• Get knowledge and understanding of relevant research relating to ethical issues pertinent to prescribed case study as well as analysing and understanding the implications of these issues.
• Apply ethical theory to a case study organization and understand the extent ethics play a part in the success or demise of an organisation.

Assignment details

In September 2015, the Volkswagen company publicly admitted that almost 600,000 cars made for the US market had been fitted with “defeat devices”, which is used in order to enable the vehicles to pass emissions tests. Soon after this, they announced that the same devices were fitted on some 11 million cars worldwide. The corporation’s Head of U.S. Operations, Michael Horn, went on to sit before a Congressional Committee to claim that the attempt to deceive the regulators was the work of “a couple of software engineers”.However, it soon became clear that this assertion was not the case. The company went on to admit this when it published a “statement of facts” as part of an agreement with the US Department of Justice. This document clarified that Volkswagen’s engineers had difficulty building a diesel engine that was capable of achieving high performance while keeping emissions within regulatory standards. They engineered a mechanism that reduced emissions while testing was occurring, but that allowed emissions far beyond legal limits while driving on roads. The statement made clear that company managers supported the use of this system on various occasions, despite protests from multiple workers.

Assignment Title: Using your case study as an example, discuss to what extent ethics play a part in the success or demise of an organisation. What measures can an organisation take to ensure ethical practice?
Word Count: 2,000 words