Volkswagen Emissions Scandal: Ethical and Business Implications Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Volkswagen emissions scandal, focusing on the ethical and business implications of the company's actions. The introduction sets the stage by highlighting the scandal involving defeat devices in VW vehicles and its impact on stakeholders. The report then delves into four key ethical theories: deontology, utilitarianism, contract theory, and virtue theory, applying each to the VW case to evaluate the ethical dimensions of the company's decisions. The analysis examines how VW's actions align with or deviate from these ethical frameworks, considering the perspectives of consumers, employees, and the environment. The report emphasizes the importance of ethical duty, consequences, contractual obligations, and character traits in assessing VW's behavior. Finally, the report offers recommendations for improving VW's ethical practices, including communication, transparency, and a commitment to environmental sustainability. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the need for ethical standards and responsible business practices to prevent similar scandals in the future. The report draws upon academic references to support its analysis.

Report

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Deontology......................................................................................................................................1
Utilitarianism...................................................................................................................................2
Contract............................................................................................................................................2
Virtue theory....................................................................................................................................3
Recommendations............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

Introduction
Over the past years, it has been seen that Volkswagen (VW) has been dealing with the internal
scandal and maintaining the integrity of the company. The company has been handling the
scandals related to the wide variety of the vehicles with the defeat device that is complied with
the U.S. emission standards. The diesel car manufacturing also requires handling the software
which has been in the car to clean the diesel exhaustion. With this, the software also become
enabled when the car need to go with the different testing procedures. With this, the testing also
includes how the people and the stakeholders can deal with the customers, employees and the
environment in the different manner (Tse et al., 2017). The individualism is mainly through
setting the different standards about the quality of the diesel engines that have been put in the
cars to make the sales. VW works on the disregards of the responsibilities for the global
environment with the years focusing on the friendly and the sustainable development. The
actions are related to the bottom line with the importance based on the company objectives.
Deontology
The theory of Kantianism has been considered as the major principle which is based on handling
the ethical duty to treat the people with respect and then capable of living the autonomous life.
The people who are living need to be treated as ends with the means that can help in
accomplishments of determining the rights and the justification processes based on the range and
the scope of the rights (Stittmatter et al., 2017). The processes are based on how the consumers,
employees and the dealers have been able to act incredible from the Kantian perspective. VW
has never given up the people with the right that they should work on. The company also focus
on supporting the people with the belief in the facts and the images of the company. The

dishonesty kept consumers buying the cars and the shareholders buying the stock of the
company. The employees have been working on the faulty cars with dealing about the selling of
the cars. The VW has been able to keep the base of their sales and the business going without
taking much of the focus on whether the decisions made were right or not.
Utilitarianism
The theory deals with the emphasis on focusing over the different people with the handling of the
consequentialist ethics which is important for determining the actions whether they are good or
bad (Rhodes, 2016). The reflections are depending upon the ethical theory which includes the
different perspectives related to the actions that are oppositional to Utilitarian. The focus is on
the entire scandal with the shape or the forms that do not have the benefit from the actions of
Volkswagen. The consumers are now facing the issues related to how they can handle the
defected cars, and the employees have preferably lost their jobs as well. With this, the
perspectives are being focusing on what needs to be done for the rectification of the problems
and to handle the issues. There are standards set with the compliance management and the
auditing that has been done with the company. Here, VW is evaluating the creation of the issues
with the involvement of the people that could reinforce the standards of the compliance.
Contract
VW works on the actions where the situation is considered to handle and avoid the time and
money with the development of the cleaner diesel engine (Wang et al., 2016). The company
focus is mainly on focusing over the sales with sacrificing the integrity of the company image for
the better decisions. The Volkswagen has been focusing on the goal and the behaviour of the
congruence in between the company and itself. The action plans are related to bring a change in

the deals of the company, where VW is trying to regain the trust of the customers, stakeholders
and the government (Griffin et al., 2016). For this, they need to handle the publishing of the
detailed reports about the cars that include the different tests and the information which could
easily be collected to verify the data authenticity. The verification is based on the involvement of
the check=ins with handling the right directions in terms of getting rid of the top-level executives
and the board members. VW has been working on the attractive, safe and the environmental
sound vehicles to compete with the increasingly tough market and then setting the standards in
the respective classes. The major focus is on the mission statements where one can strive for the
fulfilment of the goals. The company has been able to work on creating different programs for
the consumers with continued path that is being followed with the unfortunate scandals.
Virtue theory
The theory focus on how the people should focus on the discovering of the character traits which
also includes the good and the full human life (Oldenkamp et al., 2016). The VW has been able
to take hold of the courageous standards with the will to stand for the proper rights and the ideas,
actions that have been important for defining the installation of the defected software. Here, the
virtue of honesty is important for the companies and the customers, with temperance and self-
control that could be defined with the expectations and the desires. The company is also able to
focus on the justifications to work hard to produce the quality products and then uphold the
business practices. The software products with the complying to the government regulations
could easily be avoided by different virtue standards. With this, the company is also focusing on
how to handle the virtue ethics with courage, honesty, justice and the temperance that has a
greater self-control.

Recommendations
The decisions are important to be taken for the effectiveness with the growth and handling the
employees with the positive value and vision. The industrial development is based on the
communication which is the major key for maintaining the position vision and the values that are
distributed to the employees so that the company can work with the best performance. The major
focus is on the beneficence and the consumers working over the responsibility factors with the
mission statement so that they can meet and complete their responsibilities. The strategies
include the missionary statement where VW need to work on “Dark Green” and bringing the
environmental sustainability as well for the company. The consumers and the shareholders need
to think about the different perspectives with the close interactions in the future. The consumers
tend to focus on the transparency and handling the system standards in a proper manner.
Conclusion
VW is working over the defeat device enabled VW emissions which are for handling the starting
of the wave of investigations. The vehicles are emission up to 40 times more than the other
harmful particles than the emission test results. The management has failed to justify the
decisions for the three rationalisation tests which impact the customers, general population,
employees and the government (Griffin et al., 2016). The improvement could mainly be through
the principles of connectedness, freedom and responsibility and the principle of effects. It
includes the designing and the implementation of the tailored ethical standards that are set at the
different levels of operations with monitoring and enforcing the measures. The focus is also on
attracting the effective and the efficiency of the employees with innovation, environment and the
financial growth.