Presentation on Uber's Ethical and Governance Failures (ACCT 2269)

This presentation examines the ethical and governance failures of Uber, focusing on the scandal that arose due to issues such as sexual harassment, gender inequality in pay, and a toxic work environment. It begins with relevant facts, including the impact of Susan Fowler's public allegations, and identifies the stakeholders affected, particularly employees and consumers. The presentation delves into the ethical issues, highlighting violations of principles such as honesty, respect, and justice, as well as breaches of ethical theories like ethics of care and utilitarianism. Governance issues, including the resignation of CEO Travis Kalanick and a lack of transparency, are also discussed. The analysis concludes with lessons learned, insights from ethics theories, and potential improvements in governance, emphasizing the need for accountability and ethical leadership. The presentation references key sources such as Larcker & Tayan (2017) and Carrie (2017).

ETHICS AND
GOVERNANCE

Introductio
n
UBER Technologies Inc. is an American international
transportation company. It has been a leading
transportation company across the globe but in
recent years company faced a lot of issues, law
suits and protests. There were many unethical
steps taken by UBER due to which their was
huge loss in the business.

Relevant Facts
▹ A former employee of UBER named
as Susan Fowler wrote about sexual
harassment and negligence by the
departments on Twitter.
▹ Women employees were getting less
salary as compared to male
employees.
▹ The male employees were talking
nonsense about women character
like, one of the male employee said
that a woman got the job in UBER
due to his physical relation with a
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▹ Furthermore, there was an incident
where a male software engineer said
that UBER recruit women who can
sleep their way to the top. Therefore,
Ms. Avendano complained about this
but the HR department ignored this.
▹ Also, male employees misbehave with
women employees, comment on their
physical appearance but no action was
taken by UBER.
▹ Moreover, there were no rewards or
promotion schemes for women
employees.

“The tweet of Susan
was about the
sexism she faced
while working at
UBER. The post
consist of 2900
words. After posting
it became the
headlines of
newspaper, media
and impacted a lot.6

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The Stakeholders Impacted
▹ The scandal of UBER has
impacted a lot to its
stakeholders.
▹ The most impacted by the
unethical steps of UBER was
their employees as bunch of
employees expelled from their
job.
▹ There was huge effect on
women’s image and
reputation.

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Impact on Stakeholder
oMoreover, consumers were facing
issues in transportation and also,
their trust at UBER was decreasing.
oEven though the personal life of
women affected a lot as people
were criticizing them and blaming
them.

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•There are number of ethical issues of
UBER such as, passenger safety,
security of drivers, privacy, unethical
practices and ignorance of rules and
regulations by UBER departments.
•The UBER was becoming a safety
hazard due to its unethical works and
conducts.
•It can be easily said that UBER has
abolished many ethical principles and
values such as:
Honesty and Loyalty
Ethical ISSUES
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oUBER also, violated ethical
and moral theories such as:
Ethics of care
Utilitarianism, UBER never
judged what is right or what
is wrong.
UBER never showed concern
for rules and principles and
this refer to breach of
deontological ethics.

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Governance Issues
▹ There was a mega governance
issue that the CEO, Travis Kalanick
resigned his post and sold all his
stake.
▹ At many of the countries UBER
services are banned due to its
unethical issues.
▹ There was also lack of
transparency.
▹ The breach of ethics, morality,

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▹ Therefore, the mentioned issues are
under the responsibility of UBER
management and legal department
to solve it.
▹ After this much chaos UBER decided
to frame new ethical policies and
structure for women employees and
for workplace too.
▹ Moreover, they have expelled
number of employees who
misbehaved with women
employees.
▹ They could also take some serious
steps for male employees to set as
an example for future. For example,
any harsh punishment, a case file,

Outcomes of
Sacadal
oThere was negligence of
ethical theories and
principles in UBER like they
breach the principle of
integrity.
oThe governance need to
improved due to the reason
of women respect and
safety.
oThe concerned people
avoided these things by not
listening the complaints and
not taking any action against
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Insights
▹ At UBER there was lack of
good governance and values
which benefited a lot to male
employees to do anything.
▹ The HR department never
investigated or supported
any women employees
complaining about their
situation as the department

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Conclusion
▹ The above presentation can
be summarized that UBER
has faced a lot due to its
own mistakes and
misbehaves.
▹ Their strategy of low price
affected drivers income due
to which drivers feels
unsatisfied.

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▹ In regard to the issues there
was huge benefit of UBER
competitors such as Lyft.
▹ The employees regined from
UBER and joined its
competitors company.

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References
▹ Larcker, D.F. and Tayan, B. (2017) Governance Gone Wild:
Epic Misbehavior at Uber Technologies. Rock Center for
Corporate Governance at Stanford University Closer Look
Series: Topics, Issues and Controversies in Corporate
Governance No. CGRP-70, pp.18-3.
▹ Carrie, J. (2017) Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigns following
months of chaos. technology, 6, p.21.
▹ Jones, R.M. (2017) The Unicorn Governance Trap. U. Pa. L.
Rev. Online, 166, p.165.
▹ Jordan, J.M. (2017) Challenges to large-scale digital
organization: the case of Uber. Journal of Organization
Design, 6(1), p.11.
▹ Royakkers, L., Timmer, J., Kool, L. and van Est, R. (2018)
Societal and ethical issues of digitization. Ethics and
Information Technology, 20(2), pp.127-142.

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