Sunday, Aug 9, 2020 • 5min
Ethical dilemma: The burger murders | George Siedel and Christine Ladwig
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You founded a company that manufactures meatless burgers that are sold in stores worldwide. But you've recently received awful news: three people in one city died after eating your burgers. A criminal has injected poison into your product! The deaths are headline news and sales have plummeted. How do you deal with the crisis? George Siedel and Christine Ladwig explore the different strategies of this ethical dilemma. [Directed by Patrick Smith, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Cem Misirlioglu / WORKPLAYWORK].
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00:06
A few years ago, you founded a company that manufacturers meatless burgers. Your product is now sold in stores worldwide, but you've recently received awful news. Three unrelated people in one city died after eating your burgers. The police concluded that a criminal targeted your brand, injecting poison into your product in at least two grocery stores. The culprit used an ultra fine instrument that left no trace on the packaging, making it impossible to determine which products were compromised. Your burgers were immediately removed from the two stores where the victims bought them.
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00:48
The deaths are headline news. The killer is still at large and sales have plummeted. You must quickly develop a strategy to deal with the crisis. Your team comes up with three options. One do nothing, two pull the products from grocery stores citywide and destroy them, or three pull and destroy the product worldwide. Which do you choose? Your company lawyer explains that a recall is not required by law because the criminal is fully responsible.
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01:24
She recommends the first option doing nothing because recalling the product could look like an admission of fault, but is that the most ethical strategy to gage the ethicality of each choice. You could perform a stakeholder analysis. This would allow you to weigh the interests of some key stakeholders, investors, employees and customers against one another.
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01:51
With the first option, your advisors project that the crisis will eventually blow over. Sales will then improve, but probably stay below prior levels because of damage to the brand. As a result, you'll have to lay off some employees and investors will suffer minor losses, but more customers could die if the killer poisoned packages elsewhere.
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02:15
The second option is expensive in the short term and will require greater employee layoffs and additional financial loss to investors. But this option is safer for customers in the city and could create enough trust that sales will eventually rebound.
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02:33
The third option is the most expensive in the short term and will require significant employee layoffs and investor losses. Though, you have no evidence that these crimes are an international threat, this option provides the greatest customer protection given the conflict between the interests of your customers versus those of your investors and employees. Which strategy is the most ethical?
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02:59
To make this decision, you could consider these tests. First is the utilitarian test.
Utilitarianism
is a philosophy concerned with maximizing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. What would be the impact of each option on these terms? Second is the family test. How would you feel explaining your decision to your family? Third is the newspaper test. How would you feel reading about it on the front page of the local newspaper? And finally, you could use the mentor test. If someone you admire were making this decision, what would they do?Share
03:39
Johnson & Johnson
CEO James Burke
faced a similar challenge in 1982 after a criminal added the poison Cyanide
to bottles of Tylenol
in Chicago
, seven people died and sales dropped. Industry analysts said the company was done for. In response, Burke
decided to pull Tylenol
from all shelves worldwide, citing customer safety as the company's highest priority.Share
04:06
Johnson & Johnson
recalled and destroyed an estimated 32 million bottles of Tylenol
, valued at 250 million in today's dollars. 1.5 million of the recalled bottles were tested and three of them, all from the Chicago
area, were found to contain Cyanide
.Share
04:27
Burke's
decision helped the company regain the trust of its customers and product sales rebounded within a year. Prompted by the Tylenol
murders, Johnson & Johnson
became a leader in developing tamper resistant packaging and the government instituted stricter regulations. The killer, meanwhile, was never caught.Share
04:48
Burke's
decision prevented further deaths from the initial poisoning, but the federal government investigated hundreds of copycat tampering incidents involving other products in the following weeks. Could these have been prevented with a different response?Share
05:04
Was
Burke
acting in the interest of the public or of his company? Was this good ethics or good marketing? As with all ethical dilemmas, this has no clear right or wrong answer. And for your meatless burger empire, the choice remains yours.Share
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