Business Professionals Must laws Function â€Myassignmenrthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Business Professionals Must Laws Function? Answer: Introducation The System of laws principles under which the corporate and business professionals must function in a way which is beneficial to the people of the society and country as a whole. Its a broad topic which covers bribery, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, insider trading, tax avoidance, corruption, political contribution, discrimination fiduciary responsibilities. When ethical principles are followed trust develops between workers management also between public corporation leading to more productive workplace vice versa. The case study will discuss a macro ethics issue related to Volkswagen diesel scandal of 2015. This study helps us to identify the possible ethical dilemma between the greater public need and researchers access to vehicle software code against the manufactures wish to keep the code proprietary (Wardord,2016). This study explains the utilitarian, individualism, virtue, justice moral approaches to better understand the ethical dilemmas that arose in this case study. Volkswagen case Volkswagen is one of the worlds leading auto maker and it always had the aim of becoming the world largest by selling more number of cars than Toyota. The combination of imperious leadership and lack of proper control led to a scenario which proved fertile for bad decisions. Apart from this aim of becoming the worlds leading it also help Germany ameliorate the aftermath of great recession of 2008 by exporting more cars. By the year 2007, when Martin winterkorn, who became the CEO of the company, targeted U.S to take the company to new heights. For achieving this, VW had to increase its sales of motors to thrice then its present motor sale in U.S. Further to come to this position, the German giant had to do something which have never happened before. It had to produce cars which are not only powerful and superior than its competitors but also friendly to the environment. The organisation then aimed the U.S market which had very less diesel engine cars in comparison to gas other engin es . Martin winterkorn thought that diesel cars are more fuel efficient without any impact on power. But the diesel cars produce more pollutants than cars which are powered on gas (Lynch Santos,2017). The company under the leadership of Winterkorn were very aggressive in its approach. The seniors bullied the lower or sub ordinates and even fired the engineers or executives who did not obey them. The employee never had the courage to pass any bad news to Winterkorn, as he never welcomed them. They only approached him when they had some good news (lynch santos,2017). The Cheat device: Once Winterkorn started with the company expansion plans, he approached Daimler, another player in the market whose Blue Tec discovered a substance called urea which greatly reduced the nitrogen oxide , one of the most toxic substance and main by-product found in car emissions. The Volkswagen technical research team had a tough job ahead to work from scratch under the demanding leadership who insisted on success. The technical team finally found their way and created a cheat device with an aim of installing them to the cars which will be exported to U.S. The software had the function of detecting whether the vehicle is being tested indoors ( labs) because in labs not of its wheels were used. In labs only two of its wheels were used. At that point of time it self-activates its emissions controlling devices while on road the same was not being replicated. So, during the test it passed the test while on road, where the cheat device automatically turned off and the emissions levels were much higher than allowed (lynch santos,2017). Sometimes the levels were 35 times higher than permitted. This revolutionary device made researchers all over the world to think as the diesel engine cars which were used in U.S were less pollutant than that of Europe. Impacts of this scandal on the company This ruined the goodwill of the company and moreover made the consumers feel cheated who bought diesel engine by thinking that they were less pollutant. The company announced a sum of $9.6 billion only for the claims they were receiving from its regulators and consumers. The company lost $1.6 billion in its third quarter and operating profits in 2015 fell significantly. Its ordinary share value fell by 23% after the scandals were revealed. Lastly there was a fall in the market value of the company which fell by 31 percent from its previous 52.75 billion euros. The consequences can be summarised (lee,2016): The share price of company plunged by 1/3rd since September 2015. The companys CEO resigned, Martin Winterkorn resigned taking all responsibilities of the fall out. Several law suits and claims from different car owners are expected. The company declared an amount of 3.7 billion of provision to cover the cost of aftermath but market analyst predicts the actual sum would be much higher than that. Loss of companys reputation. Billions of dollars of fine penalties more to come from the U.S regulators. The factors which led to this drastic situation made by the technical team of the company are: Pressure The was huge pressure on the staffs from the top officials. Every employee of Volkswagen was so obsessed with companys code of conduct that at one point it seemed irrelevant when management only goal was to succeed by any means.s Prospect There was this chance for company to become the worlds leading by producing a fuel-efficient diesel engine car and take the maximum market share than Toyota, the Japanese giant. This led to buying of a software which had this unique function of finding whether the vehicle is tested indoors (labs) because at that it would turn the emission controlling software which reduced the emission levels. Although it was sold only for testing purpose as use of such software commercially was not legal. Rationalization: In 1970, the engineers came to know that Volkswagen installed defeat devices. The consequences at that time were minimal, as there was a mere fine of 120,000 $. The punishment at that time were light that they may have rationalized. This gave the belief that it can used for the betterment of the company. These three factors together can bring a situation when employee may begin to engage in unethical behaviours. Ethical analysis The main issue in the case is whether the information about the software should be transparent to the consumers and the researchers or remain reserves under the DMCA act. This section shows how the case raised the issues of ethical dilemmas ( warford, 2016). These issues are explained below: Utilitarian approach: The utilitarian approach here brings the issue open code made accessible to the owners and software researchers so that the fraud of this nature is detected sooner. This would the mean better health of the public and environment as the affected cars either would be modified or taken off the roads sooner reducing the harmful emissions. Additionally, the security vulnerabilities could be identified or patched sooner preventing the hackers taking advantage of the situation. The more eyes on the code would reduce the number of bugs in the software, which could reduce other safety risks due to flawed software. Moral Rights: The auto maker may find that making their software code public would restrict on their right to own intellectual property. Due to this there is code protection under DMCA, as there is significant commercial interest at stake. However, having right over this would enable public towards the safe products which can be achieved by having more eyes on the code which out weights the right to intellectual property. Justice: This may not a major role over the debate of open software code but the way Volkswagen acted was not fair as it put other diesel car manufactures which used expensive emissions control devices at competitive disadvantage. Additionally, it also forced the public to inhale the poor air quality while it benefitted by deceiving the public Virtue: Although, this may not directly but the way Volkswagen in antithesis tried to portray in its television commercials as engineers sprouting angel wings did not act virtuously in deceiving its regulators and the public with its cheat device. This resulted in plummeting stock prices and loss in sale due to public loss of trust in organisation (warford,2016) Solution: The Volkswagen group main issue is facing problem of credibility from its consumers. Although its takes decades to establish the trust among the consumers and stakeholders, a single instance puts back the company to its initial level from where it started (Zhou,2016) The three possible solutions to this scenario are: Rebranding: In the last 6 decades, Volkswagen have become one of the leading auto maker of the world. Many believed that instances like this will be overlooked soon but Volkswagen top management have started planning to establish the company from a nascent stage. If its starts by renaming the company then it may re-establish the image it had because of this scandal. The rebranding of the company will also help the company to function efficiently and may potentially save the company. The company can choose to establish the one which is greener and focuses on corporate social responsibilities. Hiring an autonomous agency for Verification: Hiring an autonomous agency for testing purpose of vehicle emission can bring back the trust of customers as previously Volkswagen had its own team for the same. Posting a bond: A final solution can be a bond that acts as a credibility between the Volkswagen and the consumer. The bond should state that, if anything like the past happens again then the company would be liable. Conclusion: The above case study can be summarised that when an organisation tries to maximize its profits by keeping its reputation at stake then it may not only lead to huge financial loss but will also lead to a situation where it may not regain its trust back from its consumers and stakeholders. An organisation should operate by following all the standards set aside by the government for the betterment of the company. References: Warford, E. (2016). Ethics in classroom: The Volkswagen diesel scandal. New Orleans Publisher. Zhou, A.(2016). Analysis of the Volkswagen scandal possible solution for recovery. UCSD-GPS CASE 16-12. Retrieved from https://gps.ucsd.edu/_files/faculty/gourevitch/gourevitch_cs_zhou.pdf Lee, J. (2016). The Volkswagen Turing scandals: Lessons learned. Retrieved from https://www.accaglobal.com/in/en/student/sa/features/vw-turing.html Lynch, L., Santos, C. (2016). VW emissions the 3 factors that drive ethical breakdown. University of Virginia: Darden Business Publishing. A look at the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Retrieved from https://indiatoday.intoday.in/auto/story/a-look-at-the-volkswagen-emisions-scandal/1/520067.html Mansouri, N (2016). A case study of Volkswagen unethical practice in diesel emission test(5th vol). International Journal of Science and Engineering application