Meridian (A) & (B): A Founder, a Chief Executive and a Middle Manager at the Edge of Insolvency

Set in the final weeks before a water-infrastructure group is forced into insolvency, Meridian (A) and (B) cases examine the same ethical crisis from two levels of the organisation. Case A follows the Founder and the Chief Executive, who remain convinced that a long-promised rescue is imminent. After proceeds expected to repay a creditor are redirected to pressing company obligations, the Chief Executive must decide how to respond when the creditor asks for payment. Case B shifts to the Financial Controller, who learns from a junior colleague that the funds were diverted and that the Chief Executive has given the creditor an explanation he knows to be false. With his name on payment authorisations, limited authority, substantial personal exposure and a family dependent on him, the Financial Controller must decide what to do. Together, the cases examine how organisational power, hierarchy, financial distress and personal vulnerability constrain ethical agency without removing responsibility. They introduce bounded ethical agency alongside ethical fading, moral disengagement and escalation of commitment, and use a five-strategy typology to analyse how middle managers handle reported ethical transgressions. The paired cases support discussion of stakeholder claims, governance, ethical courage, voice and silence, and the distinction between receiving a disclosure and whistleblowing.

By the end of the discussion, students should be able to analyse ethical, legal and governance issues under financial distress; reconstruct how constraints and rationalisations shape decisions; apply bounded ethical agency, ethical fading and moral disengagement; evaluate stakeholder claims and responsibility; and assess five middle-manager handling strategies, from adaptive compliance and informal approaches to formal escalation and strategic withdrawal.

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·      Case A (SMU-26-0011)

·      Case B (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-26-0011TN)

·      Teaching Note Supplement 1 (SMU-26-0011TS1)

·      Teaching Note Supplement 2 (SMU-26-0011TS2)

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·      Case A (SMU-26-0011)

·      Case B (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Supplement 1 (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Supplement 2 (SMU-26-0011)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via Harvard Business Publishing, please access the following links:

·      Case A (SMU-26-0011)

·      Case B (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Supplement 1 (SMU-26-0011)

·      Teaching Supplement 2 (SMU-26-0011)