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Admittedly, there are those among us who, if Auschwitz were re-opened, would rush to the gates in order to land a contract.
- Len Hirsch (1976)
Why use this case?
This is a very engaging case that helps students learn about basic ethical distinctions. The intense involvement it creates is one reason to use it. Some instructors might worry that a historical case like this might not interest undergraduates who are unfamiliar with IBM's contribution to Nazi Germany, but we have found no lack of interest. We have taught this case many times to graduate students and undergraduates and have had no problem with student interest; they have become more emotionally involved in this case discussion than any other we have conducted in our collective 40 years of teaching. As one colleague put it, "IBM and the Holocaust are both well known to students, but probably not in the same sentence. The combination is guaranteed to spark interest and reaction from students".
In our classes, some students care about ethics, some are indifferent, and some actively dismiss ethical concerns. Although it is important to increase all students' ethical sensitivity and reasoning, one can argue that it is most important to influence the least ethical students, as they are likely to wreak the greatest havoc. This case is appropriate for them because it teaches basic concepts in a hard-hitting way.
One reason that it works so well is that Hitler fits perfectly into students' moral schemata. He is a central location indicator of evil in many of their mental maps of morality. This case illustrates several ethical ideas (that an act can be unethical but still legal, that the social responsibility of business is more than making a profit, that good ethics does not always equal good business, etc.) where one cannot refute the evil nature of the group being helped by business.
How this case came to be written
The idea of writing this case came several years ago when Don McCormick was teaching an ethics chapter in an undergraduate Principles of Management course. He was trying to make the point that managers can act in ways that are legal but still unethical, and that sometimes ethical concerns were more important than making a...