The Ford motor company and the Pinto Gas Tank: A case study in corporate ethics

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THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY AND THE PINTO GAS TANK: A CASE STUDY IN CORPORATE ETHICS

5/3/2004

PURPOSE

        The decisions and actions made by management leading up to and following the introduction of a product into the marketplace affect all the stakeholders involved in some fashion.  As would be expected, some decisions are more important than others due to their nature and impact on the parties concerned.  The purpose of this paper serves to understand and evaluate the ethics behind the decisions made by the Ford Motor Company with respect to the Pinto car model with an emphasis on the ethics surrounding the safety of its gas tank.

SCOPE

         To accomplish this purpose, this paper will review the life cycle of the Pinto and the decisions the Ford Motor Company made with respect to the safety built in to this vehicle.  Therefore, the time period in question will be between the years of 1967 thru 1980 thus covering the design, development, market introduction and market withdrawal for the Pinto.  The government regulations or lack there of, placed on the automobile industry during this time period will also be discussed to add some perspective as to how thin of a line the Ford Motor Company walked when making some of the decisions regarding the Pinto’s gas tank.

APPROACH

        The three principle elements of social responsibility (externally mandated actions, market actions and voluntary actions) that played a role in the decisions made by management at Ford will be investigated.  In addition, a review of some of the principles of ethical conduct: might-equals-right, conventionalist, intuition, proportionality and utilitarian ethic will be reviewed with regard to the actions taken by the Ford Motor Company involving the Pinto.

LITERATURE

        The original documents used to gather information for the development of this paper include (1) books, (2) court cases and (3) periodicals.  Reference to these and other sources can be found as citations in the endnotes.

INTRODUCTION

        The Ford Pinto was introduced for sale to Americans in 1970.  Later that year a crash test indicated that there was a safety problem with gas tank.  When the vehicle was subjected to a low speed rear end impact, the filler pipe was dislodged and the gasoline tank was ruptured.  Although management at the Ford Motor Company was aware of the problems, no action was taken to improve the safety conditions until the 1977 Pinto model was produced.  In 1978 a voluntary recall was announced by Ford to correct the dangerous fuel tank problems in the earlier Pinto production models.

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DISCUSSION

        

A Ford Subcompact is Born

        Up until the 1960’s the Ford Motor Company was a well know and respected business that focused its efforts on the sale of trucks and medium and large sized cars.  By the mid 1960’s it became apparent to automobile manufactures that the needs of their consumers had changed towards a more economical and fuel efficient vehicle commonly known as the subcompact.  To date this market segment had been dominated by the European and Japanese car brands.  In an effort to make inroads into this market, the Ford Motor Company decided to ...

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