Answer To: VW Case Executive Summary (Provide a summary of each section of your paper – giving an overview of...
Soumi answered on Jan 12 2021
Volkswagon Case-Report
Executive Summary
The following report gives the insight of the Volkswagen case in context of the corporate social responsibility. The actions conducted by the company have raised three critical issues- the unethical business practices, environment-damaging policies, and the lack of work ethics and professionalism. Every action has consequences; the company would have avoided the consequences by pursuing the alternative of their issue. The three possible alternatives of the above critical issues are ethical business practices, eco-friendly innovation for sustainable development, and implementation of work ethics and the leadership style. What has been done cannot be undone but company can follow the following recommendation for future goodwill- transparency in work, code of ethics, and use of good leadership style, development of sustainable product and use of sustainable assessment. The report concluded that following the corporate social responsibility is good for the business.
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Contents
1.0 Introduction 2
2.0 Analysis of the Critical Problems and Issues 2
3.0 Analysis of Alternatives and Option 4
4.0 Recommendations 6
5.0 Conclusion 8
References J
1.0 Introduction
In today’s world, with every new idea, the competition among multinational companies has become neck to neck. In the race of becoming superior and ruling the market corporate companies tends to fringe monopoly, which ultimately led to the unfair business competition (Ahmad, 2017). Existence of foul play in business has now become common. Ideology of holding the market economically forces the companies to implement new innovations. The cost of implementing innovation is high and includes much higher risks (Sipa, 2017). During the implementation of any new idea or the use of innovations, raise many concerns in front of the companies such as ethical issues, consumer autonomy, social responsibility, economical responsibility and environmental responsibility (Stanton, Sinnott-Armstrong & Huettel, 2017).
According to de Azevedo, Alexandre, Xavier and Pedroti (2018), these are the times when work ethics and organisational behaviour plays crucial part. Volkswagen case raises the alarm that still multinational companies work on only one agenda that economic superiority. Their behaviour not only damages the environment but also raises many social and ethical issues. Thus, this report will critically look into the unethical business practices of Volkswagen, their environmental damaging policies, and lack of work ethics and professionalism. Apart from that, alternates and recommendations will also be provided to learn about what should have been done to avoid this vigorous situation.
2.0 Analysis of the Critical Problems and Issues
Identifying the issue and sorting it is a part of every job on daily basis, whether the business is small, micro and medium or a company is multinational. Companies seek refuge using corporate social responsibility to overshadow their unethical deed. The Corporal Social responsibility is a business approach applied by the companies to contribute to society or the environment. There are various kinds of CSR approaches such as a donation to charity, sustainability initiative, employee volunteer programs and corporate foundation (Farooq, Rupp & Farooq, 2018). Waste reduction, engaging employees to discuss the strategy for sustainable development, making the mission to go green are some of the examples of sustainable initiatives taken by the various global companies to achieve the CSR. Many multinational companies have set up their foundations or they are connected to the trusts. These foundations work for the betterment of the life of people (Gupta, Briscoe & Hambrick, 2017).
2.1 Issue 1 – Unethical business practices
Business has always proven to be deeply rooted in the ethics. Businesses took off the sky of success only when they identify the need of society and deliver it with sustainability that anchored on ethics (Adewole, 2015). Every consumer has expectation for the organisation and it is also true the society is a group of consumers. Thus, every society has certain expectations for the organisation and organisation is obliged to fulfil their duties. Sustainable existence of the company depends upon their ethical practices. In the critical time, it has been seen that entrepreneur takes the rational decisions proven to be unethical and costs the company in term of stakeholders, consumers, finance and goodwill (Baron, Zhao & Miao, 2015). Clouds of judgement, while taking critical decision and sidelining the customers’ needs, are parts of an ethical issue, which can be used as a judgement point demonstration the mentality of the leader.
Unethical practices of company reflect the psychology of the entire hierarchy of the company (Valentine, Fleischman & Godkin, 2018). The fine line between right and wrong has been blurred by multinational companies over the years. The focus from the consumers has shifted towards the selfish motives. The unethical business practices can be defined as the malpractices played by the companies, which harm both customers and government done to have upper hand on the market for personal benefits (Unger, Yan & Busch, 2016). Business world is full of scandals. There are unethical businesses practices often practise by organisations.
Some of them are misleading of the product information, manipulation of the account, defamation of the image of competitor and mistreating of the employees. Misleading of the product information is the most common of all unethical business practices. In case of Volkswagen, company hides the information about the efficiency of its diesel working cars. They have installed the software in cars, which put engine on test mode during the check of engine efficiency, and after sometime, it will come back to dirty mode, and release the harmful gases more than the recommended quantity. They have done unethical engineering practices and hide information from both consumers and government.
2.2 Issue 2 – Environment damaging policies
In 2015, Volkswagen has become the most famous scandal case, which has played foul to clear the diesel emission test. The software installed in cars help them clearing the test. They have taken the lab test instead of the road test. When tested on road, environmental protection agency revealed that Volkswagen cars release thirty-five times more nitrogen oxide than the results come in lab. Their attempt of escaping from the test increases the nitrogen oxide content of the environment and increases the toxicity for air consumption (Mansouri, 2016). This is not the first time that any company or organisations have sideline the environmental issues for their personal benefits. This habit of damaging the environment is common in every individuals and multinational organisations are no exceptions. In today’s world, when pollution is at the peak and global warming has crossed the mark, the situation has become critical for the humanity.
The government for all over the world has come together to find to solution to control the pollution. To put an effort various laws have been passed, and rules and regulations has been designed to protect the environment (Chan et al., 2016). The regulations design to protect the environment has impose heavy cost on the multinational corporation. The changes done by corporations to meet the regulations laid by the government has reduced their profit margins in comparison to their earlier profits (Hsiang, Oliva & Walker, 2017). This makes the companies to either innovate the cost-effective measures to meet their profit or to take unethical measures for their selfish gains. Corporations are often failed in sustainable development. Their CSR team care to portrait their image just to bring the goodwill to the company. The real issues are often sidelining and environment is one of the many important issues, which are considered at the last of the priorities. Companies work under regulation of protection of the environment due to fear of the government. They often not obliged to protect environment on the ground of their ethics (Janssens & Kaptein, 2016).
2.3 Issue 3 – Lack of work ethics and professionalism
Work ethics and professionalism are the two main factors, which keep the organisational behaviour intact. The role of leader is to take the responsibility of failure of team. It is the role of leader to convey sense to the employee (Kraft, Sparr, & Peus, 2015). The leader plays crucial role in motivating the team and it is his duty to look into the matter of the team (Wu & Parker, 2017). A work ethics can be defined as the moral ground, which suggests that the person is having high values in doing the job with professionalism and integrity (Davies, 2017). The person having work ethics not only justifies its work but also the product develops by it have the utmost quality. These noble workers are the pillar of the company. Work ethics involves honesty towards the work. The companies have employees with high ethics and environment of the office is professional, that company is considered successful in term of work force.
The company can only be successful if it has employees with high ethics and higher management with good leadership qualities. It was mentioned by McAdam, Miller and McSorley (2016) that the leadership style is based on the task motivation and relationship motivation. Leaders are not born; they learned and trained. In case of Volkswagen, when their scandal comes out in the world, every team leader of...