hrough with their assignment.After the bogus testing was completed in the National Semiconductor labs,the documentation department also had to falsify documents stating thatthe parts had surpassed the governmental testing standards. From a legaland ethical standpoint, both the testers and the writers of the reportswere merely acting as agents on direct orders from a superior. This wasalso the case when the plant in Singapore refused to falsify the documentsand were later falsified by the employees at the have California plantbefore being submitted to the approval committees (Velazquez, 53). Thewriters of the reports were well aware of the situation yet they acted inthis manner on the instruction of a supervisor. Acting in an ethicalmanner becomes a secondary priority in this type of environment. As statedby Alan Reder, . . . if they [the employees] feel they will sufferretribution, if they report a problem, they arent too likely to open theirmouths. (113). The workers knew that if the reports were not falsifiedthey would come under questioning and perhaps their employment would gointo jeopardy. Although working under these conditions does not fullyexcuse an employees from moral fault, it does start the divulging processfor determining the order of the chain of command of superiors and ithelps to narrow down the person or department that issued the originalrequest for the unethical acts.The third mitigating factor is one that perhaps encompasses themajority of the employees in the National Semiconductor case. We have tobalance the direct involvement that each employee had with the defectiveparts. Thus, it has to be made clear that many of the employees did nothave a direct duty with the testing departments or with the parts thateventually failed. Even employees, or sub-contractors, that were directlyinvolved with the production were not aware of the incompetence on thepart of the testing department. For example, the electrical engineer t...
