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.

Lesson by George Siedel and Christine Ladwig, directed by Patrick Smith.

A few years ago, you founded a company
that manufactures 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 ultrafine 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.

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:

1. Do nothing.

2. Pull the products from grocery stores
citywide and destroy them.

Or 3. 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.

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 gauge 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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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 3 of them—

all from the Chicago area—

were found to contain cyanide.

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.

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?

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.