Case Analysis: Pinto Fires Introduction Greed is the root to evil or at least the motivation behind some corporations making a good, ethical decision. The Ford Motor Company fell into a trap of greed that would cost many human lives. Before the disaster of the Pinto Fires, Ford had a reputation as being the safety pioneer in the automobile industry with additions such as the seat belts. However, as the invention of small cars began to take emerge Ford began to loose market shares to the foreign
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The Ford Pinto Case Team B Management 216 May 10, 2011 Ian Finley The Ford Pinto Case The horrific tragedy that took place on August 10, 1978 involving Judy Ann Ulrich, Lynn Marie, and Donna Ulrich was a real eye opener to a lot of consumers regarding the Ford Pinto. A van collided into the back of the young girl’s car causing the Pinto to collapse, the fuel tank to rupture, and the car to engulf into flames. Donna and Lynn Marie were trapped inside and suffered to death as a result of the
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their actions and what they may or may not do can echo an eternity into the world’s future. In 1972, Ford Motor Company released the Ford Pinto, a small cheap car that could financially compete with the new economic cars from Asia. The Ford Pinto got a lot of attention because it was the first American made car to rival the Asia automobiles. However, the Pinto had a design flaw in that the position of the fuel tank was poorly placed and as a result was highly susceptible to car fires. This flaw was
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Case: The Ford Pinto 1.) In my judgment, I feel that the management of Ford Company should be held morally responsible for Mrs. Gray’s death and Richard Grimshaw’s injuries. This is because Ford Company put the Pinto on the market to be sold. In that case, the managers were aware of the risk factors if indeed these cars did sale. Certainly, I do feel the Ford Company as a whole, should be held legally liable for the death of Mrs. Gray and the injuries of Richard Grimshaw. I strongly believe
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a natural outcome. The Ford Pinto case is based upon act utilitarianism’s approach to making a decision using a cost benefit analysis and whether that action makes the best ethical outcome for all involved. In 1968, Ford Motor Company had a decision to make as to whether it would compete in the subcompact automotive market. Ford needed to quickly introduce a small, fuel efficient, and cheap car on the market to compete with Japanese and European imports. The Pinto was to be the answer to the competition
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production of Pinto regardless the defects and the danger to future customers, or delay the production and modify the original model to assure safety and reliability, regardless the higher costs? Ford’s decision was to continue the production of the defective design while basing it on a cost-benefit analysis. In this context another dilemma was created: should such an analysis be used in situations where defects could lead to death or cause tremendous harm, such as in the Ford Pinto situation?
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Business Ethics - Assignment 1 Case Study: At the beginning of the 1960's, the Ford Motor Company was facing great competition from foreign automobile manufacturers. The Japanese companies, Toyota and Datsun, were importing fuel-efficient, low-cost automobiles. Every year the Japanese companies were capturing larger portions of the U.S. automobile retail market and profits of American auto manufactures were spiraling downward. The president of Ford at that time was Lee Iaccoca, who was
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really understand this case, it is necessary to understand the times and societal norms of when it occurred. In short, did Ford design the Pinto's fuel system in an ethical way, and should they have redesigned it later? The reason that this case has gotten so much attention is that Ford did not update the fuel system in 1978, because the cost-benefit analysis favored leaving it unchanged. Ford Motor Company defended their decision to not make the production changes in the Pinto by saying that they
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In this presentation, a very important case that transpired from 1971 to 1978 with the Ford Motor Company, under the leadership of Mr. Lee Iacocca, CEO will be explored. During that time the CEO of Ford wanted to manufacture a vehicle to keep up with the competition that was going on with other manufactures. The Ford Company experienced many tragic issues with this vehicle having to pay millions of dollars in lawsuits. This was due to their negligence in not following the proper inspection procedures
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customers. However, there are also some problems when using utilitarianism to analysis Ford’s case that utilitarianism cannot solve. First, Ford cannot compare between compensation and injuries, pains or even live of customers because how we can figure out the utility customers would get out of compensation is more or less than what customers will loose from these accidents. Before deciding redesign Pinto, the Ford’s managers decided that the human’s lives was worth $ 200,000 million and it seemed
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