Firestone: A Reputation Blowout in Book Review

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Firestone did not want to answer any questions and wanted to only respond to any inquiries when they were forced to. Their basic strategy was to deny that this was a major defect that contributed to the rollovers. The NHTSA handled the situation gently at first, by only requesting information. The minute that they seen there was a safety issue, they should have forced both companies to engage in mandatory recalls. Their strategy was to not to overreact to the situation based on initial reports. (Ferrell, 2008)

What are the possible ethical implications of accepting responsibility vs. blaming others?

The biggest ethical implications of accepting responsibility would be: the negative publicity, the potential lawsuits, possible regulatory action and large potential losses for both companies because of the incident. When you are blaming others for the problem, you can deny any wrong doing and hide behind various laws to protect the officers / the company. This strategy will cause many regulators, the press and the general public to believe that the company / management have something to hide. For if the incident had been an honest oversight and the company wanted to fix the problem, they would be actively working with everyone to rectify the situation, instead of blaming others. (Ferrell, 2008)

Suggest measures that Firestone could take to improve tire quality in the future.

Firestone could design and implement a test that will examine the effects of their tires, at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. This is nearly double the speed limit in most states and it will allow the company, to see how their tires react under extreme conditions.

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You would then repeat the test throughout the design and manufacturing process, to identify any kind of defects. If at any point, the tire begins to show major issues similar to what happened with the Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires on the Explorer, then engineers need to fix the problem. This will ensure that any tire that Firestone sells to the general public; is up to the quality and safety standards that they demand. (Ferrell, 2008)

Clearly, the crisis with Ford Motor Company and Firestone involving a series of tire failures on the Explorer; that highlight how both companies ignored obvious safety issues. In the case of Ford, they knew that the Explorer was prone to stability issues that they could not explain. When you add a tire, that has its tread peal away at highway speeds, it is only a matter of time until both lead to a number fatalities. Instead, of fixing the problem early, managers continued to ignore it, until the NHTSA began to ask questions. This is the heart of the incident and it shows the lack of ethics that managers at both companies would have, in regards to these safety issues. As a result, this is why Congress passed the Tread Act that would increase communication between: the government, manufacturing companies and the auto industry. (Ferrell, 2008)….....

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