Case 1: Monsanto Attempts to Balance Stakeholder Interests
To be completely honest, prior to reading this case, I had little to no knowledge about GM crops and the fact that they are so much of our crop yield today! Monsanto has become a dominating company in its industry, but it did not come with ease. The company has struggled through many ethical issues, many of which are still at controversy to this day.
While Monsanto has done a particularly good job at establishing an ethical background suitable for their company, they did not and still do not always effectively respond to its stakeholders in ethical manners. The company did create a Code of Business Conduct, adopted an additional Code of Conduct for its chief executives and financial officers, as well as adopted a Human Rights Policy, and created a Business Conduct Office. (Ferrell, Thorne, Ferrell, 2016.) These actions taken by Monsanto have created its ethical culture that it abides by; however, many are still skeptical of Monsanto’s practices today and have a difficult time moving ahead from Monsanto’s past mistakes. During the Vietnam War, Monsanto had created what they called “Agent Orange,” an herbicide they planned to use to kill off jungles in Vietnam. However, according to an article written by James Turnage, “After soldiers began returning from the war, health problems such as several types of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and birth defects were attributed to the Dioxin in Agent Orange” (Turnage, 2015). Previous to this, Monsanto had claimed that there were no potential effects that would occur due to Agent Orange. In 1991, Congress did pass the Agent Orange Act which helped those affected by the herbicide, but Monsanto did not do much other than settling in a lawsuit and paying the fines it owed. James Turnage also goes on to explain that Monsanto has made little to no efforts to indicate on food labels that the food has been genetically modified. He states, “Advocates for the labels state...