BUSI 561 Discussion Board 1
Rarely does one individual’s decision or action create an ethical crisis entirely by itself.
More often, someone’s unethical or illegal idea is adopted by other members of the
company, and the problem grows within the organization until it erupts in headlines, bad
publicity, and sometimes criminal penalties. After the fact, the questions always arise:
How did that happen? Didn't anyone know it was going on? Why didn't someone stop
it?
Recently, Volkswagen found itself in just such a position, when it was discovered that
the software in the company’s diesel vehicles had been programmed to provide false
data to regulators regarding the level of emissions produced by the cars.
In his article “Volkswagen: Where Were the Lawyers?” Lippe (2015) questions the role
that several groups within the company played in the scandal, most notably the
company’s lawyers and engineers.
See http://www.abajournal.com/legalrebels/article/volkswagen_where_were_the_lawyers
/.
Review this situation from legal, spiritual, and ethical perspectives. Fully explain the
following:
1. As an employee or a manager in either the legal office or the engineering
department, how would you have prevented this incident?
2. 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?
Lippe, P. (2015, October 13). Volkswagen: Where were the lawyers? ABA Journal.
Retrieved from
http://www.abajournal.com/legalrebels/article/volkswagen_where_were_the_lawy
ers/
Review the Assignment Instructions for Discussion Board Forums, noting especially
requirements for word counts, scholarly sources, and biblical worldview integration.
1,000 words, 3 scholarly articles, reference list,
Each thread will include at least 2 separate verses from Scripture, quoted and applied as an integral part
of your discussion of the applicable issues in the context of a biblical worldview
3. As an employee or a manager in either the legal office or the engineering
department, how would you have prevented this incident?
1. Culture
2. Lead by Example
3. Priorities
4. Immediate Feedback
5. Fear of Failure
6. Consistency
7. Discipline
8. Micromanagement/ Oversight (trust but verify)
9. Professional Development/ ethics training
1. Consequence based training, what happens when many people do
the wrong thing.
10.Pyschology of Habits
11.Hiring Process
12.Have to answer the question of how to be more transparent within the
company
There are 4 points I will highlight that I would focus on if I were the manager of the
division to prevent this incident. Culture, Transparency, Professional Devleopment/Ethics
training and the hiring process. Creating the right type of culture that is in your halls
and not just on your walls is a hard thing to do. The process of finding the right values,
effectively communicating them, being consist in your discipline for individuals or
groups inside the company who break them is neither simple nor easy to accomplish.
This task takes an incredible amount of vision, leadership, and immense insight in
human behavior and philosophical concepts. Our culture dictates our behavior. It was
obvious that Volkswagon had a “no fail” mentality which is what led to activities and
behaviors that can lead individuals and groups astray. Failing forward is a term coined
by John Maxwell that I love to use. In sports psychology there are two types of mindsets:
A fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset states that you have certain
natural gifts, talents, intelligence and that you are bound by those natural tendencies
and that they can never really improve. One of the major issues many athletes and
individuals come across with this mindset is that they allow wins and losses to define
who they are. If for years you are the “brain child” in class and then, all of the sudden,
everyone starts catching up with, your feeling of self worth is attached to that and you
become to feel insignificant and start to identify yourself with failure. Growth mindset,
on the other hand, states that
If you want to reach success/ peak performance/ self actualization/ what God has
intended you to be, then you cannot allow failure to define you. I rarely like to use
absolutes but the fear of failure will always lead you astray from the plan that God has
for you. ” Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his
good, pleasing and perfect will.”Romans 12:2
The pattern of this world might refer to money, self-image, success, etc. and these
cannot be our priorities as a company.
To prevent this incident, I would, as the manager, first focus on the culture of our
division. Our culture would focus on character. We would set SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound) goals which would all align under our
own slogan “Accept the Challenge.” The challenge would be communicated throughout
our division as reaching our potential.
Character The Process Results
The media above that I created represents the building blocks and philosophy that I
believe achieves true results. Character is what drives the process. The process is
defined as maximum focus and effort in the present moment. It is the process that
drives the results. However, character is the foundation of the entire formula.
With this concept, I would try to hit on my next two points. The hiring process and an
ethics class/character development program. Understanding that character is the
foundation to achieve true results, I will totally re-construct how we hire employees and
make sure that character and mindset, along with talent are the primary focus. The
character development courses/programs/classes will also be vital to change who we
are and how we are expected to act. This program would have to be done in small
groups with an energetic, engaging, thought-provoking leader. The program would
include peak performance principles, life coaching, business case analysis of previous
ethical scandals in business and the effects that they have had.
The fourth point of emphasis I would have is how we would discipline those who broke
large and small violations in ethics. Again, remember that we have already provided a
safe place to fail (easier said than done, I know) but have found a way to foster an
atmosphere of trust and transparency in our work and the notion that if we fail we fail
forward. We learn and grow and continue to put forth the efficient and effective effort
required to improve. But we must stay strong in how we discipline violation of ethics,
the small and the large. This has to be consistent, and visible and even the smallest of
violations need to be confronted and dealt with.
The underlying principles in the success of both business and sports are remarkably
similar. I also think it is interesting how sports psychology/ peak performance
psychology and the bible are almost indistinguishable. It is clear to me that biblical
principles lead to success. This truth has been a cornerstone for me and has been my
guide in my decision making.
4. 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?
1. Taking Responsibility
2. Feared vs Loved
3. Firing Departments
4. Communication
5. Culture Values
6. The Challenge
“Everything rises and falls on leadership” – John Maxwell. As the leader of your company
you take responsibility for the wins, and the losses that your team takes. If your
company failed then you didn’t have the vision to create the right goals for the group or
you didn’t have enough wisdom to come up with the correctly prioritized culture values,
your communication skills were not effective enough, etc…It is up to you as the CEO to
have a handle on all things in your business and lead your group to success. If this does
not happen, and in Volkswagen’s case it definitely did not this time, then you first take
responsibility. I would surround myself with as much wise counsel as I possibly could,
figure out every detail of the matter and ask for advice from my counsel. If I am the CEO
I am sure at this point I would be ashamed, frustrated, and angry but I would try my
best to not act irrationally or emotionally. I would get the facts of the matter and then
create a plan of action that, I am sure will include firing certain individuals who did not
meet our ethical code, and a new system of checks and balances to increase
transparency within the company. “Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, But the one who
gathers by labor increases it.” Proverbs 13:11 I would then create a major emphasis to
shift our culture in line with what I described in the above paragraphs. Proverbs 13:11 is a
wonderful reminder and timeless wisdom that still rings true today.
Results in the business world translate to money. The primary focus of Volkswagen to be
a “no fail” business put a lot of unnecessary stress on their employees to make some
unethical decisions. Instead of putting a focus on providing value to others and accepting
the challenge to be one of the first to create a new technology, the business confined their
employees with the fear of failure and the stress to provide monetary gain for the
company through their technology.
Bile Scriptures
-Proverbs 11:1
oA false balance is an abomination to the LORD, But a just weight is His
delight.
-
-Proverbs 13:11
oWealth obtained by fraud dwindles, But the one who gathers by labor
increases it.
-Proverbs 11:3
oThe integrity of the upright will guide them, But the crookedness of
the treacherous will destroy them.
-Jsjhds
Articles
-Cohn, A., Fehr, E., & Marechal, M. A. (2014). Business culture and dishonesty in
the banking industry. Nature, 516(7529), 86+. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?
url=http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=vic_liberty&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE
%7CA392573378&sid=summon&asid=559cb9b90bd1e69e84ecfbe4d68223bd
oHowever, the data do not support the hypothesis that money salience drives the
professional identity effect. The banking questions had no significant influence on
dishonesty in students (P = 0.390, rank-sum test, Fig. 3 a and Extended Data Fig. 4).
A regression analysis (Extended Data Table 2b) shows that the behaviour of students
and bank employees is not significantly different in the control condition (P = 0.105,
Wald test), but--in contrast to the bank employees--the students did not change their
behaviour in response to the manipulation (P = 0.588, Wald test). The regression
analysis further confirms that the treatment effect in the bank employees and the
students is significantly different (P = 0.048. Wald test).
oOur results suggest that the prevailing business culture in the banking industry
favours dishonest behaviour and thus has contributed to the loss of the industry's
reputation. In contrast to their public image, however, we find that bank employees
behave honestly on average in the control condition. To examine how bad bank
employees' reputation is, we asked people from the general population about the
percentage of successful coin flips they would expect bank employees to report in
the coin tossing task. Other survey participants were asked how physicians, prison
inmates, or people from the general population would behave in this task
(Supplementary Methods). The participants believed that bank employees would be
the most dishonest group (Fig. 3b); they believed that bank employees would report
a rate of 64% successful coin flips, which corresponds to a cheating rate of 27%.
This result, together with representative evidence from other sources (Extended Data
Fig. 5), shows that the banking industry currently has a very bad reputation.
oPeople's confidence in the honesty of bank employees is a key asset for the long-
term stability of the financial industry. Understanding the determinants of dishonest
business practices is therefore essential for the development of possible remedies.
Our results suggest that banks should encourage honest behaviours by changing the
norms associated with their workers' professional identity. For example, several
experts and regulators have proposed that bank employees should take a
professional oath analogous to the Hippocratic oath for physicians (28,29). Such an
oath, supported by ethics training, could prompt bank employees to consider the
impact of their behaviour on society rather than focusing on their own short-term
benefits. A norm change also requires that companies remove financial incentives
that reward employees for dishonest behaviours. In addition, existing research
suggests that ethics reminders may promote compliance with the honesty norm
(4,21,30). The use of ethics reminders requires a detailed analysis of work routines
to find out where and when employees make critical decisions regarding norm
obedience, so that normative demands can be rendered salient at the right time and
place. These measures maybe an important step towards fostering desirable and
sustainable changes in business culture.
-Beekun, R., & Westerman, J. (2012). Spirituality and national culture as antecedents to
ethical decisionmaking: A comparison between the United States and Norway. Journal of
Business Ethics,110(1), 33-44. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41684011
-Rozuel, C. (2016). Challenging the 'million zeros': The importance of imagination for
business ethics education. Journal of Business Ethics, 138(1), 39-51.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1007/s10551-015-2639-8
