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Coca-Cola Comany Ethical Crisis

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The Coca-Cola Company is one of the most well known companies in the U.S. and quite possible the world since its origination in the late 1800’s. Coca-Cola’s rapid expansion and innovation have provided ample evidence that the company is here to stay. However, after the death of the companies CEO, Robert Goizueta, the company has faced multiple ethical dilemmas. These problems have had a direct negative impact on Coca-Cola’s financial expansion, corporate culture, business relations, as well as their shareholder. Through thorough examination of past ethical dilemmas, grievance resolution, and utilizing third party consulting, Coca-Cola is on route to regain trust from consumer and business partners. Coca-Cola began to struggle in 1997 …show more content…

Soon after, France informed Coca-Cola that more than one hundred French citizen has become ill and prohibited all Coca-Cola products until the situation was resolved. Soon after this, a shipment of Coca-Cola products arrived in Poland which was infected with mold. In each case, the Coca-Cola’s slow reaction and failure to recognize the severity of the circumstances injured its reputation. The contamination crisis was intensified in December 1999 when Belgium ordered Coca-Cola to stop its “Restore” advertising campaign in order to recover trust in Belgium. These decisions negatively impacted Coca-Cola’s market standing in Europe. Ethical issues surrounded Coca-Cola concerning monopolizing there corner of the market. The concerns about Coca-Cola’s market dominance resulted in a government investigation into its market strategies. In 1999, Coca-Cola became extremely aggressive in the French market. As a result, the French government refused to approve Coca-Cola’s offer to buy-out Orangina, a French beverage corporation. French authorities also required Coca-Cola to scale back its purchase of another beverage company named Cadbury Schweppes. Furthermore, Italy won a court case against Coca-Cola over anticompetitive prices in 1999. This gave the European Commission basis to launch a full-scale investigate of Coca-Cola’s competitive strategies. PepsiCo and Virgin claimed that Coca-Cola of using rebates and discounts to over crowd Coca-Cola’s products on shelves.

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