The Ford/Firestone Case This case involves Ford and the Japanese tire manufacturer, Bridgestone/Firestone. The Ford Explorers which were prone to rolling over, came equipped with Firestone defected tires. The tire seemed to have a defect that caused the tread to separate from the whole of the tire and cause the vehicle to flip. Although Firestone knew about such defects, they continued to produce despite knowing the deadly consequences that lay behind their actions. The Explorer also had a bad reputation of rolling over and Ford knew it. As a result, fatal accidents occurred from these two combinations. Since this was a very serious safety issue, Ford and Firestone were ordering the recall of problem tires in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Asia but not in the United States. So, did the company act ethically in resolving this crisis? No, the companies failed to fix the problem in the United States. According to NHTSA, the tires have caused many deaths and injuries in the United States. In fact, these accidents would have not occurred if both companies have solved the problem immediately. Thus, despite the obvious safety issues, there were also fundamental ethical issues. Did they protect the health and well being of affected publics? Ford and Firestone knew that they were having problems with their products before all of these accidents happened. For instance “Ford internal documents show the company engineers recommended changes to the vehicle design after it rolled over in company tests prior to introduction.”(www.ratical.org/corporation) Moreover, “In 1998, mounting insurance claims already had indicated to financial staff members at Firestone that a problem existed with the tires.” (www.ombuds.org.) But Ford and Firestone did not take any action to fix the problem. So it was obvious then that they were not concerned for the well being of the people. Even staff members who knew that the safety of customers was in danger due to the defect of these tires, failed to report it to the authorities. And when Firestone was confronted with accusations about the performance of the tire, they provided misleading information. Therefore, this represented a very critical ethical problem. According to an executive director of auto safety, “if consumers never find out about this problem, these companies will end up saving millions of dollars in recall costs at the expense... ... middle of paper ... ...rights. In the United States, consumers have the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, the right to be heard, and the right to privacy. These two companies violated two of these rights. They violated the consumer's right to safety by selling cars and tires that were not safe and they also violated the consumers' right to be informed. It seemed then that Ford and Firestone failed to meet its ethical obligations. That is, they didn’t report safety related defect information to government agencies and they also concealed important information related to vehicle safety from the public. As a result, the consumers suffered the consequences of their unethical conduct. Many people died because of the defect in these tires. In fact, these accidents would have not occurred if both companies have solved the problem immediately. Works Cited http://www.citizen.org/articles.cfm?ID=5413 http://www.autosafety.org/article.php?scid=95&did=300 http://e-businessethics.com/firestone.htm http://www.forbes.com/2001/06/19/0619tires.html%20%20 http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=696 http://cee.citadel.edu/asee-se/proceedings/ASEE2002/P2002078INDUSBUR.doc
During 2014 there was an ethical dilemma that occurred at Canadian Tire. There was an employee named Samantha and she held the position of a Supervisor at Canadian Tire. Canadian Tire would give out Canadian Tire money to their clients depending on how much they have spent at the store and this was basically a marketing strategy for Canadian Tire whereby the clients could use the Canadian Tire money to purchase merchandise at the store. Samantha was in charge for restocking the Canadian Tire money at all times. Every time Samantha restocked the Canadian Tire money she would always withdraw few dollars out for herself and make adjustments on the paperwork and she would go to the Canadian Tire Gas station and purchase gas for herself. She went
When Meghan hears me enter she runs crying "Tim's teasing me and I'm hungry." I ask the kids, "Why didn't you feed her?" Tim responds, "she didn't say she was hungry." Pat runs up from the basement and reminds me I have to take him to guitar practice now or he'll be late.
Corporations are neither as perfect or put together as portrayed by some, nor as evil as portrayed by others. They are simply the economic units in our society that are necessary to supply the goods and services we need. We don’t want to go back to walking down the road hoping, someone had cheap good in their cart do we? No better means to serve this purpose has yet been found. While corporations obviously would prefer to market safe products rather than unsafe ones, they feel justified in asking why they should voluntarily increase the safety of a product if the result is that sales suffer. The provision of safety belts in autos is a good example.
With Takata, we see a company attempting to profit from a faulty product. This has lead to the injuries of many people and threatened the lives of countless more. The company was not acting prudently just so they could meet the demands of just-in-time manufacturing. They dove deep into the excess of Aristotle’s mean, depicting the decision makers of the company as greedy and no longer of virtue. Todd Rutherford, the founder of GettingBookReviews.com, can also be labeled the same. He began a company that generated fake reviews of books so as to sway consumers to purchase them. He blatantly went under the guise of an actual consumer and lied in order to generate income. It would be acceptable, under the Doctrine of the Mean, to lie if one’s objective were ultimate happiness. But when one lies in such excess, as Rutherford did, it is not supported. Both of the actions taken by each company were voluntary and not under any external compulsion. The two were acting incontinent with qualification and knowingly making unfair decisions devoid of any rectificatory justice as well. Takata was accepting full price for defective, mishandled and even dangerous products, while Rutherford was taking money for something that is supposed to be a free tool and intended to be made by actual consumers. In addition, Takata took it a step further by vacating distributive justice. When they ran secret tests to determine the safety of certain air bag canisters, Takata immediately became responsible for issuing a recall to all products. But instead, they put consumers in the hands of chance and distributed unequal products to them, even though every customer paid an equal
Ethical dilemmas have long been issues that have plagued all of mankind for generations. Since the beginning, the majority of humanity has struggled to do what is right when the answer wasn’t clear. Sometimes, however, the answer is not as difficult to realize, but is much more difficult to accept. In the case of the Gee-Whiz Mark 2 (GWM2), the dilemma that faces its respective company is whether or not the units that are defective should be exported to countries that have no enforceable rules to punish the marketing of said defective units. If the company does not do so and instead decides to scrap the units, there will be a loss of profit. For the company though, the answer is clear; though it may be challenging for its leaders to accept,
When we consider the case of the Ford Pinto, and its relative controversy, through the varied scope of ethical viewpoints, the results might surprise us. From a personal standpoint, as a consumer, the idea of selling a vehicle to the masses with such a potentially devastating flaw is completely unethical. When we consider the case from other directions and other ethical viewpoints, however, it makes it clear that often ethics are a matter of perspective and philosophy. It’s also clear that there are cases where more information will muddy the waters, rather than clear them.
...being held accountable, the city officials themselves were also held accountable because of improper safety regulations. Showing that the city itself should be at fault for not enforcing safety regulations for such things as fire escapes, that were not in working order. These unprecedented circumstances just lay down the blueprint for what is now the correct way to set regulations for industrial factory conditions.
The main reason for Ohio Art Company’s decision to move its production to china was simply to stay in business. When asked if it was an ethical decision, you must look at the company as a whole and not just the sake of their employees. Even though OAC does have moral obligations to its employees, they also have moral obligations to there stakeholders as well. OAC’s main goal was to keep overall costs for its most popular product the “Etch-A-Sketch” under $10 or else lost money. On an economic perspective, with the move to China Americans would achieve lower prices plus lower overall cost while the move would give Chinese villagers a higher paying job and possibly a better life. A win/win situation if you ask me. Under the Friedman Doctrine, it states: “that only social responsibility of business is to increase profits, so long as the company stays within rules of law,” and here OAC didn’t break any laws while moving its company to China. Still, social costs were in this case high. Even though only 100 workers lost there job, the small city of Bryan, Ohio only had a population of 8,000 people. To many this was there main source of income and due to this loss most were unable to keep up with there mortgages which forced them into foreclosure. Not only did former OAC workers lose their jobs, they have also lost a family. It would be possible for OAC to continue its production in the small town of Bryan, Ohio but the company was already losing money for the past two consecutive years and for this trend to continue it would eventually lead them into bankruptcy. So in this case, OAC made the ethical decision to stay in business and maximize profits by slowly moving its company to China.
Engineers are expected to constitute their professional decisions through the engineering code of ethics. But what is the right decision when their judgment is overruled by securing their employer’s profit under circumstances that endanger their customer’s property? This was Shane’s dilemma when 1 out of 150 chips were found defective in his chip production line. Discarding the defective chips was generating an $8,671.00 loss to the company; thus Rob, his manager, proposed to release all chips to the market without previous quality control. As an engineer, Shane must protect his employer’s reputation, his customer’s welfare, and ultimately, the safety and public health. He must not follow Rob’s recommendation of ceasing quality control in his production line because this would threaten the three entities that the engineering code of ethics requires him to protect.
Business ethics can cause a sensitivity in individuals to issues they would otherwise overlook. The insensitivity to issues is a problem. One individual may see a conflict while another will simply see normality. Richard T. De George, a University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Courtesy Professor of Management at the University of Kansas, addressed the issue in “The Case of the Collapsed Mine” by presenting a case study and raising several questions. Richard raises questions on the value of human life in accordance with safe products and how the loss of morality awards loyalty. The case of the collapsed mine shaft takes place in West Virginia. Miners worked below the surface in a tunnel digging for coal. The director of safety reported to the mine manager that gas buildup occured over the two preceding days, and it became serious enough to close all operations until the buildup cleared. The owner of the mine decided the buildup lacked seriousness and decided to take a risk and keep the mine running because orders needed filled and closing the mine would disrupt business and stop income. The gas eventually exploded, collapsing a section of the tunnel. In addition to the eight people who became trapped, three miners died in the accident. To reach the victims and save lives, the cost would reach millions of dollars. The manager then faced the issue of deciding if saving their lives are worth it. This brings forth the questionioning of the value of a human life. Who holds the right to decide if their lives are worthy enough to save? The manager ultimately decided to save the men, but he asked for volunteers to assist. Although twelve dozen men volunteered, the challenge proved more difficult than they expected. Two explosions occurred and three members of the rescue team died. They managed to make contact with the starving survivors, who resorted to cannibalism. Twenty
Our week five case study, Mattel and Toy Safety, involves toy safety inspection and product recall concerns among outside contractors. In 2007, the infamous toy company, Mattel, recalled a very large number of toy products covered with lead-based paint that were manufactured in China. Mattel responded to the massive toy recall by increasing the testing of all products and reassuring its customers that they will take affirmative action to correct the recall issues as soon possible. In my opinion, I believe Mattel acted in a socially responsible and ethical manner regarding the safety of it toys because as soon as Mattel was aware of a European merchant finding lead paint on their toy products, Mattel conducted an immediate investigation.
Throughout the call, Amy listens to him and empathizes with his situation. The y spoke on the phone for three
This Coca Cola malfunction incident demonstrates that if attention is not paid to the ethical operation or the company it could challenge and threaten a company’s short and long term performance. This could have long lasting affects on the companies operations and requires strategic decisions to restore company’s image in the eyes of the customers. Gaining the trust of customers takes long time but it is broken with one small incident.
The company has no way of defending against a claim that they were liable for a crash. People are afraid of these malfunctions so that they want to rely on their own driving more than a machine’s control of the reaction
Since the probe, General Motors had created a new post that is charged with responsibility for vehicle safety (Muller, 2013). General Motors terminated sixteen people for their role in not repairing the faulty ignition switch. The mindset throughout General Motors was to retain the bad news and keep it apart from senior supervisors. This was undeviatingly contributed to no effort being taken to remedy the faulty switch. Because of this, General Motors is directly accountable for the graves of 13