SRI NOVA ADHI DHEA – 29118073

YP 59 B – BUSINESS ETHICS – SAMSUNG IN TAIWAN

GROUP 4 : Sri Nova Adhi Dhea, Alfirda Anindya, Grace A.M.Napitupulu, Khansa Aathirah

Based on Samsung in Taiwan case - Samsung Taiwan has been hiring a lot of people mostly
students to write and publish comment on an online forum which gave them advantages while
giving bad reviews and comments to their competitor’s product. Samsung has also hired at
least two third-party marketing companies to do the dirty work of posting fake reviews about
competitors. Samsung has claimed that this as one of their marketing strategy. The victim of
the false comments that has been getting bad reviews on their products was also an electronic
seller company named HTC. The further investigation later revealed more of the negative
comments on competitor’s product while Samsung got a rather positive evaluation on their
products. This kind of marketing is known in the industry as “astroturfing” which is the practice
of making the sponsors of a message or organization for example political, advertising,
religious or public relations to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by
a grassroots participant. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations
credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection. Samsung is not
the first company to engage in this kind of act but it has been caught twice on that particular
year. This is rather an unethical practice by the marketing department of Samsung. It is clear
that the company have played dirty to gain more support from the customer and also an attempt
to eliminate competition by the other company.

As the case mentioned above, we can coclude that this issue are include in Deontological
Ethics, Rights-based Ethics and Consequentialism-Utilitarianism Theories, the
explanation following:

• Deontological Ethics – ethics is based on the rightness or wrongness of the actions

themselves, inherent in the actions themselves.
When Samsung hiring a lot of people to write and publish bad reviews to their
competitor’s product. This is unethical actions has been done by Samsung and this
action is wrong. If a company wants to compete in a healthy manner, not by dropping
competitors' products. However, by creating a more competitive market environment,
for example by price competition, specification competition and others that do not
 violate business ethics. With the existence of dirty competition like this, HTC could
have retaliated legally which would make the name Samsung become dirty and the
competition that occurred was no longer healthy.

• Consequentialism – Utilitarianism – ethics is based on the consequences of one’s

action and/or the utility of the actions.
From this Samsung case, we can conclude that the output of this case is bad, and is an
unethical issue of the Samsung business. the consequence of this marketing practice
that is called astroturfing is to kill competitors where the competitor (HTC) feels
disadvantaged and gives unhealthy market competition output. The consequence of this
marketing practice, called “astroturfing” is to kill competitors where their competitor
(HTC) feels disadvantaged and gives unhealthy market competition output. When
associated with The Deontological Theory, the difference is very apparent in the output
given by the action carried out the company. Because the output is poor, this is included
in the unethical issue in Consequentialism-utilitarianism theory.

• Right-based Ethics – ethics based on basic human rights, either inherent rights or
conventional rights, focused on human dignity.
The victim from Samsung's bad marketing strategy which is the HTC company has
rights to act in a certain way after being treated like that. They may have the right to
sue the company responsible for their bad reputation in the eyes of customers.
Based on moral rights, Samsung employees or the person responsible for the marketing
strategy should never start a strategy if he/she is implementing moral rights in his/her
work. Victims have their rights as human beings who are trying to find their source of
income to feed themselves. This right must be respected and not violated by others.

Besides the three theories above, another theory that might be related to this case is
Stakeholder Theory where the concentration is Managerial Use, in this case it is not clearly
stated that there is a stake in stakeholders in making decisions whether the marketing strategy
proposed by the marketing team will run or not. But according to my opinion, In the case
alluding to this issue as "corporate issue" stakeholders have a stake in giving approval to this
dark practice.