Case Study: Robin's Case Against The Sheriff

What issues of ethics and social responsibility are involved with this case? Why?
Robin’s men felt that a “safe travel” tax on the farmers would be a bad societal ethical decision. Societal Ethics are “Standards that govern how members of a society should deal with one another in matters involving issues such as fairness, justice, poverty and the rights of the individual” (Jones 107). They felt that if they taxed them they may not help in the fight against the Sheriff and they were their strongest ally (Lampel). The ethical decision would also sit with the fact that they were fighting the unfair taxes of the Sheriff only to tax people the same way. Robin was faced with the social responsibility as he contemplated the right move to fight the
The socio-cultural forces at play are the growing dislike and fear of the Sheriff as well as Prince John. “Prince John was vicious and volatile” (Lampel) which affected the way the people felt towards his leadership. These feelings towards the authority of the Sheriff and Prince created the socio-cultural force that made the Merrymen “men with grievances and a deep sense of justice” (Lampel) willing to join Robin’s organization and “united in enmity against the Sheriff and willing to live outside the law” (Lampel). The pressure brought on by the Sheriff and Prince John changed the social norm and made it socially acceptable to break the
The leadership styles are relationship-oriented leaders which Robin’s proved to be great at in the first year, and task oriented leaders. The situational characteristics are leader-member characteristics and task structure (Jones). I would recommend Robin stick to the Relationship-oriented leadership since he was already effective with it, he will only need to build the relationship with the new recruits. A good leader can inspire the people he leads to follow him and encourage and inspire the organizational goals. “Relationship-oriented leaders are primarily concerned with developing good relationships with their subordinates and being liked by them” (Jones), because of this close relationship the subordinates want to perform well. This method has already worked well for Robin but needs to be strengthened due to the fast expansion of the organization. The first situational characteristic that plays a role in the Fiedler’s contingency model for leadership is the leader-member relation, which refers to the feelings the members have towards the leader such as fondness and trust. The more positive the feelings the better the performance in the situation. The second situational characteristic is the task structure. Which refers clearness of the expectations of the job. This model relates the better understanding of the job and expectations the more