http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/7422698/Employee-warned-Toyota-boss-in-2006.html
Is the only responsibility of a company to increase its profits? How important is it for a company to remain ethical?
Toyota’s leaders preferred to maximize their profits in all possible ways. The article talks about one of Toyota’s employees warning his boss that the way the company is working to increase its profits will not lead to anything good. Unfortunately for Toyota he appeared to be correct. In a few years after his note to the boss, the employee’s concerns became a disastrous reality for Toyota.
The company has been cutting down on the quality of its products to increase their profits and as a result they ended up with low safety products that made them responsible for the injuries of many people. Also, Toyota had temporary workers and “amateurs in charge of the company”. Though all this did increase their profits in the short run, in the long run they are now doomed to face great losses as well as getting a negative brand image for their actions.
Toyota leaders made bad short run decisions ignoring being ethical and acted only in their own interest which eventually put them in a bad place and got them into big problems in the long run.