Introduction The beginning of the General Motors recall crisis was the alleged failure by the company to recall its faulty cars on time, despite having known about the ignition switch problem, which persisted over a decade. The aforementioned design flaw in over a million vehicles, which caused hundreds of fatalities, was well known by the company’s management, before the decision to recall the faulty vehicles. Ethical issues relate to the recall crisis concern GM’s favoring cover-up over legal considerations on customer safety. Concisely, the company concealed defects from the top management, dealers, and the public, while the car users crashed the cars and died from problems that General Motors could have fixed. This paper will focus on the issues surrounding the General Motors Recall Crisis. Discussion Social responsibility is important in a company’s operations with companies being expected to be responsible to the society in their operations. However, the culture at …show more content…
With the company’s code of conduct including right things as part of business conduct, the crisis has only revealed that the inactions of the company are against the ethics it purports to uphold. In business operations, whenever the top management fails in attaining unquestionable integrity and high level of business ethics, it becomes an insurmountable feat to anticipate responsible behavior. Furthermore, the absence of business integrity is the fundamental cause of the crisis that rocked General Motors. It is of utmost importance for the company to foster high levels of business ethics as part of its social responsibility and to ensure that quality of products and safety of users are among top priorities in its core priorities. Similar to other companies that have faced such a crisis, GM is learning the social responsibility lesson in the hard
Business organizations today are socially and ethically responsible for doing the right thing, exercising good judgment in their business activities with employees, stakeholders, customers and the community. Business organizations emphasis should not only be on profits, but also on how business decisions impact society.
Every company has a responsibility to support the society it serves. This indicates that a company that wishes to truly thrive in a market should not just follow the business and consumer laws of the country but take an active interest in the community that it serves in each country. Today’s global market is led by companies that concern themselves with the sustainability of the company and its products, as well as the continual improvement of the
Many believe that business entities should have an ethical duty to be socially responsible, to work towards increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects. Many organizations look for opportunities to be socially responsible while also creating shareholder wealth.
General Motors is now known as the culture that stopped acknowledging problems. Employees knew there was a problem but problems were not acceptable. They were ignored. Employees were faced with getting fired if they discuss safety or quality issues. In fact some of GM’s employees knew that the recall of 2.6 million vehicles was for an ignition switch defect. The recall resulted in 13 people losing their lives. Several committee groups reviewed the issue and failed to take action. Later an investigation was completed and everyone involved had a responsibility to fix the problem but no one took responsibility. Bill McAleer a former employee of General Motors worked on the assembly line back in 1968. McAleer wrote a letter to General Motor board
The expectation that businesses behave responsibly and positively contribute to society all while pursuing their economic goals is one that holds firm through all generations. Stakeholders, both market and nonmarket, expect businesses to be socially responsible. Many companies have responded to this by including this growing expectation as part of their overall business operations. There are companies in existence today whose sole purpose is to socially benefit society alongside businesses who simply combine social benefits with their economic goals as their company mission. These changes in societal expectations and thus company purpose we’ve seen in the business community over time often blurs the line of what it means to be socially
I am proposing that the issues affecting Toyota’s ability to rebuild cannot alone be fixed by remedying the safety and manufacturing issues, but it must also work to rebuild the company’s reputation and rebuild stakeholder trust. As outlined by Stewart (2010), Toyota ended up with a full blown crisis on its hands largely because of the delay and mediocre response from Toyota. These management practices call in to question Toyota’s ethical practices and their commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles.
Social responsibility is built on a system of ethics, in which decisions and actions must be ethically validated before proceeding. If the action or decision causes harm to society or the environment then it would be considered to be socially irresponsible. Being socially responsible means that people and organization must behave ethically and sensitivity towards, social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues. Striving for social responsibility helps individuals, organization and government to have a positive impact on development, business and society. Often, the ethical implication of decision/action are overlooked for personal gain and the benefits are usually material. This frequently manifest itself in companies that
Company Q’s attitude towards social responsibility appears to be nonexistent, possibly through ignorance or disconcert. Either way the lack of social responsibility affects their business and community’s perception of their business. It appears that the company management has never developed and ethics program that clearly defines the corporate culture including provisions for social responsibility. Profits, or at least a lack of losses appears to be a primary motivating factor for company Q's management’s decisions. Company Q has been attempting to cut losses by closing stores that were losing money instead of finding innovative ways to
Provide depth analysis of the recall issue in Toyota: It is the significant purpose of the organization behavior issue such as culture, leadership and ethics. Toyota should learn from Japanese culture that how to handle the recall issue in the market. Fast growth of the corporate structure puts stress on the Toyota culture discipline. Toyota management properly managed the recall issue through leadership quality of it. Due to poor quality, it reduces the Toyota ethics during the recall. (Meier, 2015).
This incident would serve as the initial event that jumpstarted the public’s concern for exactly what was going on with many Toyota models. In this paper, we will explore the ethical issue that was present in this case, whether or not Toyota acted ethically in its handling of the unintended acceleration of its vehicles. In order to do this, we will examine the situation in the light of the six-step Hosmer’s moral reasoning process. This will include, among other aspects, an examination of the event in consideration of shareholder, stakeholder, and virtue theory. In addition to that, the authors will apply the Total Integrity Management model to Toyota’s actions in order to examine the moral integrity of the company as it pertains to trust. To conclude the paper, the authors will provide a normative statement regarding the actions of Toyota. To
Corporate social responsibility has been one the key business buzz words of the 21st century. Consumers' discontent with the corporation has forced it to try and rectify its negative image by associating its name with good deeds. Social responsibility has become one of the corporation's most pressing issues, each company striving to outdo the next with its philanthropic image. People feel that the corporation has done great harm to both the environment and to society and that with all of its wealth and power, it should be leading the fight to save the Earth, to combat poverty and illness and etc. "Corporations are now expected to deliver the good, not just the goods; to pursue
Social responsibility makes a company more competitive and reduces the risk of sudden damage to the company’s reputation and sales.
Business ethics since the beginning of this decade has been slowly eroding; if we are to believe what we see and hear in the media. Several times a day, one can view some derogatory piece of information concerning a business. However, it must also be considered that these companies are contributing to that stigma. There have been a variety of companies and individuals who have figured prominently in the media concerning their unethical behavior.
Social responsibility is generally regarded as a duty of an organization’s management towards the benefit and well-being of the society in which it is engaged. The organization must behave ethically considering the social, cultural, economic and environmental issues.
In the article “Doing well by doing good”, the words ‘business” and “ethics” has been pointed out that they can’t come together. Companies wondered where do ethics go and it has been widely wrath despite being taught in school. Ethics has been the custom yet uncertain. There are protesters in Washington, DC who were criticizing the immorality of a company including the IMF. Most people reacted that companies shouldn’t be in the business ethics at one’s convenience but should be concerned of their social responsibilities, morals and environment. The leader of market economics, Milton Friedman, stated that to increase the profits, the company has to use its resources and has to engage in activities.