Ethical crisis management in peanut butter product recall

Case Study Response: Peanut Butter Q1. What is your first reaction to this situation? My first reaction was my surprise at the extent to which the food system in the United States is interconnected. Contamination in one area of the food system can have a spiraling effect, particularly with an ingredient that is a staple product like peanut butter. The unethical actions of one company affected the ability of other companies to provide a safe product to consumers, even though they themselves were following safety guidelines. Q2. To whom did the company initially have obligations to? First and foremost, the company had an obligation to protect members of the public that might consume the product from harm. Q3. Who do they continue to have obligations to? The company continues to have an obligation to the public, but also to employees (to ensure the company remains solvent), to regulators (to comply with legal requirements pertaining to food safety), and to shareholders (again, to remain solvent). Q4. Using at least two scholarly resources to support your view, what should the company have considered when taking steps to resolve this issue? The company should have followed the example of other companies which have faced similar ethical challenges. According to MacDonald (2013), responding to a crisis may be considered an act of “ethical improvisation,” in which “the process of interpreting the demands of ethical rules” in inevitably “novel circumstances” is “fraught with peril” (par.4). It is only natural to wish to protect the company’s profits and self-interest, particularly given the fact that during an ethical crisis, the company may feel it is under threat. It also naturally wishes to protect shareholders’ profits and has an ethical obligation to do so. But the company should view its public relations in the long-term and err on the side of full disclosure and protecting the public to garner trust. Even from a utilitarian standpoint (in other words, not from a rules-based, deontological perspective), crisis management should be founded upon transparency, since the public is often more outraged by the cover-up than the actual mishap, especially in the case of a product like peanut butter often consumed by children (Roman & Moore, 2012). One ethical model suggests an approach to crisis management founded upon transparency, two-way communication, and “right time,” which is usually immediately when the crisis occurs (Kim, 2015).