What If You Found the Meat You Eat at McDonalds Daily Can Kill You? What If You Are the Ceo of the Firm That Manufactures the Deadly Meat? How Would You Act?

What if you found the meat you eat at McDonalds daily can kill you? What if you are the CEO of the firm that manufactures the deadly meat? How would you act?

In August 2008, Maple leaf food’s CEO found himself in a public relations nightmare when his company became the reason for the worst food contamination crisis in the history of Canada. The outbreak caused by bacteria, listeriosis monocytogenes, found in the tainted meat produced by Maple leaf foods, resulted in deaths of 24 people and illness of 57 others.  As soon as Public health agency of Canada announced this unfortunate news, the CEO took immediate actions by shutting down the plant and recalling all the 220 meat products to prevent the spread of listeriosis. In this time of ethical crisis, the CEO showed exemplary leadership and proactive decision making, thereby saving his firm. Although, the incident resulted in Maple leaf foods incurring losses of 30 million dollars and deep loss in shareholder’s value, the way he acted in this situation in a proactive and responsible manner is an example of how other firms should act when faced with similar ethical dilemmas and how one person’s values can help shape the values of the organization.

In this paper, I’ll discuss the agents involved in this case, examine the decisions taken by these agents through various models we have studied in the class and understand why the Maple leaf food approach worked? The active agents in our case are Michaal Mccain (CEO of Maple leaf Foods) and Federal inspectors, who performed timely inspections at processing plants of Maple leaf foods. The passive agents involved in this case are the consumers, who bore the consequences of the actions taken by these active agents.

You shut down the plant, you recall products from stores and distributors, you undergo deep cleaning in all your plants, but do you believe your customers deserve to know the truth? As per discussion in the class, the class agreed that Michael Mccain, by coming out in the front of the media through videos, took all the right steps. He came out in the open and dared to be transparent. He sympathized with the people who lost their lives and wanted them to know what really happened. He wanted to regain the confidence of his customers and wanted to take all measures to prevent any such incident in the future by giving a clear roadmap. His actions that followed after the crisis, were a perfect example of how one should act under the hypernorms method of moral reasoning. This brings me to a personal example at my workplace, where I committed a mistake in the design of a civil engineering structure. The faulty design could lead to falling of the structure, resulting in death and injuries to people, although the probability of that happening was very low. As soon as I came to know about this fault, I took responsibility of my actions, even though it could result in me losing my job. My actions resulted in positive outcome for everyone and I strongly led my organization in the two years which followed after this incidemt. Acting according to my values made me realize the statement of Michale Mccain that “Don’t underestimate the power of having well-entrenched values and an up-to-date code of behaviour”.