Martha McCaskey

Introduction Martha McCaskey had arrived at an impasse in her career requiring her to confront a decision which put her integrity and possible career advancement in opposition. McCaskey’s choice came down to how she handled Phil Devon, an ex-employee with knowledge of proprietary information McCaskey needed for a client. Obtaining the information through Devon would earn McCaskey a significant promotion and salary increase. However, doing so under the false pretenses she had constructed challenged her ethics, jeopardized her integrity, and was potentially illegal. On the other hand, failure to obtain the information would derail McCaskey’s career and undermine her efforts toward advancement.
Diagnosis
McCaskey was a highly intelligent individual, as made evident by her success in her undergraduate and graduate career. Her decision to return to school in pursuit of her MBA demonstrates her high ambition and level of investment in her career. In the eighteen months that McCaskey had been with Seleris Associates’ Industry Analysis Division (IAD) she had proven her ability as a consultant on multiple projects. Her performance had garnered the attention of key leadership personnel, Tom Malone and Ty Richardson, and raised the bar for expectations at IAD. McCaskey accomplished this through hard work and long hours, refusing to take the easy way out, and maintaining a high moral standard despite knowing that high morals were not necessarily upheld by all of her coworkers in the Division. Knowing McCaskey’s dedication and investment in her career it is easy to understand why the decision around how to handle the Silicon 6 situation was so troubling. The future of McCaskey’s career with IAD would be heavily influenced by her decision and the success or failure of the project. This was especially true considering the importance of the project’s client, a semiconductor manufacturer who supplied twenty percent of IAD’s business. The outcome of the Silicon 6 project was