Toyota's Ethical Issues Essay

This paper explores how ethical issues of Pinto case have affected the Ford Motor Company business environment. A number of factors suggest that Ford Motor Company was negligent and violated its code of ethics. In this paper, we will review the corporate culture mindset which prioritizes profit over the value of human life for the purpose financial gain.

In this essay, I will argue that Ford Motor Company’s business behavior was unethical as demonstrated in the Ford Pinto Case. Ford did not reveal all the facts to consumers about a harmful gas tank design in the Ford Pinto. They tried to justify their decision to sell an unsafe car by using a Cost-Benefit Analysis which determined it was cheaper to sell the cars without changing to a safer gas tank. The price of not fixing the gas tanks is human injuries and fatalities. By choosing not to make the Pinto a safer vehicle Ford placed a price on the head of every consumer. Ford’s primary concern was to maximize profits. Ford had a duty and ethical responsibility to customers to

It is known that Toyota has various other legal actions, other governmental proceedings and other claims pending against it, including

In 2009 Toyota encountered a public backlash after the discovery of a potentially catastrophic engineering defect among its brand of automobiles including its best-selling Corolla and Camry models. This led to a massive and global recall of approximately 10 million units a year later. The engineering defect caused the models to accelerate out of control and put their drivers and other

Chapter four of our textbook reveals the importance of ethics and goes into detail about what ethics is. The textbook directly states that “We define ethics as society’s accepted standard of moral behavior, that is, behavior accepted by society as right rather than wrong.” The article states that although ford made defective vehicles that there were no reported injuries because of them. However, because of ethics ford is recalling the vehicles before anyone gets hurt. This proves that Ford has good

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has established guidelines for all automakers to fallow. The guidelines were made to reduce fire during automobile collision. In 1972 and 1973 , the standard was 20mph and 30 mph of a rear end accident without any spillage of fuel (, Shaw & Barry). On the other hand, Pinto could not withstand such impact spilling fuel on passengers inside the car. Between 1971-1978, Ford statistics on death by Pinto to 13 lives while critic put it at 500 (, Shaw & Barry). Several lawsuits were initiated by the victims and fines were paid by Ford motor. Even though, the organization claimed they were following established rules, but the ethical and moral position would have been to acknowledge the fault of the car and apologized for the fatality. Nevertheless, the executives stood by their product and never waiver the fact that the product was not safe to be on the road. Several families sued Ford Motor and received compensation for their lost, but it is not like having the alive and well. Through the years, the company survive all those obstacle and remained in business. An apology to the families who have lost love one would have been seen as repentant to one action. The situation would not bring back those individuals, but earned a bit of respect from

The assumption that ‘it’s easy to be ethical’ assumes that individuals automatically know that they are facing an ethical dilemma and that they should simply choose to do the right thing. But decision makers may not always recognize that they are facing a moral issue. Rarely do decisions come with waving red flags. Dennis Gioia was recall coordinator at Ford Motor

Soon after, under pressure from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Toyota did recall some vehicles. Nevertheless, only one month later, four more lives were ended as a result of Toyotas quality plunge and failure to respond. Finally, one month after the death of its eighth victim, Toyota halted production to stop and fix the problem. On top of the oil sludge recalls, this quality failure resulted in another 8.8 million recalls, a $2 billion direct financial hit to Toyota plus another $16.8 million in fines, too many innocent lives, a strained relationship with the NHTSA, and further brand deterioration (Greto et al., 2010).

Due to Toyota’s financial greed and unethical practice, vehicles were wrongly equipped with faulty brakes, sticking pedals and poor quality door looks, which caused death of many Toyota customers and hundreds of dollars in damages. When a company like Toyota acts in an ethically questionable manner, it causes the company to lose customers and develop a negative reputation. Customer tend to lose faith in the company and have to look for better service

With billions of dollars invested and hundreds of thousands of Americans employed (Department of Commerce, n.d.), the automobile industry has a vast influence in the United States. Since the time Henry Ford developed the assembly line production (Statista, n.d.) the industry has grown into a global market with no signs of slowing down. Top car companies are constantly searching for new innovations to set them apart from their competitors. Among those companies is Volkswagen (VW). A company which strides in emissions and fuel efficiency turned, not only to be false, but caused a severe amount of damage (Ewing, 2016).

This incident would serve as the initial event that jumpstarted the public’s concern for exactly what was going on with many Toyota models. In this paper, we will explore the ethical issue that was present in this case, whether or not Toyota acted ethically in its handling of the unintended acceleration of its vehicles. In order to do this, we will examine the situation in the light of the six-step Hosmer’s moral reasoning process. This will include, among other aspects, an examination of the event in consideration of shareholder, stakeholder, and virtue theory. In addition to that, the authors will apply the Total Integrity Management model to Toyota’s actions in order to examine the moral integrity of the company as it pertains to trust. To conclude the paper, the authors will provide a normative statement regarding the actions of Toyota. To

All employees (including the company executives) should be guided by moral principles and ethical values when making decisions (Balc & Simionescu, 2012). The ability of executives to make ethical decisions can be influenced by their cognitive bias (Zeni, Buckley, Mumford & Griffith, 2015). Utilitarianism is one of the frameworks that can be used to address ethical dilemmas. Utilitarianism holds that decision makers should take alternatives that maximize the happiness of the majority of the stakeholders (Choe & Min, 2011 and Marques, 2015). This presentation will discuss how the 8-step ethical decision making process can be applied when addressing a dilemma using the utilitarianism framework. The presentation will also guide the executives of Toyota on how to address the negative publicity associated with the production of cars with faulty acceleration system.

The purpose of this report is to examine if the reasoning behind well-known car manufacturer, Toyota’s loss of revenue and leading market position is alone as a result of extensive product recalls following a fatal crash of a Lexus ES 350 on August 28th 2009. The journal article, “Toyota Crisis: Management Issue?” (Yuanyuan Feng 2010) provides an outline of the key factors that triggered the 2009 Toyota crisis, and explores whether the fall in the company’s returns by 19% were caused purely as a result of the recall and safety concerns, or something much deeper.

With the rise of globalization and the complex dynamics of the global business environments, organizations are tackling and forced to deal with large ethical issues on a daily basis. The ramifications for an organization that does not handle an ethical scenario efficiently and effectively could put the entire company and organization at dire risk. Organizations put their company brand and identity on the line with their everyday decisions and how they choose to operate themselves and their business. Many companies will do anything to keep their image or façade in good graces with the public and try to cover up or hide the mistakes with hope that their mishap or fault will never be exposed. The auto industry has had its fair share of

Toyota has always stressed the importance of environmental care and the reliability on their safe and quality cars. Since 1992 adopted a set of Guiding Principles, focused on “providing clean and safe products