MGMT 8825M Week 6 Harms Assessment Example

Course	MGMT 8825M Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems
Week	Week 6
Paper type	Harms assessment
Length	About 1,010 words, 6 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Walden University
Program	PhD in Management
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for MGMT 8825M Week 6

Who Pays for a Leaner Schedule? A Harms Assessment of a Grocery Chain's Demand-Driven Scheduling Tool, Group by Group, Testing the Deployment Against Rawls's Difference Principle and a Utilitarian Rival, and Stating What the Chain Would Give Up to Meet the Standard It Chooses

Student Name

Walden University

MGMT 8825M: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title asks the distributive question the assessment answers and names the two standards it weighs.

The Deployment

In 2025 Fenwick Market, a composite grocery chain of 85 stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota employing about 9,000 hourly workers, adopted a scheduling tool that forecasts customer traffic in 15-minute intervals and builds staff schedules to match. The vendor's documentation describes three features the chain enabled. Schedules are generated weekly and published four days before the week begins, down from fourteen days under the old manual system. The tool may shorten or cancel shifts up to two hours before they start when forecast traffic falls, sending a text to the affected worker. And it assigns hours to minimize labor cost against forecast demand, with no rule limiting how much a worker's weekly hours may vary.

In its first year the tool reduced labor hours per dollar of sales by about 6 percent, which the chain valued at roughly $11 million.

What this page is doingThe assessment describes the tool from its own documentation, so the harms are traced to design choices rather than to speculation.

The Affected Groups

Four groups bear the tool's effects: hourly staff whose schedules it builds, the subset of those workers with caregiving duties, store managers who must enforce its schedules, and customers served by the crews it sizes. Shareholders gain from the savings, and customers may gain from lower prices, but the assessment focuses on those who bear harm.

The Harms Table

Table 1

Harms of the Scheduling Tool by Affected Group

Group	Harm	Likely size	Consented?	Can exit?
Hourly staff	Four days' notice of schedules; shifts cut with two hours' warning; weekly hours that swing widely	Large: most of 9,000 workers, every week	No: tool adopted without consultation	Only by quitting, often to similar jobs
Workers with caregiving duties	Cannot arrange child or elder care for shifts announced four days ahead or cut at short notice	Very large for this group, roughly a third of hourly staff by the chain's survey	No	Least able to exit: few jobs nearby fit care schedules
Store managers	Must enforce cuts they did not decide; absorb complaints; lose discretion over who works when	Moderate	Partly: managers accepted the role, not the tool	Yes: managers have more options
Customers	Thinner crews at times the forecast misjudges; longer lines on unexpected rushes	Small to moderate	Not asked	Yes: can shop elsewhere

Sizes are the author's judgments from the vendor documentation, the chain's 2025 employee survey and research on schedule instability cited in the text.

What this page is doingThe table puts consent and exit in their own columns, since a harm a person cannot refuse or escape weighs differently from one they chose.

Evidence on the Harms

The harms in the first two rows are well documented. Schneider and Harknett (2019), drawing on a large survey of retail and food service employees, reported that unstable and unpredictable schedules, including short notice, on-call shifts, canceled shifts and wide swings in hours, were linked to greater psychological distress, worse sleep quality and lower reported happiness. Work-life conflict accounted for much of the association, which is why workers with caregiving duties are listed separately: they cannot absorb short notice by rearranging their own time alone.

Lambert (2008) described how scheduling practices that match labor tightly to demand transfer the risk of fluctuating business from the employer to hourly workers. Fenwick's tool does this by design. When traffic falls, the cost is moved from the chain's payroll to workers' paychecks within two hours.

The Normative Test

Rawls (1971) proposed the difference principle: social and economic inequalities are acceptable only if they leave the worst-off group better off than any alternative arrangement would. Applied within an organization, the principle asks whether an arrangement that creates gains and losses leaves the worst-off group better off than any alternative would. In this deployment, the least advantaged are hourly workers with caregiving duties. They have the lowest pay, the least ability to absorb unpredictable hours and the fewest options to leave. The tool's savings flow to shareholders and, in part, to customers. Nothing in the deployment benefits caregivers. By Rawls's standard it fails.

The Utilitarian Rival

A utilitarian assessment counts all gains and losses and asks whether the total is positive. Its strongest case runs as follows. Grocery margins are thin, and labor savings let Fenwick hold prices down for hundreds of thousands of customers, many of them on low incomes. The $11 million in savings, spread across those customers, may produce more total welfare than the distress caused to workers. The chain's survival in a competitive market also protects jobs.

The rival has two weaknesses. First, it depends on the savings reaching customers as lower prices, and the chain's own figures show that most went to margin. Second, it treats the harms in the table as interchangeable with the gains, when much of the harm, a parent unable to find care for a shift announced four days ahead, is concentrated on a small group and falls on matters such as health and family stability. Utilitarian reasoning can weigh such harms, but it tends to allow concentrated losses whenever the diffuse gains are larger.

What this page is doingThe rival view is given its strongest form, including the gains to customers that the harms table might seem to overlook.

Which View Governs

The difference principle should govern this deployment. The tool is a choice about how to distribute the risk of uncertain demand, and the people bearing that risk did not consent to it and cannot easily leave. When an organization redistributes risk onto those least able to bear it, the burden of justification should be on showing that they benefit, and here it cannot be shown.

What the Chain Would Give Up

Meeting the standard would cost Fenwick part of its savings. Publishing schedules fourteen days ahead, ending same-day cuts and guaranteeing each worker a minimum share of their usual weekly hours would reduce the tool's labor savings, by the chain's own estimate, from about 6 percent to about 2 percent, or roughly $7 million of the $11 million a year. The tool would still be used to forecast and plan, which is where most of its value lies. The chain would give up only the flexibility it gained by moving its risk onto those least able to absorb it.

References

Lambert, S. J. (2008). Passing the buck: Labor flexibility practices that transfer risk onto hourly workers. Human Relations, 61(9), 1203-1227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726708094910

Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.

Schneider, D., & Harknett, K. (2019). Consequences of routine work-schedule instability for worker health and well-being. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 82-114. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418823184

Reading the MGMT 8825M Week 6 instructions

In Week 6 you assess the harms of one AI deployment across the groups it affects. Describe the deployment from its documentation, including the features that create harm. Build a harms table with affected groups as rows and, as columns, the harm, its likely size, whether the group consented and whether it can exit. Support the table with research evidence and the organization's own data. Apply Rawls's difference principle as a normative test and identify the least advantaged group. Present a utilitarian rival at its strongest, including gains to people outside the table. Argue which view should govern this deployment, and finish by stating what the organization would give up to meet that standard. The assessment typically runs five to seven pages.

How this MGMT 8825M Week 6 example is built

Fenwick's assessment begins with three enabled features from the vendor's documentation and the first year's 6 percent labor saving. The harms table follows, with caregivers separated from other hourly staff because Schneider and Harknett found work-life conflict drives much of the harm of unstable schedules. Lambert's account of risk transfer explains the two-hour cut feature. The Rawls section names caregivers as the least advantaged and finds nothing in the deployment benefits them. The utilitarian section builds the strongest case, low prices for low-income shoppers and job protection, then tests it against where the savings went. A final section prices the fourteen-day notice, the end of same-day cuts and an hours guarantee.

MGMT 8825M Week 6 rubric: what earns full marks

The harms table carries the most weight. Rows should cover every affected group, and the consent and exit columns must be filled honestly, since they shape how much each harm counts. Evidence should come from research and the organization's own records. Applying the difference principle earns credit when the least advantaged group is identified with reasons. The utilitarian rival must be presented at its strongest, and graders reward assessments that test it against facts rather than dismissing it. The governing view should follow from features of the deployment. Stating what the organization would give up shows the conclusion is serious. Assessments that list harms without sizing them, or that treat all groups alike, remain in the middle band.

MGMT 8825M Week 6 help: mistakes that cost marks

List every group the deployment touches before you build the table, including people who never use the system directly. For each, ask whether they agreed and whether they could leave without serious loss; those two questions often change your ranking. Look for research on similar deployments, since the tool's own documentation will not describe harms. When applying Rawls, explain who is least advantaged and why, using income, options and vulnerability. Build the utilitarian case honestly and then check its factual premises. End with a costed change, even a rough one. Writers who want help sizing harms can book a tutor, and the scheduling assessment above demonstrates the full table.

Get a MGMT 8825M Week 6 example written to your instructions

Start with the Week 6 assessment prompt and rubric, adding a description of the scheduling or other system under assessment. A harms assessment follows within 24-48h, and a first sample is free. Because scheduling records seldom leave the employer, a described composite tool stands in for yours; tell the desk how yours behaves and the table follows it.

More MGMT 8825M papers and PhD in Management samples

MGMT 8825M Week 6 questions, answered

Where can I find a free MGMT 8825M Week 6 sample paper?

The Fenwick Market harms assessment is on this page in full, its four-group table included.

Which group is least advantaged in the MGMT 8825M Week 6 sample?

Hourly workers with caregiving duties, who have the least ability to absorb unpredictable hours or to leave.

What is the difference principle?

Rawls's rule that an unequal arrangement is justified only when it leaves the worst-off group better off than the alternatives.

Why does the utilitarian case fall short here?

Most savings went to margin rather than prices, and the harms are concentrated on a vulnerable group.

What would the chain give up to meet the standard?

About $7 million of its $11 million yearly labor savings, by restoring notice and ending same-day cuts.