COMM 101: Ethical Product Recalls and Corporate Responsibility

This discussion board post addresses the ethical considerations surrounding product recalls, focusing on the question of how serious a risk must be before a recall is ethically justified. The student analyzes the Dell battery recall and the Ford Pinto case, arguing for immediate action in response to consumer harm reports. The student agrees with the importance of prioritizing consumer safety and product satisfaction, emphasizing that recalling a product is ethically appropriate, and that waiting leads to greater damage to the business image. The post also references academic sources to support the arguments. The student also supports the original prompt and gives further insight into what the student learned from the prompt and the importance of the recall.

COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Students’ Name
Institutional affiliation

How Seriously Does A Risk Have To Be Ethically Correct To Recall The Product?
Basing on the incidences reported in the selected discussion articles, several issues can be
noted. However, the most cross-cutting issue is that, when product hazards erupt, the decision to
perceive a wait and look perception towards the issue often leads to more serious actions and
impacts on the organizations.1 Therefore, the answer on the appropriate time to undertake action
when these hazards erupt is based on the idea of immediate action taking. Since the imminent
outcomes of not taking action on the first red flag have already been sufficiently displayed in all
the cases. It is advisable for corporate organizations embrace immediate action taking soon after
they have received consumer harm reports. Notably, recalling the product should be influenced
by the impact of the emerging hazard on the consumers’ utility and also safety.2
Dell should not have waited longer to act. This is because of the comparison between
associated costs that could have been incurred on acting earlier and acting after the development
of the situation.3 For instance, it would have been cheaper managing the situation at the
beginning by identifying the causes of the fires, putting the appropriate anti-mechanism in the
production process hence being able to manage the ultimate damage of the business picture.
Similarly, Ford should have implemented a corrective measure to the product flaws rather
than choosing to pay off lawsuits.4 Ford is a large corporation with a broad business image, an
earlier decision to redesign the product; however, its impact on the production cost and margins
1 John, Zhengming Zhang, Ramadass Premanand and Fang Weifeng. "Safety of lithium-ion batteries."
In Lithium-Ion Batteries, pp. 409-435. Elsevier, 2014.
2 Stuart, Madden, M.. "Modern Post-Sale Warnings and Related Obligations." Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 27
(2000): 33.
3 Christoph, Lütge. Ford Pinto: Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Allowed in Ethical Decision Making?. SAGE
Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals, 2018.

would have been appropriate. The decision would have been appropriate in two ways; positive
overall business image and a prolonged life span of the product in the market.
Response To The Student:
Problem-solving involves thinking more about the solution than the problem. Hence, I
agree with the student that Dell's decision to blaming the contracted suppliers of the notebook
4 Friedman, H. H, &. Gerstein, M. (2015). Using Disasters to Teach Ethics in Accounting and
Business. Journal of Accounting, Ethics, and Public Policy, 16(3).

batteries would have worked insufficiently towards solving the reported hazard. Furthermore, it
has always been paramount that consumer safety during the product utility stage is as well
important. Therefore, reports about the onset of fires from overheating of the batteries should
have created the need for the organization to ascertain and guarantee the product safety for
consumers. In such cases, providing safety measures to the consumer regarding avoiding such
accidents is important before completion of the recalling and replacement of the vulnerable
products.
I also support the student that since there was no better contingency for ensuring the
safety of the lithium batteries. It was ethically appropriate for the company to recall the product
as a measure of ensuring customer safety during use of the product. The safety issue is
epitomized from the dangers posed by the unfortunate incidences. Furthermore, the diversity of
the dangers, both minor and serious, depending on the context of occurrence also calls for the
recall as the best safety contingency. Besides consumer safety, as discussed by the student, it also
enhances consumer product satisfaction and retention, which are important for revenue margins.
Additionally, similarly, safety concerns that emerge from product use hazards like the Ford pinto
incidence and their ultimate outcomes also justify the importance of recalling or providing
contingencies for such scenarios
Thank you
Bibliography

Gerstein, M., & Friedman, H. H. (2015). Using Disasters to Teach Ethics in Accounting and
Business. Journal of Accounting, Ethics, and Public Policy, 16(3).
Lütge, Christoph. Ford Pinto: Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Allowed in Ethical Decision Making?.
SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals, 2018.
Madden, M. Stuart. "Modern Post-Sale Warnings and Related Obligations." Wm. Mitchell L.
Rev. 27 (2000): 33.
Zhang, Zhengming John, Premanand Ramadass, and Weifeng Fang. "Safety of lithium-ion
batteries." In Lithium-Ion Batteries, pp. 409-435. Elsevier, 2014.