Unethical marketing and arrogance are key factors that can corrupt even companies with one of the most admired corporate culture in the world (Hartley, & Claycomb, 2013, p. 311). The definition of unethical is “not morally correct” (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2013), unethical marketing, therefore, refers to a situation in which a business values profitability more than providing customer value. When combined with arrogance, the quality of "revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities” (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2013), they can bring down businesses. In this paper, I will firstly explain the relation between unethical marketing and arrogance. Then, I will analyze roles and consequences of each element according …show more content…
Firstly, since groupthink is a committee decision, diffusion of responsibility and the pack mentality took place in and lowered the company’s moral standards (Hartley, & Claycomb, 2013). Secondly, Toyota became irresponsible. It had known about the accelerating problems since 1986, but never took any actions until the first major recall in 2009 (Hartley, & Claycomb, 2013). In other words, they had been approaching the problems with a wait-and-see approach for about twenty-five years. Third, Toyota also covered up the existence of data regarding unexpected acceleration problems. Thus, Toyota violated both the company’s founding principles and …show more content…
Early signs began when top executives stopped taking feedback from manufacturing plants, dealers, and customers into consideration altogether. When accidents occurred, Toyota blamed former management, supplier, and customers instead of addressing the issue. For instance, during first recall in 2009, the company rationalized the problems by citing mat problems as a part of driver error (Hartley, & Claycomb, 2013). Toyota President Toyoda did not try to make amend, even though it was evident by the second recall in 2010 that the pedals stuck regardless of the presence of floor mat (Hartley, & Claycomb, 2013, p. 315). In fact, it took fifty-two deaths to finally make Mr. Toyoda issue a public
The Corporate Social Responsibility of the company is responsible for the welfare of society. The company did not think about the community. Thus, the company had to face the title of being unethical resulting in losing its
Psychologist Irving Janis explained some alarmingly bad decisions made by governments and businesses coined the term "groupthink”, which he called "fiascoes.” He was particularly drawn to situations where group pressure seemed to result in a fundamental failure to think. Therefore, Janis further analyzed that it is a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members ' striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. According to Janis, groupthink is referred as the psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses disagreement and prevents the appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups.
The Onion’s article effectively attacks the ethos used by companies by demonstrating how far advertisers will go to convince people into buying their dubious
The commercials on the television, the advertisements placed on newspapers and the banners by big conglomerates have one thing in common: They are mostly geared towards children. Chapter 2 of the book Fast Food Nation, written by Eric Schlosser provides a history of two big American companies, McDonalds and Disney, and how their selfish desires led to marketing directed towards children. Schlosser’s central idea and usage of argumentative techniques along with bias define this chapter’s purpose as an educational work designed to reveal the antics of big money corporations. The central idea of this chapter is focused solely on the greed and selfishness of big corporations as they try to advance their business and gain profits while being
The art of Business Bluffing, as Carr would describe it is “simply as game strategy—much like bluffing in poker. ”(A. Carr) However, it could more aptly be described as lying, cheating, and bribing all in the name of achieving business objectives. An article published in 1968 entitled, “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?” Albert Carr maintained that Business Bluffing is ethical.
1) If Toyota is not the cause of unintended acceleration, why was it blamed for it? Last quarter of 2009 The leading Toyota motor corporation has faced disaster in their products because of unexpected quality issues, so to overcome in their fault they issued huge formal recall of their products all over the world. In this period, Toyota recalls around 5.2 million cars for floor mat problem and 2.3 million cars for accelerator pedal problem. For both case around 1.7 million cars and following this Toyota amplify 1.8 million cars from Europe and 75,000 from China (almost 9 million cars recall all over the world within a month).
(Johnson , 2014 ) In this case , it shows that under normal circumstances the management level of a company or corporation will choose to hide the truth over honesty and integrity .In other way , profitability has override the important of ethics in the corporation .
There is also the factor that pressure to act unethically often comes from salespeople having to work both with their companies and customers, the goals of which do not always align. Salespeople might do something unethical to close a sale with a customer, but in the long run, that type of behavior will be detrimental to the salesperson’s career, reputation, and could hurt the
Introduction The key ethical issues that were presented in this case study were quality control, lack of customer care, responsiveness, and harming the customer. The Johnson and Johnson case may have been seen as a turning point due to many things the company did right. However, there were many ethical issues in this case which will be explored more throughout this paper.
Business ethics also referred to as corporate ethics can be considered as either a form of applied ethics or professional ethics. Its purpose is to analyse ethical principles and also moral as well as the ethical problems that might arise in a business environment. Business ethic is applicable to all parts of business conduct and also takes into consideration the conduct of individuals and the business organizations as a whole. Business ethics can be divided into normative and descriptive discipline. For the purpose of this assignment, the Nestle Company has been chosen.
Toyota Revolves around its organizational structure, culture, climate and decision making perspectives. All these factors impact Toyota’s ability to make decision and then take actions. Failure to acknowledge anyone of them in a sensible way might damage a company’s reputation. Lets discuss these factors in detail. Organizational Structure is the framework of the company which lays down the foundation of the company.
However, since 2010, this longstanding quality reputation has been unabatingly shattered by increased vehicle recalls that have seen virtually every class of consumer affected (Rajasekera, 2). Recognizing that its reputation and brand is at stake, Toyota has endeavored to not only publicly apologize, but also settle a class-action law suits totaling $1.1 billion. While this strategy may look inept to many, research provide that leadership requires swift acknowledgement of mistakes and fitting solutions which is what Toyota has done. Going forward, Toyota will need to fully embrace innovation as its key strategy, especially given the fact that the current industry life cycle has overstayed its maturity, which means that most automakers will be looking to create new demand and create more innovative
Introduction Globalization is a fact of Economic Life – Carlos Salinas De Gortari. Globalization is not a new thought. This process of interaction and integration among the companies, people and government of different countries is happening from ages. Technology has been the major driver of globalization. Economic life has been transformed dramatically by the advances in information technology.
However, the Toyota massive recalls show a very different situation and involves more serious consequences. We have seen that almost 9 million of Toyota vehicles around the world had to be recalled within a few months, and the potentially defective quality involved were mainly focused on unintended acceleration problems, which were closely related to the most important thing for drivers – safety driving. It’s thus hard to believe that there was nothing wrong with Toyota’s “quality” cars. The massive recalls were indeed a disaster for Toyota: not only means that they had to pay for the extensively financial losses due to repairing costs, market and stock share dropping down, production suspending, civil penalty, and other relevant expenses for dealing with the troublesome issues; but also it has heavily hit to Toyota’s intangible assets – its brand image and reputation of quality, which have been ethically shaped over time
Introduction “The term ‘misleading advertisements, is an unlawful action taken by an advertiser, producer, dealer or manufacturer of a specific good or service to erroneously promote their product. Misleading advertising targets to convince customers into buying a product through the conveyance of deceiving or misleading articulations and statements. Misleading advertising is regarded as illegal in the United States and many other countries because the customer is given the indisputable and natural right to be aware and know of what product or service they are buying. As an outcome of this privilege, the consumer base is honored ‘truth in labeling’, which is an exact and reasonable conveyance of essential data to a forthcoming customer.”