The selected corporation is the Volkswagen, a German car manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The Volkswagen’s corporate website is http://www.vw.com/. According to the International Ethical Business Registry, there has been a dramatic increase in the ethical expectations of businesses and professions over the past ten years. Increasingly, customers, clients and employees are deliberately seeking out those who define the basic ground rules of their operations on a day to day. Volkswagen is no different, hence it created its own code of ethics in order to improve the company’s operation all over the world.
As Tiger Woods found out, your downfall has value in other entertainment markets, most notably the gossip tabloids.” (p25) Volkswagen, much like an athlete who has had a bad season, will be re-evaluated. Their clean-cut image of being a socially responsible company has now been tarnished much like Tiger woods when he committed marital infidelity. Tiger woods was the star of the golf world, just like how Volkswagen was the star of the car world, which is why it was just a matter of time before they were caught. This is why the value of Volkswagen cars will dramatically
General Motors hide their agendas regarding of stop the production of Electric Vehicle (EV) in order to take care priority of their stakeholder which is also involves in oil lobby activities. General Motors also claim that cars and batteries were too expensive to make despite the truth is mass production could have helped streamline
The question here, is not why they did it, this is rather clear. If one looks at VW AG sales ' revenues, which in 2014 (the year of the falsification) have almost doubled those of 2010, reaching 202 EUR billions it is not a hard guess. This is the highest revenue level ever reached by the company. By May 2015, profit was still remarkable, estimated at 3.3 EUR billions. But the scandal only started in September.
Consumers bought the cars which were advertised as environmentally friendly, and higher sales resulted to higher compensation and incentives to company executives. (Hakim, et. al., 2015) Therefore, it is highly doubtful and quite a flimsy excuse to day that the corporate leaders were not even aware that their engineers used a software that manipulated test results for mono-nitrogen oxides or NOx. VW leaders should just simply own up to their “grand ploy” to increase revenue, apologize to the public and all consumers in the world, return the money of all their buyers who were deceived by their false advertisement of having environment-friendly vehicles, and re-build the trust and brand image that got destroyed by the
To assist them in making the right choices for their business needs, by minimizing fleet costs and providing world class customer service Volkswagen wants to be the no.1 car seller in volumes overtaking Toyota by 2018. They call this vision as Mach18 .Their vision is to make this world a mobile, sustainable place with access to all the citizens. Their brands all work together in different segments to define Volkswagen group, as it stands today. 5. THE SCANDAL
As stated by Volkswagen group (2016) the company operates many plants worldwide where production is done for that respective local market and different model are produced in different plants. These strategic decisions were taken by the company because the cost is lowered when special parts and cars have to be shipped shorter distance, additionally; each plant producing a different model reduces the assembly cost to the company. Materials are purchased from suppliers worldwide they are stored until they are needed in the production line. The “Just In Time” (JIT) approach is used to handle all raw material purchase. According to Volkswagen (2016) the company uses a highly efficient global network to manage its supply chain.
Advertisement designer Doyle Dane Bernbach of Volkswagen displayed beetle as more than just a car. “Think Small” campaign showed the beetle as a “muscle on wheels, testosterone booster, and fashion statement”. Volkswagen did this by enlisting the help of famous basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, as the company became one of the first companies to endorse their cars from an athlete. The advertisements showed the giant 7’1 stature of Wilt Chamberlain next to the small Beetle, the advertisement was again playing to the paradox that is submerged in the “Think Small” ads. Other car companies were showing smiling actors
In this article, written by Darden professor, Luann Lynch, Volkswagen’s determination to position its diesel products in a U.S. market, where only five percent of market was diesel, was too alluring for a company whose lofty goal, under then CEO Martin Winterkorn, was to be the world’s largest seller of automobiles. The U.S. market was viewed as neglected, making it an excellent market for growth for Volkswagen. Volkswagen’s strategy was to position their product in the market as a solution promoting environmental sustainability, then utilize a sense-of-mission-marketing to aid the company in defining their product in social terms, rather than in product terms, to appeal to their target markets (Armstrong & Kotler, 2017). Volkswagen could have been well on its way to dominate the world car market if it was not for the corporate culture Winkerton and his predecessor, Ferdinand Piech, fostered, which was a culture of control, micromanagement, and fear. Lynch describes the environment as containing three factors: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization, which can lead some individuals into unethical behavior (Lynch & Santos, VW Emissions and the 3 Factors That Drive Ethical Breakdown, 2016).
The Volkswagen emissions scandal began on 18 September 2015 when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act to German automaker Volkswagen Group. The company had programmed their model year 2009 through 2015 turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engine so that the United States standards nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions were met only during laboratory emissions testing. Nitrogen oxides emissions during driving were up to thirty five times higher (Wikipedia, 2015). The Volkswagen scandal has far more concerning consequences than most people think. It will cost the automobile-maker in terms of legal fines, investors and customer backlash, class action suits, possible criminal investigation, and loss of futures sales.