The Interiors Plant Shutdown: Using Dialectic Inquiry in a Complex Ethical Decision

The experiential exercise presented here, using a dialectic process similar to that found within Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing (SAST), developed by Mason and Mitroff, offers graduate and undergraduate management students the opportunity to study a contemporary ethical problem in a new way. The ethical issues of a plant closedown presented in this exercise are very complex and involve fact, human passion and emotion, issues of aesthetics, and morality. The goal is not only to introduce the dialectic method but also to provide students with a very clear understanding of the way that their own biases serve to filter information and to bypass necessary questions and testing of assumptions.