Brief History of the Company Strip away the outer covering of Valeant Pharmaceuticals and find a business enterprise that started its profit-making in the decade of the 1960s. One can argue that it started as an obscure organization focused on understanding the business side of the specialty chemical research enterprise. However, the company started to gain global attention at the turn of the 21st century when its corporate leaders initiated a series of mergers and acquisitions. In the present time, the said pharmaceutical company sells a variety of drugs, such as over the counter medication and prescription drugs. The company’s radical assent into the top of Wall Street’s list of the favorable company started in earnest when it hired Michael Pearson as the new CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. He orchestrated a series of major mergers and acquisitions that required the use of billions of dollars in resource allocation to take control Continue reading
Business Ethics
Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and business organizations as a whole. Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values.
Case Study: The Downfall of Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn
Financial dishonesty and misconduct pose significant threats to any business. Carlos Ghosn, an influential top manager and ex-CEO of Nissan, was arrested because of financial misconduct in Japan in 2018. The scandalous news led to a panic on the stock exchange, and Nissan’s shares crashed rapidly, which also affected other automobile companies. Today, the company prepares for difficult times and reputational losses, which can no longer be avoided, even if the most serious accusations are not confirmed. Currently, Ghosn has already been interrogated by the police, and an investigation against him is underway. The 64-year-old top manager was accused of financial misbehavior, using his position. To do this, he deliberately distorted the data on the amount of his remuneration, which he received from the Alliance brands, such as Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi. Ghosn was also criticized that for 20 years of working with the Alliance, he received almost unlimited power, Continue reading
Case Study on Business Ethics: The Bribery Scandal at Siemens AG
Siemens AG is a German company with a long history of success and a good reputation in the technology industry. It is also one of Europe’s largest technology firms with a revenue base of over $77 billion. In addition, the company has over 430,000 employees. However, the reputation that Siemens has built for several years was brought into question in 2006 after being caught engaged in a series of corruption scandals. In the first incidence, Siemens was caught having bribed foreign officials in a bid to win contracts and create a slush fund. In another case, Siemens was alleged to have bribed the officials of the labor representatives of the supervisory board in a bid to win their support over the policies that Siemens intended to implement. Immediately after the whistle had been blown on the scandal, a team of investigators was appointed which immediately raided Siemens’ offices in Germany Continue reading
Case Study on Business Ethics: Accounting Fraud at Nortel Networks Corporation
For more than 10 decades, Nortel is engaged in the supply of telecommunications equipment for Canada’s telephone systems. In the 1890s, the company started manufacturing manually, operated switchboards, which have later turned into establishing the fiber-optic systems for the Internet today. Nortel Networks Corporation is having its headquarters in Brampton, Ontario, Canada was considered as one of the leaders of the telecommunications industry during the late 1990s. About three-fourths of the Internet traffic of North America was transacted through Nortel equipment. Nortel had around 73,000 employees around the world. The company’s share was listed on both at the “Stock Exchanges” of Canada and New York. Nortel had a market capitalization at a peak price of C$ 124.5O and had over 3.8 billion shares worth C$473.1 billion as of July 2000. Nortel accounted for over thirty percent of the value of the S & P / TSE 300 Composite index. Nortel has been Continue reading
Case Study on Business Ethics: Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme
The world fell into a state of shock when news headlines reported that the respectable head of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, Mr. Bernard Madoff had confessed to operating a Ponzi scheme. The weight of the ethical issues that the news portended require deep analysis to identify the moral lapses that may have contributed to what some describe as the largest Ponzi scheme in human history. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or is paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. Estimates of the amount of money lost range from twelve to twenty billion dollars. The entire debacle arose from Madoff’s failure to adhere to simple ethical rules regarding honest business. He was not honest. This case study examines the role, motive, and consequences of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme because of an ethical Continue reading
Greenwashing – Meaning and Examples
Marketing ethics is an area that is crucial when it comes to marketing because ethics guide the moral principles that regulate marketing. In a simple definition, marketing ethics are the morals of marketing. There are both good and bad behaviors that make up the morals. Over the years, marketers have used the wrong principles to boost sales, especially through advertisements and promotions where customers are not told the truth about a product so that they can buy the product. There are many organizations that have been involved in corporate scandals that touch on ethics. Corporate scandals are unethical actions or illegal dealings that a company or its representative may engage in. In corporate ethics, marketers always try to be better decision makers because they want to make ethical decisions that avoid corporate scandals. Greenwashing Concept Greenwashing is the kind of marketing where the marketers deceive the customers that their products Continue reading