Volkswagen Case Study

Part I

Volkswagen is founded at the year 1937 to enable German families to own their first car. In the year 1975, Volkswagen Group was formed as a holding company for growing car maker (bbc). Volkswagen Group is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturer and the largest carmaker in Europe. Currently, the group owns twelve brand which are Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN (Volkswagen ag).

In this case study, Volkswagen have been founded out of cheating emissions tests in the US. The cars that are being sold had a “defeat device” in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, and change its performance accordingly to improve results. Volkswagen installed computer software into the engines that detect test scenarios and put the vehicle into a sort of safety mode which allow for lower power and performance. The company also accused of modifying software on the 3 litre diesel engines in order to fit in some Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen models.  It is found out that the engine’s normal performance would emitted nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times above US restriction. After the scandal exposed, Mr Winterkorn resigned and replaced by Matthias Mueller. Volkswagen faced huge financial impact due to recalling of vehicles, fine from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and legal actions from customers and shareholders. The reputation of Volkswagen is also heavily damaged due to the scandal. Beside these consequences, the scandal resulted a huge fall in diesel engine cars sale. It also makes industry to realize that emission test requires tightening to ensure this kind of scandal from happening again.

After reading this case study, I feel that corporations need to be more considerate and responsible. Corporations should not be blinded by profit. They need to understand the consequences that the decision they made could bring before implementing it. Corporate social responsibility should be emphasize even more than before to prevent this kind of scandal. Another similar occasions is the Takata airbag recall. There are incidents of Takata airbag explodes, injuring or even killing passengers when deployed. The danger of the airbag is that when it deployed, the inflator have chance of spraying metal shard from the airbag which harmed the passengers. Therefore, Takata is required to recall and replace all the airbags to prevent this kind of malfunction. If these corporations have more responsibility when implementing decisions, then these scandal and incidents could be prevented and replaced with alternatives decision that would benefit both society and the corporations itself.

Part II

A responsible business often use core value as guidance and direction. The common core value that responsible business possess include commitment, integrity and respectful to others.

Commitment is the state of being dedicated to an action or causes. It is formed through being passionate in solving business problem. Commitments create motivation which in turn drives the company forwards. Being committed ensure business to put their best effort in order to achieve a better situation than before.