Case Studies on Ethical Culture

Failures
Recovering Trust After Corporate Misconduct at Wells
Fargo (2020), by Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah Goldberg and published
through the Harvard Business School. This describes the widespread
misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up
to 2017 and the company’s subsequent attempts to improve internal
controls, company culture, and corporate governance.
 Faster, Higher, Farther: The Volkswagen Scandal (2017), by New
York Times journalist Jack Ewing, describes the journey of the car
manufacturer leading up to the global emissions scandal of 2015 and
how leaders fostered a corporate culture that ultimately drove
employees to illegal methods.
 Dara Khosrowshahi: Changing the Company Culture at Uber
(2020) introduces the new CEO of Uber and the challenges and
difficulties he faces as they attempt to change the toxic company
culture established by the former CEO.
 Final Accounting (2004), by Barbara Toffler, chronicles the culture
that she found at Arthur Andersen a few years before the company’s
downfall.
 What Happened to Goldman Sachs (2013), by Steven Mandis, is a
more recent story of a culture that changed (in a negative direction)
during the author’s time with the firm.
Successes
 Google’s Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter? Provided by
Harvard Business Publishing Education, this case explores how
Google used an evidence-based approach to improve the practice of
management without disrupting their highly valued and technocratic
organizational culture.
 Zappos: Delivering Happiness to Stakeholders, published by the
Daniels Fund Ethics Initiatives, investigates Zappos’ history, core
values, and unique business model, and how its continual focus on
stakeholder happiness has contributed to its success when faced with
multiple business and ethical challenges.
 Cradle to Cradle Design at Herman Miller: Moving Toward
Environmental Sustainability is a Harvard Business Publishing case
that highlights the importance of company selection, values, and
decision-making processes in a decision about whether to switch from
toxic PVC to an alternative material to be used in chair arm pads.
 IKEA’s Global Sourcing Challenge: Indian Rugs and Child Labor
(A) is a Harvard Business Publishing case that demonstrates how a
company’s commitment to its values can help it address the child-
labor problem in the sourcing of its carpets.
 Fighting Corruption at Siemens is an interactive HBS case that
represents both a failure (as the culture allowed bribery to continue
long after the law had changed in Germany to no longer allow it) and a
success as the company demonstrates its efforts to change its culture in
a systematic way and over time.