The ISR-1 Drug Exercise: An Ethical Decision-Making Experiential Activity

Abstract

Both governments and firms face the continuous challenge to maximize utility with a limited budget, however, knowledge about the way in which these organizations go about this process is relatively unknown to students. In this article, we outline an experiential exercise, based on a contemporary health policy challenge, which illustrates the ethical, moral, and team-based difficulties inherent in making decisions in instances of limited budgets and multiple stakeholders. Drawing on literature from stakeholder theory, decision-making, and groups, this highly-adaptable exercise provides students with a concrete means of learning about these issues by placing them in the context of a territorial government that must address a virulent blood-borne disease by funding a series of initiatives and having to defend these decisions both to their fellow decision-makers and to relevant stakeholder groups. The exercise has been successfully implemented in undergraduate and graduate-level classes and encourages high-quality class discussions in a wide-range of courses focused on ethics, decision-making, and teamwork.