Case Study: Volkswagen Ag's Emission Test Scandal

Firstly, from the view of company, Volkswagen scandal is result from the misuse of CSR that the company regarded it as a marketing tool. Although Volkswagen promised to persuade CSR as their corporation culture, the reality turns out to be opposite. Volkswagen equipped defeat devices on cars deliberately to pass environmental tasks and actually the defeat device emitted nitrogen oxide approximately 40 times of standard (Dans, 2015). This behaviour can be explained as "green-washing", which means the real performance is different from the test results (Eric, 2015). The motivation of deception largely depends on corporation’s aggressive goal called “Strategy 2018” , which aim to increase annual sales to ten million cars by 2018 (Volkswagen, 2014). Therefore, Volkswagen needs to lower the price to be competitive to its competitors and one task is to reduce cost of production. Volkswagen used CSR concept to cover unethical actions. It demonstrates that Volkswagen focused on persuading the short-term target rather than its customers, long-term reputation and environment (Bansal, King & Seijts,

In promotion it is said a corporations reputation is fragile and valuable. These companies risked losing their reputation to supporters of

The mistrust between the Volkswagen Company and their customers developed after the scandal associated with the incorrect emission of data and cheating of the system unfolded.  The scandal occurred on the eighteenth of September 2015 when it was found that the company had made a car with a turbo that released emission directly into the real word atmosphere. The allegations were genuine and were proved by the Environment Protection Agency in the United States (EPA) (Hotten, 2016).The chief

Volkswagen company put sensors in the emission component, so when tested, the examiner sees that the car meets emission standards. But because the sensors are to meet U.S emission standards, the car itself can be modified to ignore the sensor’s override and make the car believe it was in use. TFL motors was curious about the scam, so they decided to put a Jetta TDI turbo diesel on an AWD Dyno, to confuse the car into thinking it’s on the street, not being checked for emissions. Being in emissions mode, the AWD dyno lost horsepower and torque, but without the sensors active the car produced excess diesel exhaust, going over the EPA regulated limit. The car itself was able to perform at a higher level without the sensors active, proving reason to hide the fact that excess exhaust is produced. Certain companies realize the regulations hold their products back, so to promote the fuel efficiency and or horsepower of the car, they would gladly hide the fact that their cars are emitting excess diesel exhaust. Some ways to prevent excess exhaust would be to install EGR coolers, or to buy tuners for your engine’s valves. But many professional truckers tend to stick with rolling coal. “Rolling coal” can happen by making a smoke switch, or removing emission controls on truck models, and adding a tuner to produce fine smoke build ups. Diesel exhaust is actually less harmful then a

But was it ethical? This question will often be asked regarding the case of engineer James Liang and his role in the Volkswagen emission scandal. During the period of early 2006 to 2014, James Liang and his team of engineers developed a “defeat” device that allowed diesel powered vehicles to pass the EPA emission test, when in fact the vehicles were emitting up to 30 times the allowable limit. To many, this may seem a black and white case of ethics due to the fact that Liang’s team and Volkswagen blatantly cheated on a governmental testing regulation and then proceeded to falsely advertise the vehicles as “clean diesel and environmentally friendly” as reported by the United States Department of Justice; however, different ethical

Volkswagon was caught cheating on their diesel emissions by a man named Daniel Carder and his small research team at West Virginia University in late 2012 through May 2013. The team consisted of a research professor, two graduate students, a faculty member and himself. Their team originally wanted to investigate emissions to help the diesel cars in Europe. There has been much data suggesting vehicles in Europe have high nitrogen oxides and dioxides. The goal was to look at emissions in the U.S. where the emission standards were very strict. It was thought that if the cars were found to be clean, then they could take the data results to Europe, and say “why can’t you do the same in Europe?” The small research team had been granted $50,000

In 300 words or more, please, provide your response to the above discussion question. Comment on how customers can influence firms to pay more attention to the

First, by drawing from Burki’s (2015) article on, I will discuss one of the main factors that gave rise to VW being able to falsify their emission tests and how it can be prevented in the future. Burki noted that the testing system

In the aspect of preventing issues like this as an organization, the company should have “good information about their

These circumstances have transpired and will continue to arise per the same culprits and will not improve till owners/CEOs and upper management are held legally responsible in civil and or criminal court (contingent on grievances and negligence and or unlawful transgression).

The people at the West Virginia had tested vehicles as well as the EPA (Patel). Volkswagen chose to include rout programming device to cheat the system to pass the testing laws. Volkswagen as a corporation was basically trying to cut the cost of engines to be built by limiting the NOx emission system that controls how much dirty chemicals that goes into the air (Patel).By the company putting this device in their cars they were trying to cut down the cost that they would have to spend, at the same time Volkswagen cars had better performance. The ethical question would be is it really worth it to CHOSE to overlook the laws to save money on cash (Patel). "We expected better from Volkswagen," said Cynthia Giles, the E.P.A's. colleague manager for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance. She called the automaker's activities "a danger to general health of our

Since September of last year, there is an ongoing investigation into the Volkswagen emissions scandal after research indicated a large discrepancy in emissions during testing and road operation conditions on some of the company’s diesel engine vehicles.[1] On September 9, 2016, James Liang, an experienced Volkswagen engineer and head of the company’s Diesel Competence unit in the U.S., pleaded guilty to taking part in a fraudulent scheme to allow certain Volkswagen vehicles that violated emissions regulations to pass testing procedures and to be sold in the United States. Beginning in 2006, VW was in the process of designing new “clean diesel” engines that would be used in vehicles to be sold in the U.S, but the company soon discovered that diesel engines could not be designed to meet the emissions regulations and while at the same time providing satisfactory driving performance.[2] Instead of redesigning the engines to comply emissions regulations or dropping the design altogether, Liang and other engineers developed a device to sense when the engine was being tested and run on an alternate low emissions mode until the test was complete to enable the engine to pass emissions testing. After pleading guilty, Liang is facing criminal charges, and is cooperating with investigators to determine others that should be responsible for the scandal. Should Liang and the other engineers involved in the development of the device be held responsible based on the morality of their

It is not hard to see that the scandal would cause a horrid blow to VW’s image. Until the incident, VW had, like many other German companies, the reputation of “German engineering” (Robertson, 2013). However, instead of using that innovation to develop diesel-fueled cars compliant with U.S. standards, it decided to try to scam its way in the market. Not only did the company admit to having 11 million cars with software intended to cheat tests (Gates, Ewing, Russell & Watkins, 2017), it also plead guilty to “destroying evidence in an elaborate cover-up” (VW Admits Emissions Cheating and Cover-up, 2017); building further distrust among its consumers.

Volkswagen has installed software called “defeat device” in millions of its diesel vehicles (including Audi) which are sold worldwide. This software has a clever algorithm which can detect when a car is undergoing the emission testing. When detected, it changes the performance of the emission control module to improve the results. Thus the engine runs

Volkswagen has lost its reputation due to the recent emissions scandal. Volkswagen needs to recover its brand reputation and rebuild the relationships within its value chain, while pursuing its strategic goals (improving fuel economy with lesser emissions), in order to remain competitive in the automotive industry. To prevent future scandals, effective corporate governance needs to be implemented at Volkswagen.