Real-Life Decision Making
You are an agricultural educator who has been hired by a dairy processing
plant as a consultant. The owner wants your opinion on how to upgrade their
pasteurization center. He wants the new pasteurization center to be cheaper
to operate, but he does not want to lessen the quality or the taste of the
milk.
The owner has partnered you up with the plant manager, Mr. Higgins. The
owner expects your report on his desk by the end of the week.
The clock strikes 12 and you go for lunch with Higgins to discuss business.
It turns out Higgins is already starting to draft the report.
As the conversation continues, Higgins reveals that he has been researching
a new pasteurization technique that promises to lower the cost of pasteurization
while producing a product with a shelf life twice as long as products treated
conventionally.
You haven't done any research, so you ask Higgins to tell you more.
He further reveals that this process is call UHT (ultra high temperature).
Under this process, milk will be boiled five times hotter than its usual rate
for just a few seconds. You tell Higgins it sounds like a wonderful idea but
you don't know enough about it to approve it for the report.
The next day, you research the UHT process. It turns out that although
it does produce milk with a substantially longer shelf life, it has negative
side-effects. Sometimes the milk loses its taste and nutritional value in
the UHT boiling process.
Remember: the owner said he wanted the new pasteurization process to extend
the shelf life of the milk, but he did not want to sacrifice the taste or
the quality of the milk.
When you confront Higgins, he disagrees with your research. After a long
and drawn-out dispute, the two of you agree the report must also contain the
negative side effects of the UHT process and an optional process. Thus the
final report will have two pasteurization processes from which the owner can
choose.
It's Friday, and you and Higgins have finished the report. The owner
wants you and Higgins to introduce the report to all of the shareholders of
the company.
You decide to go over the notes with Higgins one more time before the presentation.
You go to find him at his office, but he's not there. All you see there
is a copy of the report on his desk. You pick up the report to brief yourself
before the presentation. As you are reading the report, you realize that Higgins
has left out the flaws in the UHT process as well as any mention of the other
options. Worst of all, Higgins left your name on the report with his. You
look all over for him but cannot find him.
"The limitation inherent in the research approach must be discussed and
no aspect of the results should be sensationalized, either for personal gain
or to discredit any party with interest in the results," says agriculture
science professor John Vanderstoep.
You look at your watch and realize that the meeting is just about to begin,
so you rush to the conference room. As you catch your breath and walk through
the door, you realize that Higgins is already presenting the fake report,
which has your name on it, to the owner and the shareholders. What do you
do?