WGU C717 Task 1 Example: Full Sample Paper + Guide (TechFite Scenario)

Updated on: Aug 26, 2026

C717 Task 1 is a business ethics scenario analysis, every student gets the same TechFite case, but the rubric scores your ability to identify the ethical issues, apply a framework, evaluate stakeholders, and defend a recommendation. Most students who struggle with C717 Task 1 are not struggling with ethics concepts, they are struggling with the gap between knowing what utilitarianism means and actually using it to evaluate a specific messy corporate situation.

This guide gives you a complete, rubric-aligned sample paper for C717 Task 1, a plain-English breakdown of what each section requires, the seven most common mistakes that cause returns, and how Task 1 sets up the FZP2 task 1 and FZP1 Task 2 ethical dilemmas assignments that follow.

If you need a completed C717 Task 1 or C717 Task 2 FZP2 written for your specific rubric version, WhatsApp us at +1 564-544-6924.

What C717 Task 1 Actually Tests

C717 Task 1 is not asking you to explain what business ethics is. It is asking whether you can take a real corporate scenario and reason through it with enough precision that a WGU evaluator cannot poke holes in your logic. The specific skills assessed:

• Identifying the central ethical tension (not just listing that problems exist)
• Naming and applying a recognized ethical framework as an analytical lens
• Mapping stakeholders to specific harms and benefits, not abstract groups
• Evaluating Carroll’s CSR framework across all four tiers
• Building recommendations that follow from the analysis, not from common sense
• Citing credible, relevant sources that support specific claims

One thing worth noting before you start: your live rubric inside your WGU course portal is the final word on requirements. Task versions (FZP1, FZP2, and others) may have slightly different section structures or word count requirements. Always confirm against your current rubric before writing.

C717 Task 1 Requirements: Section by Section

The standard C717 Task 1 structure covers these sections. Your version’s rubric may label them differently but the underlying moves are consistent:

The mistake that costs the most points across all sections: applying principles in the abstract instead of to specific facts. “Utilitarianism supports maximizing welfare” earns nothing. “Under utilitarian analysis, the benefit of benefit-cost savings for executives is substantially outweighed by healthcare insecurity imposed on dozens of reclassified workers” earns full analysis marks.

FZP2, FZP2 Task 1: Ethical Considerations and Principles

If your assignment is labeled FZP2, you are working from a specific WGU version code for C717 Task 1. The label does not change the underlying task, FZP2 Task 1 ethical considerations and principles involves the same core analysis: identify which ethical principles apply to the scenario, explain why they apply, and show how they evaluate the specific decisions made.

The ethical principles most relevant to the TechFite scenario and to C717 generally:

• Justice and fairness: are burdens and benefits distributed equitably across all stakeholders, or do losses fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable?
• Autonomy: does the decision respect stakeholders’ right to make informed choices about their own interests?
• Beneficence: does the action actively promote wellbeing for those affected?
• Nonmaleficence: does it avoid causing unnecessary harm?
• Integrity: is the organisation acting consistently with its stated values and commitments?
• Accountability: is there a mechanism for answering for the outcome?

Select the two or three principles that genuinely fit your scenario’s facts and go deep on those. Forcing all seven into every section produces shallow treatment across the board. If your version is FZP1 FZP1 Task 2 ethical dilemmas in business, the same principle applies: pick the frameworks that best illuminate the specific conflict and develop them fully rather than naming every possible theory.

C717 Task 1 Sample Paper: Full TechFite Analysis

This sample paper is provided for educational reference. Use it to understand structure, analytical depth, and how frameworks are applied to facts, not as content to adapt or submit. Your submission must reflect your own reasoning applied to your own assigned scenario and current rubric version.

Need a custom C717 Task 1 or business ethics C717 Task 2 paper written for your specific version? WhatsApp us: +1 564-544-6924

Business Ethics Task 1: Organizational Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility

Western Governors University | C717: Business Ethics

A. Organizational Overview

TechFite is a mid-sized technology corporation headquartered in Dellburg, a municipality that entered a formal public-private partnership with the company in hopes of revitalizing its local economy. The organization designs and manufactures consumer electronics and employs a workforce spanning both exempt salaried employees and hourly workers. Under the terms of the partnership agreement, TechFite accepted specific obligations that included community investment, support for youth leadership programming, and fair employment practices.

This analysis examines three intersecting ethical failures within TechFite’s operations: the deliberate reclassification of full-time employees to part-time status to sidestep benefit obligations, the abandonment of community investment promises made to the City of Dellburg, and a leadership culture that consistently prioritizes executive self-interest over accountability to broader stakeholders. These issues are evaluated through stakeholder theory, Carroll’s CSR framework, and utilitarianism. Taken together, they illustrate an organization that has substituted short-term financial calculus for genuine ethical reasoning.

A1. Relevant Stakeholders

Employees (Primary). The employees most directly harmed by TechFite’s conduct are those reclassified from full-time to part-time status. This single administrative change stripped workers of access to employer-sponsored healthcare, paid leave accrual, and retirement contributions. For many hourly workers, these benefits represent a substantial portion of total compensation. The reclassification was not the result of reduced hours or changing business needs, it was a deliberate cost-containment tactic that workers absorbed with little transparency or notice.

City of Dellburg and Local Government (Primary). Dellburg’s municipal government entered the public-private partnership with TechFite in good faith. City planners, budget officers, and elected officials shaped infrastructure timelines and youth program budgets around TechFite’s commitments. When the company failed to deliver, it disrupted municipal planning cycles and eroded institutional trust in corporate partners, damage that extends beyond money and affects Dellburg’s willingness to pursue future public-private collaborations.

Local Community and Youth Organizations (Secondary). Dellburg residents, and particularly youth served by the leadership programs TechFite pledged to fund, represent a secondary stakeholder group that suffered concrete harm. These are young people whose programming was delayed or cancelled because a corporation decided to redirect those funds internally.

Shareholders and Executive Leadership (Primary). Senior executives who structured self-directed bonus arrangements while eliminating employee benefits benefited personally from the decisions that generated ethical and legal risk for the organisation. Shareholders are exposed to growing litigation risk, regulatory scrutiny, and reputational damage that can suppress long-term stock value.

Customers (Secondary). Customers are not immediately harmed by TechFite’s internal decisions, but they are downstream casualties. When information about labour practices or broken community commitments becomes public, it changes purchasing behaviour, and in an era of social media, that information travels faster than most crisis communications teams can manage.

B. Applicable Ethical Theory: Utilitarianism

The ethical framework best suited to evaluating TechFite’s situation is utilitarianism, grounded in the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. In its modern articulation, utilitarianism holds that an action is morally justified when it produces the greatest aggregate welfare across all affected parties. The moral weight of a decision is not found in the intent of the actor but in the real-world distribution of benefit and harm that results.

Scarre (2023) describes utilitarianism as a framework that evaluates rightness through impartial welfare maximization, decision-makers must account for all affected parties equally rather than privileging those who hold institutional power.

Applying this framework to TechFite’s employee reclassification reveals a clear ethical failure. The decision produced financial savings and preserved executive bonuses for a small group. It imposed healthcare insecurity, income instability, and planning anxiety on dozens or hundreds of workers and their families. Under utilitarian analysis, the aggregate harm is not offset by the benefits accruing to a small executive group. More people were made substantially worse off than were made better off.

The unfulfilled community investment pledges yield the same verdict. Layton and Verdery (2022) note that corporate stakeholder obligations carry distinctive moral weight when formally committed to, because stakeholders begin making planning decisions based on the expectation of fulfilment. That expectation was reasonable. TechFite’s failure to meet it converted a commitment to broad community welfare into private gain and produced measurable reduction in community welfare that a utilitarian framework cannot excuse.

C. Existing Codes of Ethics

SHRM Code of Ethical and Professional Standards

The Society for Human Resource Management Code of Ethical and Professional Standards establishes core commitments to fairness, dignity, equity, and transparency. TechFite’s reclassification strategy violates each in sequence. Workers were not treated with dignity when benefits were removed without adequate notice. They were not treated with equity when executives retained compensation at the same time. They were not given transparency when the rationale was obscured behind administrative language.

Lebby and Terrell (2023) argue that SHRM’s framework functions most powerfully as a cultural signal: organisations that genuinely internalize its principles build workforces characterized by loyalty, reduced turnover, and higher discretionary effort. TechFite’s conduct indicates an organisation that either never internalized the SHRM standards or chose to set them aside when they became financially inconvenient.

Business Roundtable Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation (2019)

In 2019, the Business Roundtable issued a revised statement explicitly rejecting shareholder primacy and committing signatory companies to responsibility toward all stakeholders, employees, communities, and society at large. TechFite’s decisions about employee reclassification and community investment were made by weighing short-term costs against shareholder and executive benefit, with minimal visible consideration of harm to workers and communities.

Malhotra and Hinings (2024) observe that organisations claiming stakeholder orientation while structuring decisions around shareholder primacy create institutional hypocrisy that is particularly damaging to employee trust and community relationships, the gap between stated values and observable actions is not invisible to the people it affects. TechFite’s stakeholders saw the gap clearly.

D. Corporate Social Responsibility Analysis

Carroll’s (1991) four-part CSR pyramid organizes corporate obligations into four tiers: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. A company cannot credibly claim to fulfil higher-level responsibilities while failing at lower ones. TechFite’s conduct reveals failures spanning all four levels.

D1. Economic Responsibilities

Carroll’s base tier holds that a corporation must generate sustainable economic value for its owners, employees, and communities. TechFite meets this in the most minimal sense, it remains operational. However, the mechanism it chose, stripping employee benefits to preserve margins and executive compensation, represents a distorted application of economic responsibility.

Baumgartner and Rauter (2021) argue that genuine economic responsibility requires integrating stakeholder welfare into financial decision-making rather than treating workforce costs as a discretionary variable. TechFite’s economic decisions also carry indirect costs not fully accounted for: reclassification increases turnover, reduces engagement, and creates legal exposure whose downstream costs likely substantially offset the savings from reclassification.

D2. Legal Responsibilities

Carroll’s second tier requires compliance with applicable law. TechFite’s reclassification strategy raises significant concerns under both the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Affordable Care Act, each of which establishes thresholds for employment classification and benefit eligibility. If employees who regularly work full-time hours are administratively reclassified as part-time to bring them below these thresholds, TechFite may be engaged in misclassification carrying federal and state legal liability.

Friedman and Belzer (2022) note that misclassification cases have become an increasingly significant area of employment law enforcement, with regulators becoming more sophisticated at identifying patterns that distinguish genuine part-time arrangements from reclassification strategies designed to avoid benefit obligations. TechFite does not meet its legal responsibilities under Carroll’s framework.

D3. Ethical Responsibilities

Carroll’s third tier requires acting in accordance with broader societal norms of fairness, honesty, and respect for stakeholders. Workers were not informed in advance that their classification was under review. They were not given the opportunity to seek alternative employment or plan for the loss of benefits. This is not a minor procedural failing, it violates the basic norm that people who depend on an organization for economic security deserve honest treatment.

The simultaneity of executive bonus preservation and employee benefit elimination makes the ethical failure particularly stark. When an organization distributes sacrifice unevenly, shielding those with the most power while concentrating losses on those with the least, it violates the widely held norm of equitable treatment Carroll’s ethical tier requires. Crane and Matten (2022) observe that ethical responsibility is not satisfied by avoiding obvious wrongdoing; it requires ensuring that decisions reflect a genuine commitment to fairness across all stakeholder groups.

D4. Philanthropic Responsibilities

Carroll’s fourth tier encompasses voluntary contributions to community welfare beyond legal and ethical minimums. TechFite did not merely aspire to meet this standard, it contractualized it. The public-private partnership with Dellburg included explicit documented commitments to youth leadership programming and infrastructure investment. Municipal planners and community organizations built their own plans around these stated obligations.

Rivera et al. (2023) note that when corporations formalize philanthropic commitments to community partners, those commitments acquire a reliance interest on the part of the community, and failure to deliver produces harm that is both practical and relational. Dellburg lost funding already incorporated into plans and lost confidence in TechFite as a partner willing to honour its word.

E. Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Restore Full-Time Classification and Benefits for Affected Employees

TechFite should conduct an immediate audit of all employees reclassified during the past two fiscal years and restore full-time employment status and accompanying benefits to those who meet applicable hour thresholds under the FLSA and ACA. The audit should be conducted by an independent third party given the institutional incentives that shaped the original decisions.

Under utilitarian analysis, the aggregate welfare gained by restoring healthcare coverage, retirement contributions, and paid leave to dozens or hundreds of workers substantially outweighs the financial cost of reinstatement. Proactive remediation also reduces TechFite’s exposure to wage-and-hour litigation. Colquitt and Zipay (2022) find that employees evaluate organisational fairness not only through distributive outcomes but through procedural transparency, how TechFite handles this correction matters as much as the correction itself.

Recommendation 2: Fulfil Outstanding Community Investment Obligations Through a Structured Commitment Plan

TechFite should develop a documented and publicly communicated plan for fulfilling outstanding obligations to the City of Dellburg, including a specific timeline for disbursing infrastructure funds, a schedule for resuming youth leadership sponsorships, and an accountability mechanism, such as quarterly progress reports to the city council, that makes the fulfilment process transparent to community stakeholders.

Rivera et al. (2023) argue that restoring community trust after a breach of formalized philanthropic commitment requires both financial delivery and visible institutional accountability. A plan that is documented, communicated, and subject to external monitoring satisfies both requirements.

Recommendation 3: Establish an Independent Ethics Oversight Committee

TechFite should establish a standing ethics oversight committee composed of at least one independent board member, a senior HR representative, and a community liaison appointed by the City of Dellburg. The committee should be empowered to review major employment policy changes and significant partnership decisions before implementation, with standing to delay or escalate decisions that raise ethical red flags.

The executives who made the decisions described in this analysis were acting within institutional structures that gave them both the incentive and the opportunity to prioritize short-term financial outcomes over stakeholder welfare. Changing those outcomes requires changing those structures. Crane and Matten (2022) observe that ethics programs are most effective when embedded in governance structures rather than delegated to stand-alone compliance functions, because governance-level oversight changes the organisational context in which decisions are made.

References

Baumgartner, R. J., & Rauter, R. (2021). Strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability management to develop a sustainable organization. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140(3), 81-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.146

Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(91)90005-G

Colquitt, J. A., & Zipay, K. P. (2022). Justice, fairness, and employee reactions. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behaviour, 9(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-090959

Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2022). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Friedman, S., & Belzer, M. (2022). Worker misclassification and precarious employment: Legal and regulatory perspectives. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 61(2), 183-209. https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12299

Layton, M., & Verdery, A. (2022). Relational obligations and corporate philanthropy: When promises become responsibilities. Business Ethics Quarterly, 32(4), 541-568. https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2021.43

Lebby, G. M., & Terrell, J. P. (2023). Ethical HR practices and their organizational outcomes: A meta-analytic review. Human Resource Management Review, 33(2), Article 100949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2022.100949

Malhotra, N., & Hinings, C. R. (2024). Institutional hypocrisy and stakeholder trust. Organization Science, 35(1), 22-41. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1574

Rivera, J. L., Shaver, L. M., & Hicks, D. (2023). Community trust repair following corporate philanthropy failures. Journal of Business Ethics, 184(3), 721-744. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05201-6

Scarre, G. (2023). Utilitarianism and contemporary ethics. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350346215

Society for Human Resource Management. (2022). SHRM code of ethical and professional standards in human resource management. https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/pages/code-of-ethics.aspx

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C717 Task 1 vs C717 Task 2 FZP2: What Changes

Once Task 1 is behind you, C717 Task 2 FZP2 picks up the same underlying skills, identifying ethical issues precisely, reasoning through competing stakeholder interests, and building a structured defensible argument, applied to a new scenario. The business ethics C717 Task 2 rubric has its own specific requirements: always work from your live Task 2 instructions rather than assuming the section structure mirrors Task 1.

If your version is WGU C717 Task 2 FZP1, the same principle applies. What carries forward from Task 1 is the analytical habit: scenario-specific reasoning, framework application to facts, and recommendations that follow logically from the analysis, not generic ethics commentary.

7 Common C717 Task 1 Mistakes

1. Summarizing the scenario instead of analyzing it. Restating what TechFite did is not analysis. For every paragraph, check whether you are explaining what happened or evaluating why it is ethically significant and what framework says about it.
2. Defining ethical concepts without applying them. Explaining what Carroll’s pyramid is earns nothing. Explaining that TechFite fails the legal tier because of specific FLSA and ACA misclassification risk earns full marks.
3. Generic stakeholder descriptions. “Employees are affected” is not stakeholder analysis. Name the specific harm: loss of healthcare coverage, income instability, absence of paid leave, no retirement contributions.
4. Recommendations disconnected from the analysis. If your recommendation could be inserted into a different paper without changing anything, the reasoning underneath it is too thin. Each recommendation should be traceable to a specific finding in a prior section.
5. Missing sub-requirements. The most common return reason. Check every lettered and numbered requirement in your rubric against your draft before submitting.
6. Using sources that do not support the specific claim. A generic business ethics citation attached to a specific legal claim about FLSA misclassification adds nothing. Match sources to the specific point.
7. Not checking your current rubric. Requirements shift between term versions. The sample above is rubric-aligned but your version may differ in section structure, depth requirements, or source minimums. Confirm against your live rubric before writing.

C717 Task 1 Submission Checklist

Before submitting, confirm:

• Every lettered and numbered rubric requirement addressed
• Central ethical issue identified specifically (not vaguely)
• All required stakeholders identified with specific harms or benefits named
• Ethical framework applied to facts (not defined in the abstract)
• Carroll’s CSR pyramid covered across all four tiers
• Codes of ethics applied to scenario, not summarized generally
• All three recommendations grounded in the analysis
• Sources credible, relevant, and matched to specific claims
• APA formatting correct throughout
• Current WGU rubric checked line by line

Frequently Asked Questions About WGU C717 Task 1

What is C717 Task 1 FZP2?

FZP2 is WGU’s internal version code for a specific iteration of the C717 Task 1 assessment. The FZP2 Task 1 ethical considerations and principles requirements are the same underlying task: analyze the TechFite scenario by identifying ethical issues, applying frameworks, evaluating stakeholders, and defending recommendations. Always work from the specific task instructions and rubric attached to your FZP2 version, section structure and source minimums may differ slightly from other versions.

What is the difference between FZP1 and FZP2?

FZP1 and FZP2 are version codes WGU uses to track different iterations of the same assessment. FZP1 FZP1 Task 2 ethical dilemmas in business and FZP2 Task 1 test the same core skills. The scenario, section headings, and specific requirements may differ between versions. The sample paper above uses the standard TechFite scenario common to most C717 versions.

Is business ethics C717 Task 2 harder than Task 1?

Business ethics C717 Task 2 applies the same analytical skills to a new scenario, often with a different ethical focus or a more complex stakeholder landscape. Most students find Task 2 easier than Task 1 because they arrive with a clearer understanding of what analytical depth the rubric requires. If Task 1 came back for revision, identify which sections were flagged before starting Task 2.

Where can I find a WGU C717 Task 2 FZP1 example?

Use the same criteria you would apply to a Task 1 example: look for clear rubric-aligned organization, scenario-specific analysis (not generic ethics commentary), and recommendations grounded in the analysis. The sample paper format above demonstrates the structural approach that applies to both tasks. For a custom Task 2 paper written to your specific version, WhatsApp us at +1 564-544-6924.

How long should C717 Task 1 be?

Length depends on your current rubric. Most versions expect a substantive paper that addresses all sections in enough depth to demonstrate genuine analytical reasoning, typically 10 to 20 pages. The sample above demonstrates the depth of analysis required per section, if your treatment of each section is shorter than the corresponding sample section, it may be too thin.

What ethical theory should I use for C717 Task 1?

Utilitarianism is the most common choice for the TechFite scenario because the corporate decisions involve clearly quantifiable distribution of benefits and harms across a large stakeholder set. Kantian ethics (treating people as ends in themselves, not means to an end) is a strong alternative given the employee reclassification context. Virtue ethics works well if your analysis focuses on the character of leadership decision-making. Choose the theory that most directly illuminates the specific ethical failure in your assigned scenario.