The Coca-Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Crises Free Essay Example, 1250 words

The employees were all African Americans. The employees claimed that the company had discriminated against them in pay, promotions, and performance evaluation. To reduce collateral damage, the Coca-Cola Company paid $193 million to settle the racial discrimination lawsuit. Discrimination of the African American employees on the basis of their race was clearly unethical because the Company did not base payments, promotions, and performance evaluation on merit. Racial discrimination in business is unethical because it is against the business ethics principle of equity and fairness. Fraud in Market Study: In the year 2002, the Coca-Cola Company developed new frozen Coke products and the Company wanted to sell the products to the Burger King Company. Before purchasing the products, the King Burger Company decided to first carry out a market test of the frozen Coca-Cola products. When the results of the market test started coming in, the Coca-Cola Company realized that sales of frozen Co ke products were grim. To counter the bad statistics, the Coca-Cola Company bribed a few individuals and asked them to take hundreds of children to the Burger King Company to buy the frozen Coke products. We will write a custom essay sample on The Coca-Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Crises or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now The fraudulent alteration of the statistics, however, was revealed by Matthew Whitney, an executive of the Coca-Cola Company, and the Coca-Cola Company was sued and made to pay heavily for the unethical practice. The fraud in the market test was clearly unethical because it is against the ethical principle of honesty and integrity in business. Inflated Earnings: In the year, 1999, the Coca-Cola Company was accused of sending extra concentrate to Japanese bottlers in an effort to inflate the profits. The main intention of inflating the profits was to create the impression that the Coca-Cola Company was making super-profits, so as to attract the investors. Inflating earnings or profits is unethical because it is against the business ethics principle of honesty. Bypassing Distribution Laws. In the year 2006, the Coca-Cola Company was sued by forty four of its bottlers for distributing Powerade Sports directly to the Wal-Mart houses. This task was legal ly supposed to be done by the Powerade bottles. The bypassing of the distribution laws therefore was unethical because it contravened the agreement that the Coca-Cola Company had made with its distributors. Revealing of Trade Secrets. In the year 2006, an administrative secretary of the Coca-Cola Company and two other accomplices were arrested for revealing the marketing secrets of the Coca-Cola Company to the rivals of the Coca-Cola Company, i.e.