Abstract:
A career program manager in the "National Space Department" faces a very delicate decision: as the person assigned to write the testimony for his boss for a congressional hearing on a failing program, should he come clean or should he fudge? The system in question has not worked in tests and is approaching a 20 percent cost overrun. The agency has run out of "creative" ways to cover the escalating costs and some congressional staffers are aware of the bad news: this bird is just not going to fly. On the other hand, there is a great deal at stake with this program--the reputations of those who enthusiastically supported it at the start, the many jobs it has created in numerous congressional districts, the hoped-for boost it could give to the national economy at a time of recession. And, of course, there is, conceivably, the outside chance that, with a major infusion of appropriated funds, it might work after all. This case raises the question of where the obligations--moral, ethical, political, personal--of a career public employee lie. What is the "right" thing to do and how should one decide exactly what that is? Nominally, be seen as a routine task.
Learning Objective:
The case examines the powerful and complex pressures that can be exerted on a public employee.
