Preview

Firestone And Ford: The Tread Separation Tragedy Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
569 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Firestone And Ford: The Tread Separation Tragedy Essay
Case 8: Questions 1-6
Firestone and Ford: The Tire Tread Separation Tragedy
1. What are the major and minor ethical issues in this case?
The major ethical issue in this case is the ignoring an obvious crisis for so long, one in which people are being injured and in cases killed. The minor ethical issues include the organizations involved in this case pointing fingers at both the consumers and each other and covering up evidence proving there is a problem.
2. Who are the stakeholders and what are the stakes? How do legitimacy, power, and urgency factor in. Do these companies care about consumers?
The biggest and most obvious stakeholders in this case are the consumers of Firestone/Ford products, who were injured or killed, and their families and lawyers. Ford and Firestone are also stakeholders risking their reputations and business relationship with each other. These are two powerful and influential companies, especially Ford, and in this case it is my opinion the two failed to uphold their social responsibility and failed their consumers by ignoring/avoiding an urgent matter.
…show more content…
Conduct a CSR analysis of both Firestone and Ford. How do they measure up in fulfilling their various social responsibilities?
Firestone and Ford should have worked together in this case and been more proactive in solving the problem rather than making allegations toward each other and the consumers. After parting ways the companies did their best to make right but the damage had been done as they both failed each other and most importantly they failed the consumers. This issue was slow to develop and boil over but once it went public the efforts by the companies to maintain profitability by keeping these cases quiet for so long would in fact be a means to their downfall and cause permanent

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    From the scenario, suggest two (2) reasons why you believe it is important for Walters Aeroworks to take its corporate community into consideration when addressing social responsibility. Assess the value of a reputable corporate image when considering expanding the company’s current operations. Provide a rationale for your response.…

    • 3683 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Est1 Task 310.2.1-05

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Company Q is a small grocery store chain located in a major metropolitan area. This company will be evaluated on its attitude towards social responsibility. Also, recommendations will be given in three areas indicating how the company could improve its position regarding social responsibility.…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Marketing Mix

    • 1479 Words
    • 6 Pages

    PART A : Identify the key characteristics of their products and services. What is their significance to the market.…

    • 1479 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mann vs. Ford

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Letting Ford continue to dump was one of the worst decisions to make. This let them continue to make more areas contaminated. Kid’s started finding these places and found them fun to slide down in the paint sludge dump sites. The kids would also make “mud” pies and eat them. All of these things the kids did gave them small bumps and growths all over their bodies. Later, when they started feeling ill, they got so sick they would go to the doctors. The doctors would find that the kids would have cancer but did not know why because the kids would not tell them about playing and eating the paint waste because the kid’s did not know it was bad.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    General Motors (GM) is one of the oldest and largest car manufactures in the United States. As early as 2001, the company began to notice issues with an ignition switch that was to be used in many car models. The problem with this switch was that a driver could “inadvertently knock them to ‘off’ or ‘accessory’ mode while driving” (Plumer, 2014). If this happened, “the engine would shut off and cars would lose their power steering and power brakes” as well as the airbags “wouldn’t inflate in the event of a crash” (Plumer, 2014). Allowing this problem to not be fixed led to many crashes and fatalities across the United States. After several years this eventually led to the recall of millions of cars and thousands of lawsuits for GM. This is an ethical issue because GM was knowledgeable of the problem and made a decision to ignore it which led to the deaths and injuries of many innocent people. In order to evaluate this ethical situation we will…

    • 3185 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Three social issues that are in this case are that one, social issue in this case was Ford claimed the reason for the recall of the 1.9 million Ford Pintos was not for safety but for “reputational” reasons. This is a social issue because, after all the evidence was piled up on their company for being unsafe and hazardous, they couldn’t just admit they made a mistake and recall the vehicles to make them safer. No, they had to use the reputation card to help their company’s image in the long run so they wouldn’t lose profit. In this issue, there is no utilitarianism because there mindset in making this decision isn’t for the right reasons. There not doing it to intentionally increase the safety of everybody. One version, rule-utilitarianism, considers that, “a rule or code of behavior is morally right if, by its application, the consequences are more favorable that unfavorable to everyone.” They weren’t being moral when they made this decision. The citizens and people had nothing to do with the recall. It was their own self-pity and arrogance. Another social issue in this case is that in June of 1978, Ford knew that its fuel tank did not meet Federal Safety Standards, yet they didn’t do anything to warn the owners of this. It’s a fact that if people were warned of this issue, thousands and thousands of people wouldn’t want to buy the Ford Pinto. Being that this was a social issue, Ford was all about making a profit and hid crucial information for the public. The third of many social issues in this case are that when Ford was being prosecuted in the courtroom, they defended themselves against negligence by claiming its car was comparable to other subcompacts at that time.…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Phase 3 IP

    • 841 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Companies have affected their customers negatively in many, many ways by being careless, negligent and putting out products that can be tainted or altered in some way and have been very harmful to one 's health even to the point of death by use. Many people are unaware of some recalls and continue to use whatever product it is that is defective or contaminated. I will be talking about a couple of different companies and touching on what they have done or not done in order to correct a problem with their product/s that have been recalled. There are a lot of reasons as to why companies do not take action right away such as losing profits, losing customers, being sued or even going bankrupt. Having a positive image is should be on the top of the ethics list.…

    • 841 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cpa Global Strategy

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Who are the company’s key stakeholders, what are their objectives and are their objectives aligned with the company’s strategic goals?…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stakeholders are individuals and or groups in and organization “who are depending on the firm in order to achieve their personal goals and on whom the firm is depending for its existence” (Werther & Chandler, 2014). The group that I chose to talk about in this paper is Competitors and this is a large group that includes many businesses. Competitors are an organization or country that is engaged in commercial or economic competition with others. Some real-life companies that are competitors are Coke vs. Pepsi, Comcast vs. Verizon, Red bull vs. Monster, the more famous McDonald’s vs. Burger King, CVS vs. Walgreens, UPS vs. FedEx, Duracell vs. Energizer, Hasbro vs. Mattel, Dunkin’ Donuts vs. Starbucks, Canon vs. Nikon , Netflix vs. Amazon and plenty of others.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ethical Behavior Quiz

    • 5293 Words
    • 22 Pages

    | The most significant influence on ethical behavior in the organization is the opportunity to engage in unethical behavior.…

    • 5293 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ford Pinto

    • 1026 Words
    • 3 Pages

    If we were involved in the Ford Pinto dilemma we would have used Deontological Ethical reasoning to decide whether or not to disclose the danger that the Pinto posed and/or use that reasoning to determine whether or not to install the part(s) that would make the Ford Pinto safer. Our decision would be to do what is morally right and avoid doing what is morally wrong, regardless of the consequences. True enough Ford was not obligated by government regulation or any law, to disclose the potential hazards of the Ford Pinto however; at the least they should have presented the option of purchasing the part to make the care safer - an option we would have made available to the customer.…

    • 1026 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    From the scenario, suggest two (2) reasons why you believe it is important for Walters Aeroworks to take its corporate community into consideration when addressing social responsibility. Assess the value of a reputable corporate image when considering expanding the company’s current operations. Provide a rationale for your response.…

    • 493 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ford Pinto-Ethics

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Procedural steps of the decision making framework was Utilitarian in nature, Ford chose the action that would cause the least amount of harm for the majority involved, therefore allowing the minority to be harmed by death. Apparently, Ford did not care about the type or severity of harm they caused. They chose a lower number of estimated deaths as opposed to a higher number of financial harm. The decision to view death as a viable option was fueled by Egoism. Fords CEO, Iacocca, was an integral part of the Egoism utilized in the decision making in that he viewed Ford’s customers/consumers as morally irrelevant. This was made clear when Iacocca intentionally underestimated/ignored and concealed the fact that the Pinto engine would ignite upon small rear impact. Clearly, Ford could have disclosed the dangers of the Pinto to consumers, thereby allowing consumer consent, but they did not because it would slow or stop him from achieving Ford’s goals. Further, Iacocca did not take people’s values into consideration when rendering a decision on the Pinto safety hazard; instead he projected his own values in the decision-making framework. A true Utilitarian method to determine a course of action is to take an actual vote in which each person affected in the situation votes on the basis of their own values. When others values are not considered, and an Egoist is in charge, there is a high probability that immoral…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Case Analysis Ford Pinto

    • 783 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In order to understand the ethical dilemmas that are addressed within the Ford Pinto case, we must identify the people that have roles within the case. The Ford Motor Company would be one of the obvious stakeholders of the ethical decisions made. Mr. Iacocca (Executive Vice President) made the decision to move on with the production of the Pinto because he felt the studies conducted under the supervision of Mr. Robert Alexander (VP of Engineering) were feasible. Later, a former Ford engineer, Harley Copp testified that Ford management’s decision to proceed with the Pinto production was a decision made with awareness of the vulnerabilities of the fuel tanks to being punctured by the protruding bolts of differential. And it was later validated that the crash test results were forwarded up to the management. The Ford management made the decision to deviate from changing the design because it wasn’t cost efficient. Another stakeholder that may have had a strong influence on the decision made by the Ford management is the shareholders. As a shareholder you represent part ownership of the company.…

    • 783 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    on their customers choices if they are willing to buy their product or not. The demand of the…

    • 755 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays