Question

Over the past several years we have experienced a growing number of major ethical breeches by major companies both in the U.S. and in other countries. A few examples include: Wells Fargo (setting up accounts for their clients without their authorization); General Motors (hiding the problem of bad ignition switches on millions or cars for about 10 years); Volkswagen (cheating on emission tests to meet government standards); Takata (putting known defective air bags in millions of cars); Uber (paying one of their IT employees to not report a data breech that affected millions of customer records); Kobe Steel (falsified inspection records for a number of years on aluminum and steel that did not meet required specifications, and shipped it to many customers); and Chrysler (falsifying auto sales records to show growth in sales that did not exist).

Analyze these cases to determine some of the major reasons why these types of unethical behaviors occur in major corporations and make some recommendations regarding what can be done to reduce the frequency and severity. Look at Corporate Governance, CEO reward systems, the Legal Systems, and Consumer behavior to see how these affect ethical behavior and what could be changed to reduce it.

Post as your Initial Post on Blackboard Discussion Board Week 10, your analysis and recommendations.

Answer 1

answer-

We can see many ethical issues which are faced by many big companies like Wells fargo, GE, Volkswagen etc. these ethical issues not only affected the business but also the society like the case of Volkswagen in cheating on emission tests to meet government standards which causes deaths and injuries to thousands of people and affect the environment with NOx gases emission.

The wells fargo case in which customers are taken for granted and put them under the shadow and open accounts behind their back. all these cases are unethical as well as illegal.

According to me, the major reasons behind all these scandals and unethical activities are Profit making in Wells fargo case, lack of leadership from CEO like Volkswagen CEO knew about the engine emission still launch in the market, thought of company that customers are irrational and can be fooled and they can escape from the legal system of the country.

These ethical issues can be reduced in frequency and severity if they adopt Corporate governance and do activities which benefits its shareholders like investors, customers,employees and society at large. because If Wells fargo considered that they are giving impossible targets to their employees and firing them from the company based on illogical reasons then they would have been prevented from their scandal.

Legal system should be that which makes policies and regulations to set examples to companies that involving in such activities can lead to only loss to them and companies to prevent from scandals should write code of ethics to its company., suppliers, etc.This way they can stop their ethical issues and prevent them from legal suits in future.