Reflection Trigger Questions on Google and Volkswagen Cases

This article analyzes the ethical implications of the Google and Volkswagen cases. It discusses Google's strategy to serve all stakeholders, maintaining privacy and profitability, and global privacy regulations affecting its operations. It also examines Volkswagen's toxic corporate culture, recovery from the ethical disaster, and reasons why the company would face further tough scrutiny of its ethical business environment.

Running head: REFLECTION TRIGGER QUESTIONS
Reflection Trigger Questions
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Background of the Google Case Note.........................................................................................2
Analysis of the Google Case Note with 3 Ethical Diagnostic Tools...........................................2
1. Google’s strategy to serve all the Stakeholders...................................................................2
2. Maintaining both privacy and profitability for Google.......................................................3
3. Global privacy regulation affecting Google’s operations....................................................3
Background of the Volkswagen Case Note.................................................................................4
Analysis of the Volkswagen Case Note with 3 Ethical Diagnostic Tools...................................5
1. Explanation of the culture of Volkswagen that created this ethical scandal.......................5
2. Recovery from the ethical disaster......................................................................................6
3. Reasons why the company would face further tough scrutiny of its ethical business
environment.............................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
Appendix........................................................................................................................................10
Results of the questionnaire.......................................................................................................10

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Background of the Google Case Note
There is no doubt in declaring that Google is the most used Internet search engine all
around the world. It is a huge organization and as an organization it provides wide scale benefits
for its employees and introducing sustainability initiatives. However, there are maximum cases
against Google dealing mostly with privacy concern, which is a major issue with the
organization (Lazer et al., 2014). Google claims that all the information of the users have been
kept under state of the art security controls but still privacy is becoming one of them in major
ethical issues for Google. Even after the claims of the organization, there are always ways by
which this claims have been denied which several examples where the user can be traced back
with the information that the person search is over the internet via Google. Another incident
portrays that the GPS tracking over Android mobile phone and internet can bring a new privacy
issue about the live location of any user (Sharon, 2016). In addition, the application called
Google Buzz made all the contacts of a person publish publicly linking into their personal Gmail
accounts. Thus, there have been investigations regarding the privacy orders for Google and the
market is still determining how information can be connected online via the ethical implications
that the organization of Google has been raising.
Analysis of the Google Case Note with 3 Ethical Diagnostic Tools
1. Google’s strategy to serve all the Stakeholders
As an organisation taking care of it employees I believe that Google is an irresponsible
company that takes care of its work force and maintains a good corporate culture. I have had a
good analysis of the surrounding environment and have found that the atmosphere within the
organisation is extremely good and the organisation also supports their employees with several
benefits (Pardo & Siemens, 2014). Nevertheless, the privacy practices that Google has been

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fighting with on regards of the confidential information leakage of every stakeholders within the
organisation, it can be said that the complaint against company and the way by which Google is
handling the entire situation could have been worked on much more efficiently. The measures
that Google has taken can be regarded as superficial amendments and I believe that the strategy
Google has taken up does not satisfy all the stakeholders of the organisation.
2. Maintaining both privacy and profitability for Google
Speaking about the ethical implications, I believe that a company's primary concern
should be the services that it has been providing to the customers before making a considerable
amount of profit. I do not believe that ethically it is a correct step that a company would think
just about the personal gains disregarding the matter of the stakeholders and the adverse effects it
has on the customers specifically (Martin, 2015). The problem that Google was facing with the
privacy error was ethically incorrect since the consumers of Google had store all their personal
and confidential data trusting the organisation. Therefore Google would have implemented a
better security system for saving them instead of thinking about the monetary investment it
would take to implement and newer and much stronger and efficient privacy system for the
protection of an individual user.
3. Global privacy regulation affecting Google’s operations
Going through the Global regulation of privacy handling the data within the internet and
the government regulations passed over it I can clearly say that it would definitely affect
Google's operations in a negative way. In 2014, the government regulation that has been passed
as a "right to be forgotten law" enables an individual user to delete all its information or any
selective part of it from the Google documents as well as the entire internet that the individual
user find a relevant or to confidential to post over the internet (Lunnay et al., 2014). The

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government is also provided a strict rule for every organisation that violates the slow and feels to
adhere to the implications. Ethically this approach is absolutely correct but on the other hand It
would also affect the operation of Google since the traditional way that the organisation has been
operating do not find a feasible way to delete the information that had been previously stored by
an individual. I believe it would only be feasible for the entire organisation of Google if they
considered making significant changes to the operations in the business process.
Background of the Volkswagen Case Note
Volkswagen is a renowned car manufacturing German company that has been
manufacturing various ranges of cars and has gained a considerable amount of popularity within
the general mass. However Volkswagen has been considered guilty on account of three criminal
felony charges with the government of United States for violating the environmental regulation,
engaging in wire fraud, obstructing justice and violating the regulations for import (Aurand et al.,
2017). Although Volkswagen has agreed to pay the criminal charges the total cost of resolving
the entire felony that the company has committed, the criminal charges could only house for a
small portion. However of late the organization has been trying to build up a reputation for the
sustainability and it has been seen that Volkswagen has become the first car manufacturer to
adopt ISO 14001 principles. However, the organization has been involved with various candles
that still makes it one of the most notoriously reputed organization adding to emissions fraud.
The organization of Volkswagen wanted to bring a new environment Sindhi call into the market
which had delivered to live up to its feature of being environment friendly and to the regulators
the emissions of the vehicles does manufactured had released very few emissions. The
Regulators have been highly satisfied with the entire scenario but to their ignorance Volkswagen
had initially installed defeat devices that help the cars to detect whenever the vehicle was going

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to go through emissions testing. This device enable the entire vehicle to run below performance
and hence it would give off maximum emissions. When the vehicles were allowed on road, it
rain and its maximum performance to give off 40 per cent of the allowable limit for emissions in
the United States (Willkomm, 2017).
When held guilty for the charges Volkswagen and admitted of installing the defeat
devices in the diesel vehicles in order to fool the regulator is and the testers however the
organization also came forward to admit that they had immediately began destroying all the
documents that at the potential to implicate the firm further. Although 17.5 billion USD was paid
as a compensation to the consumers affected by the defeat devices the only thing that would
bring back the reputation of the organization would be the incorporation of ethics inappropriate
practices within the organization inside-out (Barrett et al., 2015). Since, the organization had
only thought about short term goals and did not consider the consequences in the long term; it is
most likely that the future sustainable technology that it would adopt within the organization,
would only be validated when ethics and appropriate practices would be implemented within the
organization.
Analysis of the Volkswagen Case Note with 3 Ethical Diagnostic Tools
1. Explanation of the culture of Volkswagen that created this ethical scandal
As far as I have noticed, Volkswagen indeed had a very toxic corporate culture that
mostly focused on the games over a short period of time then considering the prophets that the
organization could acquire in long term. The fact that the manufactured vehicles had defeat
devices in the oil tank I believe that this idea of gaining profits over short term was a widely
spread out feature that the entire work force where aware of in the organization (Kanabar et al.,
2016). Without having any moral or complying with any values, the organization had

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deliberately involved in reckless behavior that was completely illegal and had the audacity to
defeat the people who are testing the devices and regulating them as well as the customers of the
organization. As a result many consumers had face the consequences of the cars which has the
potential to perform in maximum level. With this, I believe that the organization never thought
about the well-being of the consumers and their rights to a proper product from the organization
(Rogerson, 2017). Therefore, the repercussions that Volkswagen had over its consumers as well
as on the testers and the regulators, clearly states that organization never intended for thinking
about the consumers and instead made more thought about acquiring short term monetary gains.
This is what I believe I have created this scandal for Volkswagen which device all the ethical
standards.
2. Recovery from the ethical disaster
The only way that I believe that Volkswagen can regain back its previous reputation with
supported ethics and sustainability implemented within the organization is by proving to its
consumers that the organization has changed its old culture within the business process. Any
kind of misconduct should not be tolerated further if they are not complying with the ethical
standards irrespective of the person committing the unethical works (Valentini & Kruckeberg,
2018). Furthermore I also believe that the company should make amends with both the
government and their consumers and they should have a future sustainable technology that
would prove its previous stakeholders that the company has indeed changed its old operational
structure.

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3. Reasons why the company would face further tough scrutiny of its ethical business
environment
If I had been a regulator for a tester for the manufacturing of a vehicle for a renowned
organization like Volkswagen who have hand these scandals in the past, I would prefer a tougher
scrutiny for the environmental ethical claims that the company has put forward (Holland et al.,
2016). Obviously the company had already lost its previous reputation and the fraud that it is
conducted to the government has the potential to leave the organization to go through much more
implications based on the ethical and environmental regulations. as an organization in charge of
regulating and testing the vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen with past fraudulent history it
would be fair enough to implement tougher regulations for scrutiny for the company's
environmental claims; be it investment from the company's perspective call me it make the
company invest much more in acquiring a much sustainable technology (Trope & Ressler, 2016).
This is appropriate as per the fraudulent activities it is lead to its consumers and the government.

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References
Aurand, T. W., Finley, W., Krishnan, V., Sullivan, U. Y., Bowen, J., Rackauskas, M., ... &
Willkomm, J. (2017). The VW Diesel Scandal: Engaging Students via Case Research,
Analysis, Writing, and Presentation of Findings. Journal of Higher Education Theory and
Practice, 17(7), 10-21.
Barrett, S. R., Speth, R. L., Eastham, S. D., Dedoussi, I. C., Ashok, A., Malina, R., & Keith, D.
W. (2015). Impact of the Volkswagen emissions control defeat device on US public
health. Environmental Research Letters, 10(11), 114005.
Holland, S. P., Mansur, E. T., Muller, N. Z., & Yates, A. J. (2016). Damages and expected
deaths due to excess NO x emissions from 2009 to 2015 Volkswagen diesel
vehicles. Environmental science & technology, 50(3), 1111-1117.
Kanabar, V., Hefley, W., Messikomer, C., & Thomas, A. (2016). Integrating Ethics and
Professionalism Learning Outcomes in a Project Management Course.
Lazer, D., Kennedy, R., King, G., & Vespignani, A. (2014). The parable of Google Flu: traps in
big data analysis. Science, 343(6176), 1203-1205.
Lunnay, B., Borlagdan, J., McNaughton, D. and Ward, P. (2015). Ethical use of social media to
facilitate qualitative research. Qualitative Health Research, 25(1), pp.99-109.
Martin, K.E. (2015). Ethical issues in the big data industry.
Pardo, A., & Siemens, G. (2014). Ethical and privacy principles for learning analytics. British
Journal of Educational Technology, 45(3), 438-450.

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Rogerson, S. (2017). Is professional practice at risk following the Volkswagen and Tesla motors
revelations?. ORBIT Journal, 1(1).
Sharon, T. (2016). The Googlization of health research: from disruptive innovation to disruptive
ethics. Personalized medicine, 13(6), pp.563-574.
Trope, R. L., & Ressler, E. K. (2016). Mettle fatigue: VW's single-point-of-failure ethics. IEEE
Security & Privacy, 14(1), 12-30.
Valentini, C., & Kruckeberg, D. (2018). “Walking the environmental responsibility talk” in the
automobile industry: An ethics case study of the Volkswagen environmental
scandal. Corporate Communications: An International Journal.

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Appendix
Results of the questionnaire