COURSE TITLE

Business and society

COURSE CODE

BUS 3306-01

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Sourabh Kumar

UNIT

2
Through your readings this week, we’ve determined that CSR is the determined effort(s) of

an organization to conduct operations in a manner that fosters a positive behavioral

disposition with respect to the community, the environment and ethical business practices.

Research a specific company that has dealt with public criticism from various stakeholders,

and include all web links where you find your information. Share the name of the

company, mission of the company, and type of business that it provides. Identify the

stakeholders involved in the criticism, what the specific criticisms were, and the business’

response to the criticisms.

 Looking into the times we are in now, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now a big

issue amongst businesses, companies or organizations and they are now unable to be sensitive or

responsive to ethical practices. However, some firms and businesses has been under scrutiny and

negative light. During my research I found a post by Forbes about Volkswagen. According to

Wolfsburg (2019), their mission statement is “The Volkswagen Group is bundling all its

measures in environmental protection under the new "goTOzero" environmental mission

statement. Oliver Blume, Member of the Group Board of Management responsible for

environmental protection, says: "With the new Group Environmental Policy, the Group is giving

itself and its stakeholders a clear orientation. Our efforts to improve environmental protection

cover the entire product cycle, from development, production and operation to the subsequent

recycling of our vehicles and administration. We also involve our suppliers. Only together can

we achieve our goals".

This new mission statement are the values Volkswagen live by now and I guess they are

into taking care of the earth. Also, this mission statement summarises that this company is into

providing some kind of means of transportation to their customers while working on the various

needs of individuals or customers, and even better, to always be attentive to ethical concerns and

issues relating to the people, society and any and everything that relates to social issues.

Therefore, “Volkswagen Volkswagen AG is the parent company of the Volkswagen Group. It

develops vehicles and components for the Group’s brands, but also produces and sells vehicles,

in particular passenger cars and light commercial vehicles for the Volkswagen Passenger Cars
and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brands. In its capacity as parent company, Volkswagen

AG holds indirect or direct interests in AUDI AG, SEAT S.A., ŠKODA AUTO a.s., Dr. Ing. h.c.

F. Porsche AG, Scania AB, MAN SE, Volkswagen Financial Services AG, Volkswagen Bank

GmbH and a large number of other companies in Germany and abroad. Volkswagen AG is a

vertically integrated energy supply company as defined by section 3 no. 38 of the

Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (EnWG – German Energy Industry Act) and is therefore subject to the

provisions of the EnWG. In the electricity sector, Volkswagen AG generates, sells and

distributes electricity together with a Group subsidiary” (Volkswagen, n.d).

Subsequently, the criticism according to Enrique Dans (2015), is about the failure of the

Volkswagen Group in their corporate social responsibility (CSR). The writer believes that

Volkswagen set out a design to circumvent emissions control to enable them to be at the top of

their game and they do this by producing ‘supposedly environmentally friendly cars' and really

it was poisoning the earth . “This rejection of any ethical standards in engineering, which has led

to the resignation not just of the CEO, but also Audi’s head of R+D and Porsche’s engine chief,

makes one thing absolutely clear: the company’s CSR department must have known what was

going on. The command chain that led to the development of certain lines of software that could

put an engine into to test mode and then return it to “dirty mode” are on record, all the testing

that was done is documented: those responsible can be identified, and are to be found at all levels

throughout Volkswagen. With software taking over all the complexities of a product, the only

way to avoid problems is to go fully transparent, document every step of the process and

embrace open source” (Dan’s, 2015).

References.

Enrique Dans, Forbes. (2015). Volkswagen And The Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2015/09/27/volkswagen-and-the-failure-of-corporate-

social-responsibility/?sh=21bb10504405

Volkswagen. (n.d). Structure and Business Activities.

https://annualreport2017.volkswagenag.com/group-management-report/structure-and-business-

activities.html#:

Wolfsburg, Volkswagen. (2019). Volkswagen with New Corporate Mission Statement

Environment "goTOzero". https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2019/07/goTOzero.html#