Ethical Leadership - Volkswagen

Martin Winterkorn, the CEO of Volkswagen publicly admitted that Volkswagen indeed tampered with diesel exhaust emissions. This move violated the US Clean Air Act, and once it is found guilty, Volkswagen will face a maximum fine of $ 18 billion. 2014 was the most profitable year in the history of the Volkswagen, but they only got about $ 14.5 billion.

 However, compared to large fines, the most serious crisis faced by Volkswagen is the lack of ethics, which will damage the corporate image of Volkswagen. A firm who violates the ethics or lost their reputation is easy to get themselves into trouble. Ordinarily, the harm to the environment that Volkswagen caused is not as serious as the oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, but the most serious problem is that they lied to the public.

According to the Kant’s Categorical Imperative, we know that fraud is totally wrong and not ethical in the views of all of us. This is the reason why the attitude of public was so intense. When they break the Kant’s Categorical Imperative, they also break the baseline of the ethics of all the people. The fraud behavior not only worsened the market economy environment, but also disrupted economic order of the social. Volkswagen is the world's leading automotive companies. They have good reputation, and the quality of the products was worthy to be trusted. But in the competition with Toyota, in order to surpass Toyota to replace its position, Volkswagen chose to use fraudulent means instead of using morality means such as strengthen management, improve the design, or drive down the cost to make the price lower. Although the fraudulent means seems easy and do not need to pay a lot of attentions, but the risk can not be ignored. Because customers usually pay a lot of attention to the honesty, once the fraud was disclosed, the company is likely to lose the customer's trust and favor forever, no matter how successful the company has been. There is an example, the incident of Sanlu poisonous milk powder. The firm used to have a huge group of customers. After they were disclosed adding melamine into the milk powder to increase the percentages of its protein, it名字 went bankrupt after losing all of their customers, and the leader of the firm went to the jail. If the scam was not disclosed, things will become more seriously. Undoubtedly it will be difficult for a firm to improve their situation fundamentally in a short time. People need a long process to work with it that needs to be pay a lot of energy. But if they use improper way, they will found it easier to get great benefits in the short term. When other companies get interests by using fraudulent means and did not be punished at all, they will follow these companies.

In this case, if this event of Volkswagen emission were not to be published, other auto companies would follow Volkswagen to deceive public. Thus no matter how excessive the exhaust is, they can make it pass an exhaust test. From the perspective of altruism, it is morally intolerable. Because as we know the excessive emissions will seriously pollute the air and also harmful to our health. The emissions will lead to the respiratory diseases, especially for children, and in certain circumstances, the emissions can generate the secondary pollution - photochemical smog, such as the photochemical smog event happened in the 1955, Los Angeles. During that time, more than 400 people died from the infection of photochemical smog. This is the earliest events that the emissions caused the air pollution and also lead to a massive human death. Although Volkswagen can make some additional profit, it is based on the damage to the interests of others. This behavior violated the altruism seriously, which is not ethical and should be condemned.