s not yet exposed to any of the negative risks that she is ruminating on. There’s still a lot of room for discussion with her manager, Mr. Moon on the matter. John Bersin’s advice on crafting a carefully worded email to Mr. Moon was a good idea – to bring light that it’s not only ethically dubious for Susan to do, but it could also hurt the company in the long run. In Susan’s point of view, it’s a win-win to go have this conversation; if it manages to convince Mr. Moon, then she will proceed to do her work in an ethical manner, if it doesn’t then it becomes grounds for Susan to conclude that this is not a safe and ethical place to work. Given Susan’s credentials, she should not have a hard time finding another internship opportunity with a company that will understand why her time at Zantech had to be cut short (if she needs to explain her quitting at all).
In addition, I believe it’s really important to have options in your career, so that such ethical dilemmas would not become a problem. Since the theme of arguments supporting an unethical decision seems to be “well I didn’t have any other choice”, I would put a more conscious effort into making those choices more abundant to myself – through hard work, research, networking, etc.
