You need to Read the discussion "Lynne Scholz" and give response:
No company ever plans on having to deal with a public scandal. Unfortunately for Volkswagen, the actions of a few individuals at a low level spiraled out of control and caused major issues for the company as a whole. There were steps that could have been taken along the way to control the situation, but some people in key positions failed to intervene. However, from Volkswagen's misfortune, we can learn principles to apply to other companies concerning how to handle legal and managerial problems. It is important to consider how to react in a similar situation across different organizational levels and how to apply ethical and spiritual principles.
One of the purposes of the business legal office is to ensure that the company meets all the rules and regulations imposed on it and ensure it does not break any laws. The Volkswagen legal office failed in this aspect because the company produced vehicles that did not adhere to the Clean Air Act (Hayes & Latham, 2015). Volkswagen's executive leadership reported that the only people who knew about the cheating software were the few engineers involved and no one else - including executive staff and legal office personnel (Hayes & Latham, 2015). However, the question may be asked as to why the leadership and legal staff were so clueless?
If you are responsible for your company's compliance with the law, you should make sure that your company is taking steps to comply. You are not able to accurately say that your company is in compliance if you do not actually know what each department is doing. In the military we have a pretty common saying: trust but verify. Essentially, this means that you don't blindly take someone's word but you verify that what they are saying is correct. This is a principle that would have benefited the legal staff if they had applied it to their job - they should have known what was happening in their company and not turned a blind eye. Instead, some of the staff tried to cover up the information that they had found exposing the bad programming (Reisinger, 2017).
As a manager in the legal office, I would have prevented this situation from progressing by coordinating with individual departments to check for practices that may be in violation of laws or regulations. I would have taken steps to ensure my office was confident that the company it was responsible for was following rules and staying true to its advertised promises. If the legal office worked closely with the departments it would have a better idea of what was happening in those departments and help prevent situations like what happened with Volkswagen.
It is entirely possible that the Volkswagen CEO had no idea of what was happening seemingly under his nose. After all, it is harder to see negative actions while they are occurring than it is in hindsight (Lippe, 2015). The CEO is still accountable for the actions of his company; his response to the situation shapes how the public views it. Any negative action that happens in a big company like Volkswagen will be very visible to the public. Therefore, the CEO needs to be very careful in handling the situation.
If the CEO is grounded in his Christian faith, he will look to the Bible to guide his actions in this treacherous situation. Philippians 2:3-4 states "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others" (New International Version). The CEO should not look to protect himself and how the public sees his role. Instead, he should focus on rectifying how the results of the engineers' actions affected everyone else. For example, the CEO should consider how emissions affected the environment or how people who purchased one of the company's vehicles under false pretenses will be compensated.
The Bible says "He repays everyone for what they have done; He brings on them what their conduct deserves." (Job 34:11). It would be very tempting for the CEO to place all the blame on the engineers who created the faulty program - but a Christian who has faith in God's sovereignty as judge will not throw the engineers under the bus. It is important to tell the truth about the situation and what happened while accepting responsibility as the CEO and trusting that God has control of the outcome.
One major concern when a scandal like this one occurs is that it will not be an isolated incident and something similar may happen again. The company can lose popularity simply because the public does not trust it anymore. The CEO needs to reassure the public that no further incidents will happen and then take steps to ensure that they will not happen. If the CEO responds to the situation as previously discussed, it can greatly help in preventing future incidents.
When employees know that the CEO of the company is more concerned about the interests of others above their own, they will have a higher level of respect for the values of leadership and the company. This may dissuade employees from desiring to create faulty programs to begin with. Additionally, when the employees know that leadership is not out to place blame, they will be more likely to bring up issues within the company.
It is much easier to point out flaws and errors in hind-sight than it is when the event is actually occurring. This is why it is important to study cases like this one and learn from their mistakes. You must examine what went wrong and would could have been done to prevent it if you want to avoid similar situations in your business. As in all things, it is important to be rooted in scripture and trust that God is in control. A successful business is one that is founded in God and opens to learning lessons from the world around it.