A Review of an Ethical Issue Involving Volkswagen

Business organizations tend to make decisions, which favor their overall wellbeing and ensure that they have minimal ethical issues through developing conspiracies. It is very much impossible to have unethical issue happening within organizational environment without the input of in house lawyers. The overall need to ensure that lawyers are incorporated into the action is based on their overall need to understand what is going on within organizational environment.

Therefore when considering the situation, which Volkswagen has, find itself in, there are a number of options, which would have been considered in ensuring that there is better engagement and development of important elements within organizational environment. As a manager in the legal office, I would have focused on a number of options to ensure that the situation does not escalate to its current situation.

The function of the legal department within any business organization is aimed to ensure that there is a positive understanding on the processes and action that are being undertaken by the organization in ensuring that the organization is well engaged.

Evaluation of the ability of the organization to comply with both ethical and legal regulations is done by the legal office and if these issues tend to arise it would automatically tarnish the image of the legal office as well as the organization. The initial aspect that I would have considered in this case is to ensure that there is a better environment where the operations and all functions within the company-manufacturing environment are fully discussed by all stakeholders involved.

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This would help in creating a better understanding on the need to be aware of all the process and how the decisions made by the management would influence the company wellbeing (Gini & Green, 2014).

Communication is very important especially involving the legal office and the manufacturing department since most issues tend to arise during the manufacturing process where employees within the manufacturing department may make a decision, which would have detrimental impact on the company operations but fail to discuss on the specific details regarding the critical decision made. Legal advice can only be issued when there is a proper assessment where the organization can be able to discuss the merits and demerits of its approach openly. This can be achieved within an organization environment when there exist high level of integrity and openness. There are various legal and ethical regulations, which must be complied in full. It is the responsibility of the legal office to ensure that the automobiles that are being produced by the company fulfill the international standards in place (Floyd, Xu, Atkins, & Caldwell, 2013).

Another key aspect that I would consider would be to have a clear strategy in place where the conduct of employees within the organization could be assessed. It is important to ensure that workers within the organization are ethical and adhere to key organizational operational guidelines in order to limit the chances of implementing a decision that would automatically be detrimental to the company operations. Every employee within the organization must mean well for the company and this means that they should able to behave in a manner that effectively highlights their determination to ensure that the company is successful and not collapsing. The organizational code of conduct would form the basis under with this type of monitoring and evaluation can be effectively assessed to create an improve organizational environment with sole aim to improve organizational performance (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2012).

1. As the CEO of the diesel division of Volkswagen, how would you have responded when the situation became public? How would this response prevent future incidents? There are provisions in place regarding the diesel emissions which all companies are expected to comply with. In a situation where it is clear that, the decision that was made by the company was found to have violated this important provision. The first thing that I would have done would be to offer a public apology taking responsibility of the action. Trust in business is an important aspect to consider and it is not something that can be obtained without being able to take risks as an organization. Once it is clear to the public that the company violated the diesel regulation by introducing a software that could provide false information, the public interest shifts automatically with significant questioning on other things that the company could have possibly hidden by the company (Tran, 2010).

Restoring public confidence in this case can only be achieved through being in a position to accept the mistake done and carry the responsibility considering the fact that it was my duty to ensure that the cars that are being produced are of the desired quality. The automobile industry is very competitive and thus denying the issue would only escalate the problem and lead to further sanctions, which would be detrimental to the business performance and its overall ability to operate within the automotive industry. The industry is very sensitive and such information could have dire consequences to the ability of the company to operate effectively. Being truthful even though will highly expose the company, it is the best long-term decision that can keep the company together and overcome this challenge, which is aiming to destroy the company reputation (Floyd et al., 2013). Additional crucial decision that I would have considered after making public apology for the mistake done, I would issues a statement recalling all the vehicles having this fault.

Building public confidence is based on how an organization is able to engage with its customers considering the fact that in a competitive environment, it is very difficult to develop a string customer base like that one developed by Volkswagen in the automobile industry. Maintaining trust and confidence has everything to do with how the company will deal with its customers at the most challenging moment. It is very difficult to avoid making losses at this stage. This means that it is better to make losses and maintain the company brand rather than propagating falsehood, which will automatically lead the company down the drain. Recalling the vehicles produced by the company having the identified fault shows the fact that the company is apologetic for the mistake done and has a key focus to make everything right through compensation program to all its customers (Gini & Green, 2014).