critically assess how effective the business is at being an ethical organization

Question

critically assess how effective the business is at being an ethical organization

THE SCANDAL VW's downfall stemmed from the same thing that enabled it to commit such wide-scale misconduct in the first place: technology. Although the impact of technology has created benefits for businesses and consumers alike, it has also provided a greater opportunity to cheat ethical and legal requirements. Volkswagen, once lauded for its green reputation saw its reputation crumble after it was discovered the company had purposefully fooled regulators and consumers with its emissions claims. Volkswagen used a "defeat device" in its software that changed the vehicle's performance depending upon the environment. For instance, the software was able to detect when vehicles were undergoing emissions test the software made the vehicles run below performance, which o 40 times the allowable limit for emissions in Volkswagen estimates that 11 million vehicles in the United States and Europe were ing. During t released fewer emissions and met requirements. However, on the road the cars ran at maximum performance and gav the United States. affected by this defeat device. Until the scandal broke, VW had promoted itself as an eco friendly company. Its commercials featured Volkswagen rally driver and host on Top Gear USA Tanner Foust driving elderly women around town in a TDI Volkswagen to dispel the myth that diesel is slow. As a result of its marketing, Volkswagen made large in-roads in gaining acceptance for its clean diesel vehicles, even though many car buyers had a nega tive view of diesel previously. This green image was highly beneficial for Volkswagen as consumer values are changing to value greener products. While technology allowed VW to cheat the system, it also played a large part in its downfall/Discovery began when European testers noticed that VW vehicles did not perform as well on emissions testing on the road as they did in the lab. They commis sioned a team in West Virginia to conduct research on VW vehicles made for Americans because the United States has some of the toughest emissions standards in the world. The team in West Virginia used a portable emission system measurement to measure emissions on the road. They found that the measurements did not nearly match up with what was shown in lab tests. The results were reported to the Environmental Protection Agency, which confronted Volkswagen with the evidence. Volkswagen eventually admit- ted it had designed and installed a defeat device that could detect when the vehicle was being tested and modify its performance levels so that it would meet emissions require ments. A whistle-blower later filed a lawsuit against VW claiming that it began destroy- ing documents that could implicate the firm and fired him when he refused to get rid of documents. Volkswagen denies that the employee's departure had anything to do with the emissions scandal.

Explanation / Answer

The company has acted unethical with no doubt due to the following reaons -

This decideit is majorly wrong because of the consequences that it uphold. The following are the few of them -

1. Not only the shareholders or memebrs of board are the stakeholders of the firm but customers, general public and environment are also important stakehholders of the company. This activity that has led to the deceit has only focussed on short term goals that is to earn profit but has ignored the long term consequences not only on the planet but also on the company's image, its capability to secure resources, its customers and envioronment in general/

2. Financial sustainbality also gets affected with this act. Making the depleted resources explited in such manners has also affected the future long term cost of acquiring these resources which could be multiple times more.

3. The harm that it has caused to global reputaation of the company is not only difficult to measure but also very difficult to repair. This act went agianst its earlier drives like 'clean deisell'.

4. Obviously the health impact is the most crucial and worriesome result of it. A VW vehicle emit 35-40 times more harmful NOx emission polluting the enviornment.

5. There should be integrity first and profit next. Integrity implying mutual trust has been hindered with this act.

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