Corporate Sustainability and Reputation Analysis

This assignment delves into the world of corporate sustainability, analyzing the historical development and reporting practices surrounding this crucial aspect of business. It also examines the impact of a brand crisis on nation branding and stakeholder relations, using the Volkswagen emissions scandal as a case study. The study highlights the importance of effective reputation management and provides insights into best practices for companies looking to improve their social responsibility and sustainability performance.

Research Design
And Methods

Table of Contents
TITLE .............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
Research Problems: ....................................................................................................................1
Importance of research problems: ..............................................................................................2
Gantt Chart:.................................................................................................................................2
Literature review: ............................................................................................................................3
Concept of emission scandal within an organisation..................................................................3
Impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of Volkswagen Group. ..........3
Different ways through which impact of emission scandal on reputation and brand equity of
company can be overcome. ........................................................................................................4
Research methodology: ...................................................................................................................4
Research design:..........................................................................................................................5
Data Collection: .........................................................................................................................5
Research Philosophies: ...............................................................................................................5
Data analysis: .............................................................................................................................6
Findings:......................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8
.........................................................................................................................................................9

ABSTRACT
Main purpose of this report is to analyse the impact of emission scandal on the brand
equity and reputation of Volkswagen Group. It is a given multinational automotive
manufacturing organisation for this project. This project is based on issues which were faced by
Volkswagen Group such as emission scandal. It is a biggest issue that impact on reputation and
brand equity of company. For identifying quantitative information about the topic, literature
review were played vital role by providing in-depth information. Along with this, different
methods were also used for collecting accurate and reliable data about the study. For this,
inductive research, secondary research,deductive analysis etc. were used by investigator to
collect qualitative information. At last, finding have been done with the help of quantitative
research and appropriate conclusion were derived for this research.
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TITLE
“To analyze the impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of an
organization. A case study on Volkswagen Group.
INTRODUCTION
Brand equity introduces to the power that an organisation derives from goodwill and
name recognition accrued over time. It also translates into much more sales volume and profit
margin against competing brands. For this report, given organisation is Volkswagen which is
German multinational automotive manufacturing company. It was founded by Hans Dieter
Potsch, Dr. Herbert Diess in Berlin, Germany. Company mainly specialise in designing,
manufacturing and distributing commercial and passenger vehicles, engines, motorcycles and
turbomachinery and provides related services including leasing, fleet management and financing.
Along with this, the emission scandal considerably effected on reputation and brand equity of
Volkswagen. After admitting the scandal, an organisation was subjected to billions of dollars in
fines and litigation including the expenditure of fixing the affected cars, around 11million.
Likewise, the scandal has also impacted the business owners because the selling prices for the
involved motor vehicle or car in the scandal have decreased significantly (Ayoola and Olasanmi,
2013).
Research Problems:
One of the main problem in research is to analysis impact of emission scandal on the
brand equity and reputation of an organization. Volkswagen estimates that as approximately 11
million of its motor vehicles worldwide that have been impacted after acknowledging it used
software to deceive United State regulators analysing toxic emissions in few of its diesel cars. It
is a biggest issue in organisation that will highly impact on brand equality and reputation of
company (Charles Jr, Schmidheiny and Watts, 2017). It is a marketing and ethical nightmare for
a development of brand on reliability. Therefore, it is a biggest issue that negatively impact on
brand image and reputation of an organisation. It also influence on market share and sales of
company. Thus, it is externally influence on customer's perception and view towards brand name
of an organisation.
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Importance of research problems:
Brand equality and reputation of company is most essential for an organisation. With the
help of this research, an investigator can easily identify impact of emission scandal on brand
equity and image of an organisation. It is a biggest issue which negatively influence on
customer's perception towards brand. It will also support those organisation to overcome impact
of emission scandal on its brand equity and reputation easily.
Gantt Chart:
It is identify as an effective tool which will support an investigator to analysis starting
and ending time period for completion of research activities easily (Christofi, Christofi and
Sisaye, 2012). This chart includes different activities which will support an investigator to done
each and every steps of research in more systematic and effective manner.
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Rationale of research: Main reason behind selecting this topic or research is to identify
impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of an organization. It is a biggest
topic which will support an investigator to improve their literature review skill, data analysis and
data collection skills. Thus with the help of this skills an investigator can easily collect
information or data about the topic and gain better results for further research. It will also assist a
researcher to analysis different ways through which negative impact and risk of emission scandal
on brand reputation and image of company can be overcome easily (Epstein, 2018).
Research Limitation. One of the main limitation of research is time because for
completing each activities of research, accurate time period is needed by an investigatory. There
are another limitations related to the research methodology including, Formulation of research
aims and objectives, Implementation of data collection method, Lack of previous studies in the
research area and Scope of discussions.
Research questions
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 What are the concept emission scandal within an organisation?
 What are the impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of
Volkswagen Group? What are the different ways through which impact of emission scandal on reputation and
brand equity of company can be overcome?
Research Objectives
 To identify the concept emission scandal within an organisation.
 To analyze the impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of
Volkswagen Group.
 To investigate different ways through which impact of emission scandal on reputation
and brand equity of company can be overcome.
Literature review:
It is also known as narrative reviews which is an essential type of review articles. It
includes, current knowledge about substantive findings as well as methodological and theoretical
contribution to a specific research topic (Hahn and Kühnen, 2013). Main purpose of literature
review is to analysis gaps and conflicts in previous studies. In this section all research questions
and objectives are address in more effective and systematic manner.
Concept of emission scandal within an organisation.
According to the Craig Smith, Erin McCormick, (2018), The Volkswagen emission
scandal began in 2015, when the US environmental protection agency issued. The case is a
elaborate 'inside' history of the 'dieselgate' scandal at Volkswagen group which discovered how
engineers had planned or programmed software that modify its card to cheat emissions tests.
Along with this, it research the origins of external and internal factors that propelled an
organisation to market environmentally or surroundings sustainable "clean diesel" cars while
applying engine management software program to hide on-the-road emissions of around forty
times the permitted levels. Therefore, The scandal is one of the highest of the period of time -
exemplify contributing forces that are common to different instances of an organizational
misconduct: organizational culture, obedience to authority, goal-setting and corporate
governance.
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Impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of Volkswagen Group.
According to the Seb Joseph, (2015), Volkswagen is a very famous German auto-mobile
company working worldwide by supplying their cars in entire world. It is the number one car
manufacture in world but the company get accused for a scandal which was a very unethical step
taken by the Volkswagen and it also affected their brand image. It took place in 2015, the
environmental protection agency found out that cars supplied by Volkswagen has some defeat
devices fitted in for showing the balanced emission while pollution check. These defect was
found in diesel cars manufactured by the company and mostly those cars for which they did
marketing campaign trumpeting cars low emission. After the EPA's investigation almost 482000
cars was found defected only in US and rest 11 million cars that was supplied all over the world.
Volkswagen's model included in this scandal was Audi A3, Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat. Owner
of VW completely denied to accept this claim and said that they doesn't even know about it and
it was the mistake of their engineers. This unethical step of Volkswagen affected the
environment very much as well as their brand image through some tweets made by data provider
Admantx ans through some websites of consumer's views. Company was a very well trusted
brand by every person and after this scandal, it has lost its value to a large extent
Different ways through which impact of emission scandal on reputation and brand equity of
company can be overcome.
Implementation of Proper Rules And Regulation: According to the Ayoola and
Olasanmi, (2013), It is identify as an effective way which should be followed by Volkswagen
Group. Thus, with the help of this, company can easily overcome impact of emission scandal on
their reputation and brand image. Proper implementation of rules and regulations also assist an
organisation to maintain customer's turnover and achieve better outputs within given time period.
Government rules and regulations help a business leader and manager to do their business
activities and operations in more suitable and effective manner.
External audit: It is identify as an effective role of company to conduct an external audit
which will help them to identify perception and motive of manager. In emission scandal,
different manager of Volkswagen are involved which will negative impact on brand reputation
and goodwill of company. Thus, with the help of external audit, company can easily identify
whose managers are involved in this issue.
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Power to higher authorities: It introduces as an effective and best way through which
negative influence of emission scandal can be overcome by the company. In this, company could
provide power and responsibility to top authority which will assist an organisation to overcome
such impact in effective and efficient manner.
Research methodology:
It is identify as an effective part of research which will help an investigator to collect
reliable and in-depth information about the topic (Ioannou and Serafeim, 2017). In order to
analysis impact of impact of emission scandal on the brand equity and reputation of Volkswagen,
different number of research methods will be used by researcher some are determine as under:
Research design:
The entire research activities relays on research design which is used by researcher for
analysing impact of effects of emission scandal on brand image and reputation of Volkswagen.
There are mainly mainly three form of research design including, exploratory, experimental and
descriptive. All these types of research designs are essential and important but according to the
topic, descriptive design will be applied by investigator (Jung, Chilton and Valero, 2017). As it
will be more suitable and help a researcher to drive valid and effective conclusion for study.
Data Collection:
There are mainly two types of data collection methods such as primary and secondary.
Under primary source, questionnaire will be applied to accumulate accurate and reliable data
about the effects of emission scandal on reputation and brand equality of Volkswagen. With the
help of questionnaire, a researcher can also analysis response and perception of customers
towards business products and services (Karjaluoto, Munnukka and Kiuru, 2016). On the other
side, there are different sources of secondary data collection, including books, journals, company
documents, magazines, newspaper reports, interviews with senior managers and many other
publication research. All these are consider best and effective sources for investigator to
accumulate proper and in-depth information about the impact of emission scandal on image of
company. Therefore both are essential methods of data collection which should be followed by
researcher in systematic and effective manner.
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Research Philosophies:
There are two types of research philosophies such as interpretivisim and positivism. Both
are essential but in order to evaluate impact of emission scandal on reputation and brand equality
of Volkswagen, interpretivisim philosophy will be applied by researcher (Luo and et. al., 2015).
As it will support an investigator to evaluate data or information effectively and further drive
valid conclusion for study. On the other side, there is positivism philosophy which will be not
appropriate and accurate according to the topic because it not give valid data.
Data analysis:
The data analysis will be completed with the support of thematic evaluation. In this case,
different number of themes or patterns will be made on every question which will assist in
carrying out project effectively (Zhang, Veijalainen and Kotkov, 2016). Qualitative and
quantitative are also consider as an effective method of data analysis used by investigator to
collect in-depth and quality information. In case of quantitative research, main purpose of this
research is to quantify accurate data about the research. Along with this, there are different
methods of analysing data about the study such as inductive analyse, deductive analysis,
regression analyse and thematic analyse. (Vitezić, 2011). All these are best and effective method
for analysing accurate information about the topic. On the other hand, in order to analysis
qualitative data about the topic, there are different sources such as individual interviews, focus
groups, observation or immersion, and diary studies. According to this study, deductive method
of data analyse is more suitable because it will provide information in quantity and numbers.
Therefore, deductive analyse is a part of quantitative research which will assist an investigator to
gather information or data in form of numbers, figures and facts.
Findings:
According to the above information , the crisis resulted in Volkswagen groups losing its
sale ratio to Toyota. It also notes that in the predictable future, an organisation will lag behind
many other Japanese companies applying the emissions rigging scandal (Whytas, 2016). On the
other hand, in the initial 9 months using the emission scandal, it sold approximately 7.5 million
vehicles whereas as company managed or handled to marketing around 7.43m despite being the
manager in the automotive sector. Even via both organisations recorded a 1.5% reduce in sales.
Volkswagen is recalling approximately 11 million vehicles impacted by the defeat
device, which supported in cheating emission tests. Approximately 5 million vehicles of the
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brand, 1.2 million at Skoda, 2.1 million at the premium brand Audi and 1.8 million light
commercial vehicles are reportable to have been shaped with the software. Around 8 million are
in the EU, while 100,000 and 482,000 vehicles are in the Australia and U.S.
Volkswagen estimates that as approximately 11 million of their vehicles globally have
been highly affected after admitting it followed software to deceive United States regulators
analysing toxic emissions in several of its diesel cars. It has put around €6.5bn aside to recover
“the essential service measures and many other efforts” via it is looking at approximately $18bn
of fines and has been charged to recall half a million cars.
According to Amobee Brand Intelligence, which examine conducts granular and digital
consumption analysis of online behaviour and customers views across 600,000 websites,
unfavourable sentiment just about the brand maximised by 1,998 per cent between 14-18
September, after the aggregation of the The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emerged.
Along with this, Volkswagen can send a effective and powerful signal by taking a role of
leadership in the sector, addressing emissions results and automotive testing for the sector, so
that province related to environmental effects and safety can be believed.
Conclusion
From the above mentioned information, it can be concluded emission scandal is biggest
issue that highly impact on brand image and reputation of an organisation. It is a biggest issue
that externally impact on business performance and brand equity in negative impact. In order to
overcome such impact, different ways are recommend to an organisation such as; proper
implementation of government rules and regulation, external audit, power to top authority. All
these are best way to overcome impact of emission scandal on business reputation of an
organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ayoola, T. J. and Olasanmi, O.O., 2013. Business case for integrated reporting in the Nigerian
oil and gas sector. Issues In Social & Environmental Accounting. 7(1).
Charles Jr, O. H., Schmidheiny, S. and Watts, P., 2017. Walking the talk: The business case for
sustainable development. Routledge.
Christofi, A., Christofi, P. and Sisaye, S., 2012. Corporate sustainability: historical development
and reporting practices. Management Research Review. 35(2). pp.157-172.
Epstein, M. J., 2018. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring
corporate social, environmental and economic impacts. Routledge.
Hahn, R. and Kühnen, M., 2013. Determinants of sustainability reporting: a review of results,
trends, theory, and opportunities in an expanding field of research. Journal of cleaner
production. 59. pp.5-21.
Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2017. The consequences of mandatory corporate sustainability
reporting. Harvard Business School research working paper, (11-100).
Jung, K., Chilton, K. and Valero, J. N., 2017. Uncovering stakeholders in public–private
relations on social media: a case study of the 2015 Volkswagen scandal. Quality &
Quantity. 51(3). pp.1113-1131.
Karjaluoto, H., Munnukka, J. and Kiuru, K., 2016. Brand love and positive word of mouth: the
moderating effects of experience and price. Journal of Product & Brand Management.
25(6). pp.527-537.
Luo, X., and et. al., 2015. Corporate social performance, analyst stock recommendations, and
firm future returns. Strategic Management Journal. 36(1). pp.123-136.
Vitezić, N., 2011. Corporate reputation and social responsibility: an analysis of large companies
in Croatia. International Business & Economics Research Journal. 10(8). pp.85-95.
Whytas, K. J., 2016. Impact of a Brand Crisis on Nation Branding: An Analysis of Tweets about
VW’s Emissions Crisis.
Zhang, B., Veijalainen, J. and Kotkov, D., 2016. Volkswagen Emission Crisis: Managing
Stakeholder Relations on the Web. In WEBIST 2016: Proceedings of the 12th
International conference on web information systems and technologies. Volume 1, ISBN
978-989-758-186-1. SCITEPRESS.
Online
Craig Smith, Erin McCormick. 2018. Volkswagen's Emissions Scandal: How Could It Happen.
[Online]. Available through:<https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/IN1465-PDF-ENG?
itemFindingMethod=Recommendation&recommendedBy=UV3248-PDF-ENG>.
Seb Joseph. 2015. Has Volkswagen’s emissions scandal smashed the brand beyond repair.
[Online]. Available through:<https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/IN1465-PDF-ENG?
itemFindingMethod=Recommendation&recommendedBy=UV3248-PDF-ENG>.
Volkswagen's Cost Cuts At Its Namesake Brand Due To Emissions Scandal A Blessing In
Disguise. 2015. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/10/15/volkswagens-cost-
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cuts-at-its-namesake-brand-due-to-emissions-scandal-a-blessing-in-disguise/
#377a4bfb2e64>.
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