Good Afternoon All!
After reading Case 3: Everyone Does It, I think the two most obvious responsibilities that apply to this scenario are economic and ethical. In the case of economic responsibility, ISI was tasked with creating a satellite that would be of value to the Japanese or anyone else who became a franchisee for that matter. but also needed the contract with the Japanese to stay intact so they could attract financing as well as repay creditors (i.e., venture capitalists). Moving on to the ethical responsibility of ISI, they knew in advance of drafting the proposal that they were not going to meet the initial launch date they had hoped for. While it may be common practice in their industry to use the publish date, and changing later if needed, they were knowingly deceiving their customer upfront and this ethically wrong.
If I were Jim, I would've posted the correct target launch date. When sending the proposal over, he could've easily called attention to it and explained why the target date was pushed back. While it may be off putting initially, I find that honesty is the best policy, and I'm sure the customer would appreciate the transparency.
Have a Great Week Everyone!