The Coca Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Crises

THE COCA COLA COMPANY STRUGGLES WITH ETHICAL CRISES.

INTRODUCTION

Coca Cola Company was invented in 1886 by Dr. John Pemberson. The pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia made up the formula for Coca Cola in his backyard and introduced it to the market in the same year. The product was sold as a toxic until 1887 when another pharmacist called Candler bought the idea from John. Candler engaged in aggressive promotion of the product and it gained fame as a fountain drink by the late 1890s. The product gained a huge market share that led to the rise of bottled companies. The fountain drinks were then supplied to the licensed bottled companies. A new coke formula was introduced in 1985 that has made the product to be widely used in the modern community (Coca Cola Company, 2011).

The company has been engaging in community activities that continue to boost its reputation in many countries. It has engaged in health campaigns such as AIDS initiatives so as to identify itself in the community. The company improves the education of a given area by granting fees and finances to different educational facilities. Coca Cola Company eradicates poverty in the society by creating employment opportunities to people in the society. The company focuses on customer satisfaction through the development and production of quality products and services. They also focus on their employee satisfaction by providing a favorable environment for them and providing benefit packages for the employees and their dependants.

Coca Cola Company currently distributes beverage products globally in over two hundred countries. The company has been experiencing many ethical issues over the past decade. These issues are racial discrimination, pollution on the environment, employee malpractices, moral hazards and competition malpractices. The company has been solving one ethical issue over the other because of problems in management, economic problem, leadership issues and social upheavals.

ETHICAL ISSUES

Coca Cola Company has been solving a lot of ethical issues in the past decades. This has lead to the slowing down of its business activities and loss of profits due to reduction in market facilities. These issues have affected the company drastically by creating loss of reputation and poor economic performance.

The company has been accused of causing pollution in the environment. Villages in India accused the company of using up local ground water that would lead to water problems in future. The residents claimed that the Company also emitted other types of pollution such as land and air pollution. The company was ordered to close the facility by the pollution control board of Kerara, India (Pride, Hughes & Kapoor, 2010).

Another ethical issue was found in Belgium where school children became ill after drinking Coca Cola products in 1999. The company