Reference no: EM132176003
1. What do these events reveal about the corporate culture within Megatron?
2. When is it acceptable for any company to maximise profits without considering external factors that might affect people not directly connected with the company?
-Below is the case study:
Megatron plc is a multinational company with extensive manufacturing and distribution facilities in the UK, France and the USA. Its head office is in London and it sells its products worldwide under a range of popular brand names. Those same brand names are used to sponsor major sporting events and art exhibitions. Megatron, using its ‘Lifesaver’ medical products brand name, recently funded the ‘Lifesaver’ laboratories that specialize in finding cures for tropical diseases. Under its ‘New Learner’ brand name it funds several schools in sub-Saharan Africa where the children use the ‘New Learner’ educational books and resources. The CEO of Megatron, Bill Bustler, is a well-known media figure and appears frequently on TV debates or radio phone-ins as ‘the voice of British business’. He is seen as a cheerful, avuncular figure who has a ready wit and a charming manner. However, in the USA investigative journalists have revealed that:
1. Megatron has 32 subsidiaries based in tax havens.?
2. Analysis of its recent accounts revealed that Megatron reported a group profit of ?$2.4 bn but paid only $1.2m in tax. It paid no tax at all in any of the countries ?where several of its manufacturing units were sited. ?
3. Authorities in China recently closed down four suppliers to Megatron for using ?under-age or illegal labour. ?
4. One of the Megatron subsidiaries has been the subject of violent protests in India ?from farmers. They were accused of diverting local watercourses to a newly constructed bottle-washing plant. Local management denied the accusation and claimed that the reason the crops all died was bad farming practice, not loss of water. ?
5. In Canada the CEO of another Megatron subsidiary that assembles and sells computer equipment has pleaded guilty in court to five charges of bribing public officials in order to obtain computer supply contracts. She claimed that this was accepted practice in Megatron and that ‘everybody did it’.