Ethical breaches in 2015

Time and again the business world has been being rocked by scandals of all types. Sometimes it is just a person, sometimes a team and sometimes it is the entire company and management that has tried to mislead the public or done something else unethical that reflects poorly upon its brand name and reputation. It is not the case of the less known brands but several of the well-known companies too have been involved in such ethical breaches. The year 2015 remained particularly well known for such ethics violations. First of all it was Toshiba that was caught fudging its financial accounts. The electronics brand even admitted that it had inflated its accounts by a $2 Billion over a period of seven years. Another important mischief was Volkswagen’s doing and the company was held liable for having cheated on emission tests. The software used on Volkswagen Diesel model cars could help the cars pass the  emission tests. VW  admitted that  it had cheated deliberately to pass the tests. Turing Pharma  as another of the miscreants that  caught the eys of the media and the authorities. Will Yakowicz notes, “Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli bought the rights to a drug named Daraprim, which treats a rare infection in HIV/AIDS patients--and promptly increased the price of it by 5,000 percent, from $18 a pill to $750” (Yakowicz, 2015).

In all these three cases, the companies did not just lose the public’s trust but the brands themselves a lot of their well-built reputation. Particularly if it is the well-known brands like Toshiba and Volkswagen the loss can be severe for both the society and the brand. Apart from the lost credibility, these brands also hurt social trust.

References:

Yakowicz, W. (2015). The 8 Most Outrageous Business Scandals of 2015. In INC. Retrieved December 1, 2016, from http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/biggest-big-business-fails-of-2015.html