Ford Pinto Case Analysis

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Reflection

The most focused reflection from this case is identifying the consequences, obviously, Iaccoca did not think about the potential consequences for each party and he was very shortsighted, he were too devoting himself into increasing business benefit in short term by following methods, reduction of Ford Pinto production cost and accelerating the speed of Ford Pinto appearing on the market. In business decisions, it’s extremely important to consider about long-term and short-term results. From the beginning, before accident showed up, Iaccoca’s behavior already could be defined as an unethical consideration over a long period of time, the terrible accident just a reasonable fruit that resulted from his selfish decision. Further, symbolic consequences also an important element when people make decision, every decision and action sent a message, it stands for something. Ford Pinto accident incurred public accusation and damage of company reputation, except huge compensation to victims, the quantities of Ford’s sales volume got great declination, this loss surpassed the original saving cost of rejection Pinto fuel tank redesigning.

Applying 8 steps decision making in Ford Pinto Case

Generally, if we put ourselves into special circumstance and use specific knowledge to find solution, we will better understand the knowledge in more deep and practical way. When combining Ford Pinto Case with 8 steps decision-making, it will product more reasonable way to solve this problem. The first step is gathering the facts and defining the ethical issues, the test results show that fuel tank design exist dangerous elements for drivers and the ethical issue is low quality automobile having more possibility to harm people’s life. The next steps are identifying affected parties, consequences and obligations, which mean if the low quality design causes harmful accidents, it will affect customers, legal operation departments and Ford’s employee. Customers will not willing to buy Ford’s productions, legal operation department will enforce supervisory control to Ford Company and Ford’s employee will face the danger of unemployment, so the upper managers should know their main obligations are not earning money in short-term but keeping high quality of production. After these above- mentioned identifying process, the upper manager need considering their character and integrity, then thinking creatively about potential actions, their decisions have strong relationship with customer, Ford’s work and cost, they can use their test result as advertisement to prove their production quality to gain reputation and business profits. At the end, the up manager also need check their gut to make sure the decisions are ethical.

References

LINDA K.TREVINO & KATHERINE A.NELSON (2013) Business ethics straight talk about how to do it right .38-68

PALMITER (1999) The ford pinto case: the valuation of life as it applies to the negligence-efficiency argument.

Birsch, D., & Fielder, J. (1994). The ford pinto case: a study in applied ethics, business, and technology. Albany: State Univeresity of New York Press.