Moral Emotions in Decision Making - Corvair

In Chevrolet Corvair's case, it is clear that the GM marketing team chose immoral model management (not
even Amoral), as they were able to distinguish right from wrong (Sexty, 2020). However, they still chose to
proceed according to their own corporation's profitability and decided in their shareholders' best interest or,
as Stoud (2002) calls it, "Shareholder Primacy," instead of considering stakeholder theory and managing the
company the way to consider the interest of all stakeholders. I believe it was a tactical decision as they
abused the public trust and looked at short-term goal achievement.

First, engineers' recommendation about the steering safety concern was ignored by the marketing department
where the research from Niedermeyer (2010) indicates that GM should have paid an extra $6 to fix the front
anti-sway bar standard, which was less than 0.4% of the car value back in 1960.

Other than this initial issue, even when they decided to adopt an odd solution or better call it a band-aid
solution to keep the tire at a specific pressure, they still neglected to inform customers or their sales team.

In this case, the corporation's level of acceptance of corporate social responsibility was none, and they
committed a socially irresponsible act by manufacturing unsafe vehicles.

According to Sexty (2020), many risks follow corporations who do not practice CSR. For instance, damage
to reputation, decrease in share value, high cost to compensate damages, lawsuits and prosecution.

Let us consider that the top managerial team (such as the CEO and board) were not involved in the decision
and did not know the engineers' suggestions. This indicates a lack of a proper reporting mechanism with
concerns about the business code of ethics and conduct. If such a system existed, and employees were not
afraid of retaliation, the engineering team could have reported their concerns to the top management, and the
corporation would have had time to address the issue.

Since the marketing team was involved in the decision with the knowledge of possible risks, then there was
a lack of morality within the engineering team who chose to follow a hierarchical approach. They chose
silence instead of disclosing or whistleblowing such safety negligence to higher authorities, the legal system,
or the media.
Instead, other stakeholders (customers) filed lawsuits against the company. Even though they lost in court,
they brought this issue to the public's attention. Additionally, another stakeholder who helped the cause and
chose a social approach was Ralph Nader, who wrote about Corvair's safety issues in a book calls "unsafe at
any speed."

Besides, I believe the government should have been held accountable too. The authorities allowed such a
dangerous vehicle to be manufactured with this issue for about five years, and more than 1.6 million units
being sold. The car should have been labelled as unsafe and removed from the market much sooner.

I think if I were in the position of the decision-makers at GM or a similar situation, I would have chosen a
strategic approach and would have looked at both negative and positive implication of the decision, would
have considered the future risks instead of just focusing on short-term profitability and securing market
share. Subsequently, I would have addressed the engineering team's concerns.

I believe making a decision when human life is at risk should be a straightforward decision, and we should
always put public health our priority.

References

Niedermeyer, P. (2010, March 26). In Defense of The Chevrolet Corvair. The Truth About Cars.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/04/in-defense-of-the-chevrolet-corvair/
Sexty, R. W. (2020). Canadian Business and Society. McGraw-Hill Education.
Stout, L.A., 2002, "Bad and Not-so-Bad Arguments for Shareholder Primacy," Southern California Law
Review, 75(5): 1189–1210.