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Business Ethics
Week 4

By
Dawn Saffold

Gary Gentry- Instructor
Organizational Behavior

Ford, Firestone/Bridgestone top corporate managers were convicted and found guilty of criminal negligence. A company in Decatur, IL was responsible for building defective tires that were used on Ford Explore Utility Vehicles. People were injured and in most occasions death occurred. The President and chairmen was, William C. Ford Jr., Jacques Nasser, Masatoshi Ono, and John Lampe. These men were responsible for the injuries and even went so far as to make an apology to the families of the victims that they did not mean. 6.5 million Tires were recalled back and 119 deaths and more than 500 injuries were caused by the defective tires and there was not a move made to remove them from the vehicles (Neidenberg, M. (2000, November 9).
These men had no remorse for their actions; they deliberately allowed tires to be put on vehicles that caused death and injury to many customers. People in this economy trust the Ford, Firestone/Bridgestone companies to give them quality cars and quality tires. Firestone/Bridgestone admitted that their tires were no good after they were recalled. The two companies ended up fighting with each other, trying to blame each other for the damage because neither of them wanted to take the blame. Eventually the two companies parted ways, when it is clear that both of them are in fault (Neidenberg, M. (2000, November 9).
The credibility of each company was highly questioned during this scandal. Each company should accept responsibility and try to fix their mistakes, and both reputations could be saved. They lost the confidence of their customers because of their poor judgment of putting tires on the market that were damaged. Both companies have had to deal with court cases from the injured families, and their record losses have been great. When leading a company

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