Natural Water Corporation Case Analysis
You are the recently appointed President (approximately 6 months) of Natural Water Corporation (NWC), a Vancouver Island company, that bottles natural spring water. Your marketing department recently launched a campaign that emphasizes the purity of your product. You and the senior management team are optimistic that this campaign will help differentiate NWC from its competitors and grow your company.
You are shocked when the Operations Manager reports to you that an employee accidently introduced a chemical into one of the machines, which then contaminated 1,120,000 bottles of the natural spring water. The employees in this area have since received additional training to prevent this from ever reoccurring in the future.
Fortunately, the chemical is present in extremely small amounts – no consumer could possibly suffer harm unless they drank approximately 45 litres of the water per day over a long period. All machinery was sterilized immediately; there is no risk of any further contamination. However, the claims made by your new marketing campaign could not be more false.
What should you do with these contaminated bottles of spring water? Which ethical view will support your decision & actions? Are there any issues with the company’s corporate social responsibility in your decision-making?
Analyze the case by completing the case study worksheet; write legibly.
Apply Chapter 4 related material THROUGHOUT your case analysis.