Topic:
Volkswagen get sued by German customer over emissions scandal.
Source:
“First Big German Customer Sues Volkswagen in Diesel Affair.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 05 Feb. 2017. Web. 06 Feb. 2017. <http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-lawsuit-idUSKBN15K0HM>.
Not too long ago, I was writing a blog for my COMM-101 class entitled ‘The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal. Half a year later I find myself writing about this issue again. Volkswagen had released a batch of vehicles that ‘lied’ to the customer and government about how many gasses were being emitted. Volkswagen also ‘scammed’ an NGO set on protecting the environment, as the NGO released propaganda about how environmentally friendly their vehicles were, while in fact, far more emissions than usual were being released from these cars.
While this has been one of the more prevalent scandals in recent memory, as Volkswagen is a multinational, multi-billion dollar business, the fact is, these issues can be attributed to communication errors, and various players in the conflict not doing their due diligence. Firstly, there was a miscommunication between the design, marketing, and operations teams within Volkswagen, as the marketing team wanted to push an environmentally friendly product, while the others wanted to use less efficient parts and save money on production. Secondly, there was a miscommunication between Volkswagen’s public relations team, and the NGO, as the NGO was convinced that the emissions being released were environmentally friendly, while Volkswagen was pushing out vehicles with faulty emission trackers.
In this case, there is a dissonance between the formal communication that is usually expected from firms this size, and the informal communication that was eventually carried out. Had the teams within Volkswagen been properly conducting themselves and communicating within the firm (as is their job) I doubt the scandal would have happened, let alone have gone public.
While this has been seen various times in the past, where informal communication is used in a scenario where it’s evident that formal communication should have been used, rarely has it caused an uproar the extent of which Volkswagen currently has to deal with.