Reference no: EM132809207

1. There are a lot of news, stories about unethical behavior in the workplace have been a regular feature on TV. In the face of these scandals, researchers have been slowly uncovering the causes of such behavior. Usually, we think that unethical behavior is the result of poor character: bad people do bad things. But this attachment may be profoundly inadequate. Ethics in business is very important to sustain in the competition because unethical practices in business may cause negative image in the mind of its stakeholders like customers, suppliers, and society at larger. There are several conditions that gave rise to unethical business strategies and behavior such as: the top management like CEO try to exploit company resources for their personal gains and pleasures. Heavy pressures on company managers or employees to meet or beat earnings targets, the managers of the company stops promotion of employee based on biased behavior or discrimination in context of age, gender, religion etc also make employees has unethical behavior also. A company culture that puts the profitability and good business performance ahead of ethical behavior is easily make people unethical. Marketing and advertisement of products and services to mislead the customers so that they would purchase their products.

As one of the most valuable brand names worldwide, Coca-Cola has generally excelled as a business over its long history. However, in recent decades the company has had difficulty meeting its financial objectives and has been associated with a number of ethical crises. As a result, some investors have lost faith in the company. For example, Warren Buffet (board member and strong supporter of and investor in Coca-Cola) resigned from the board in 2006 after years of frustration over Coca-Cola's failure to overcome its challenges. Since the 1990s Coca-Cola has been accused of unethical behavior in a number of areas, including product safety, anti-competitiveness, racial discrimination, channel stuffing, distributor conflicts, intimidation of union workers, pollution, depletion of natural resources, and health concerns. The company has dealt with a number of these issues, some via private settlements and some via court battles, while others remain unresolved. Although its handling of different ethical situations has not always been lauded, Coca-Cola has generally responded by seeking to improve its detection and compliance systems. However, it remains to be seen whether the company can permanently rise above its ethical problems, learn from its mistakes.

2. The crisis began on October 15th, 2001, with the death of two patients in Spain. The demise was traced back to dialyzers. Baxter immediately started investigations into the filter and possible causes of the deaths. It stopped shipping out the dialyzers-in-question to abate future crises. On October 9th, they announced the analysis results conducted internally and by an independent group that did not show conclusive evidence into the deaths. Nearly two dozen deaths followed that in Croatia, which was too much of a coincidence. They flew to the scene and issued a worldwide recall for the dialyzer and a return credit, costing them approximately 10 Million dollars. Continued investigations found traces of perfluoro hydro-carbon-fluid in some of the dialyzers. The fluids used to test filters that required leak repairs were meant to be removed from the filters before shipping. On the downside, dialyzers from their Romney plant left significant traces of the fluid. It was not harmful at room temperature; however, when heated to body temperature and in a patient's bloodstream, it produced a gas, causing fatal pulmonary embolisms as well as death. The company paid approximately $189 million to cover settlements to the victims' families and close the plants. The solution, a combination of compensation and corrective action that Baxter implemented in response to 53 patient deaths, was effective because it reduced the offensiveness of the violation and reduced image damage, and improved its image.