The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis Case Study

Responsibility is one of the most important issues in people’s lives. Although it may seem as it all depends on the person and his moral judgment, but still, there are some ethical rules that sometimes affects those decisions. Responsibility could be represented by an individual or in a group such as a company or a soccer team for example, where every individual is responsible for his actions toward his teammates and the team itself. Engineering, as a serious career, is full of these accountable decisions toward many perspectives, as engineers, usually, are in the number one spot where they are responsible for their work. In The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis case study by Joe Morgenstern, a great example of a professional engineer who faces an engineering problem exists. William J. LeMessurier, and other stakeholders involved are faced with a dilemma when they discover that the building they built is having serious problems that could lead to its catastrophic failure.

After finishing the building of Citicorp Center, a fifty-nine-story building, and the
People are already in the building, LeMessurier discover that wind-bracing system he designed for Citicorp, is having serious problems, especially that a massive hurricane is expected soon. LeMessurier then told Citicorp so they can try to find a solution that would satisfy the stakeholders involved. What they are not sure about though, is to whether to notify the people in the building or not about such an issue. Ethically, most people would say that the people have the right to know, especially when it comes to possibly threatening their lives. However, the different stakeholders in this issues have different opinions and have their own analysis of what is good and what is bad for the stakes.

The stakeholders involved here are first of all, the main engineer LeMessurier. LeMessurier is fully responsible to build a safe and a well designed structural building. It would be a plus that the building is cheap and still competitive but that is not necessary. He also has to follow the Code of Ethics for his society, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE. Then there are the builders, Bethlehem, who are responsible for a competitive building with an average cost. The architecture designer here is Stubbens, and he is responsible for designing a safe building and fixing architecturally what is wrong with it, this person, I think, has one of the main stakes in this issue besides LeMessurier. There are the employees in the company who are just following the rules and they are responsible for reporting illegal actions for example. Citicorp the company has an obligation to tell the people the truth about what is wrong with the building and they have the right to whatever is best for their company. The public and the surrounding buildings have the right to know what could affect them and their lives and they can certainly sue any of the other stakeholders if they wanted to. Lastly there are the lawyers and the insurance company, NBIC, as the main thing here for NBIC is to know what is wrong with the building, because they are the ones who would have to pay for any damage, and they do not want to do that, they can affect other stakeholders’ decisions based on their analysis.

Now all of these stakeholders have an obligation to do what is better for his stake, but in such situations, they can be more negotiable with other stakeholders so they can work the problem out easily. I want to talk here about Citicorp and its stake, as they represent a big piece of the final decisions that will be made toward any resolutions toward this problem. They represent also the money here, and Citicorp does not want to spend more money after doing their analysis. After LeMessurier have told Citicorp about the problem, Citicorp decided to lie to protect its stake, but this lie could have affected hundreds of people lives. Now that the people are in the building, and a storm is on the way, they would want to know if anything was wrong with the building. It was very serious because LeMessurier had discovered that “the weakest joint was at the building’s thirtieth floor; if that one gave away, a catastrophic failure of the whole structure would follow.”

In a strategic way, I think that Citicorp did what was best for its stakes when they released some words for the public, but I do not think it was ethical at all. First, you do not fix a lie with a lie. On the press release, they said that the wind-bracing system needs to be strengthened and nothing dangerous is involved. They said that although they know that the upcoming hurricane could blast down the building. As a human living on that building I would want to know the truth especially if it is affecting my life, that is the main idea of the people’s stake, the right to know. Citicorp and LeMessurier “did not think that an evacuation plan would be necessary,” and they left the chances open for the fate of the building in a way. Instead of Citicorp to lie to the public, they could have simply told the people to evacuate the building for a period of time, until it has been fixed. Now at least, they would not have to worry about the reactions if the building actually fell because they did what was ethical at least. As a person, I would be happy to know that, especially if it was in the short-term side as the hurricane was coming soon, rather than having a chance of the building falling. Very simple negotiations between Citicorp and the engineers could have worked out between the different stakeholders involved here. Luckily, this ended up safely and the storm was gone, but what if it did not, it would have been another case study and Citicorp would have been gone with the engineers. Not only that, hundreds and maybe thousands of people would have died without knowing the truth.

It is such a dilemma when Citicorp was faced with this decision, a truth vs. loyalty and a long-term vs. a short-term. They knew that this could have happened in the next 16 years, something in their lifetime, so they had to make good decisions in such as issue. Citicorp, as any other company would have done, have done the right decision toward their stakes by lying to the people, but is it ethical, I do not think so. Citicorp knew also that it would have cost them more money if they have not lied. Money is not everything as we all know that, but it may seem it is when it comes to companies. Citicorp just followed its rules to protect its stakes, as everyone would have done so. Telling the truth would have cost them more money, but it would have been the right thing to do from other perspectives as it could have saved the lives of people and the reputation of the company. Protecting the stakes has rules, but sometimes breaking these rules is ‘ethically’ the right choice for us as humans with intelligent minds.

The above images are from:

http://www.uh.edu/engines/citigroupcenter2.jpg

http://www.newyorker.com/images/covers/1995/1995_05_29_v256.jpg

http://www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/ce131/citicorp1_files/lemess_33.JPG

Ford Pinto Case Study

Safety has been a very important issue for everyone in the daily lives. It is one of the main reasons, which allow the people to survive and keep humans alive. When it comes to business for example, the owners are put in a position to choose what is best for its company and what would it take to achieve their goal. Safety is the number one criteria for such a case most of the time, but sometimes the companies are forced to choose profit over safety according to different analyzes. In the ford pinto case study, the owners of ford have been accused of choosing knowingly and recklessly profit over safety.

In order for the American market to be more competitive with the European market for cars, they had to come up with new ideas and design new vehicles, especially those small ones, which will dominate the streets in America. That is the overall goal, but from Fords point of view and the owners, it was somehow different. Ford designed the pinto as small and cheap car to serve most people around the U.S and to reduce the sales of other European cars such as the Volkswagen. All sounded nice until Ford was accused of designing a bad vehicle for the people as it had serious problems in its gas tank that eventually was causing burn and death injuries. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), “although Ford makes 24 percent of the cars on American roads, these cars account for 42 percent of the collision-ruptured fuel tanks.”() Different stakeholders showed up here to analyze this case and see who was wrong here, if any.

For Ford stakeholders, as the owners, their goal is to put in the cheapest income to get the greatest outcome and maximize the profit. This is usual, as this is probably the main goal for most businesses around the world. In the company still, there was the engineers and the workers. Their goal was to design a safe and cheap car to be competitive in the market. They are limited however by the budget of their company, Ford. Then there is the NHTSA, which are responsible of constructing safe highways to serve all kind of vehicles and setting the safety standards to prevent collisions. The public or the people stakeholders who represent the customers here are looking for an affordable and safe car to serve their needs and wants in their lives. There are also the victims in those death injuries, in either the pinto or the other affected cars, whom are looking again for a safe and affordable car. Every one of those had his own point of view on the case and everyone was affected by the other.

Ford was being accused from different perspectives, especially from Mother Jones the magazine, which represents the public opinion. In response to the number of accidents that Ford was responsible for, Ford said that “statistics imply that Pintos were involved in only 1.9 percent of such accidents.” () On the other hand, Mother Jones claimed that the standards for rear end accidents should be able to “withstand a fixed barrier impact of 20 mph without losing fuel.” () For the Pinto however, according to analyzes it could not stand this safety standard, which meant a new design for the rear end of the car. Ford was not happy with these accusations and had other opinions to protect their products.

With already the Pinto in the streets and new cars are being produced. Designing a new rear end for the car was not the best choice for Ford. Ford have done analyzes and found that it would approximately cost $11 per car to do some improvements which will prevent the gas tank for capturing fire so easily. Ford however convinced the federal government that this improvement “was not cost-effective for society.” () These Cost-Benefit analysis showed that it would be much more profitable if they ignored the improvements of the car as the value of human deaths, injures and burns, was beneficial for Ford at a value of $49.5 million. In contrast, analysis shows that the $11 per car improvement would cost Ford a value of $137 million. There is a huge different here in the profit and loss comparison, and as a company, Ford choose profit over safety of the people. Most business would have done that, as no one would start a business to lose money. Business is based on profit and money is what runs the society. For instance, if Ford would have chosen to improve their cars, it would have meant a big lose the company and the employees, and it would have taken a long time to stand on their feet again.

Mother Jones magazine was probably shocked by Ford analysis for choosing profit over the value of human beings. According to the magazines’ analysis, Ford could have fixed the problem by “installing a rubber bladder inside the gas tank for only $5.08 per car,” () which is about half the way less than $11 per car, still though, it is not enough profit for Ford to do it, that if they could have actually done so. Ford could have negotiated with that price and play around with it to make Mother Jones but that would have meant choosing safety over profit, and no business would probably do that. Mother Jones also suggested that they could have made it an optional product for Pinto’s customers and let them know that what they are driving was not safe. Los Angeles safety expert Bryon Bloch argued that “Ford made an extremely irresponsible decision when they placed a weak tank…in such a soft rear end. It’s almost designed to blow up.” () Now Ford did not design the car to blow up, the aim here is not to make a bomb and killing people, Ford, the company is serving the public, and without customers, it will mean a great lose.

What Ford have done to choose profit over safety was reasonable according to what they had to say. They knew what they want to choose, but they never “recklessly” choose profit over the values of the human lives. They had tables and date to prove that this was not carelessly done and they chose based on their analysis. It was one specific incident for the Pinto that led all this arguments to come out. It was a 50 mph impact to a stand still Pinto, any car would have suffered that, but the teenagers who died in that accident were just an example for the people to loose their stakes, as Ford did not give them exactly what was good for them. There were also no safety standards that Ford had violated, and everything was legal about what they were doing. As humans though, we would not do something that is unsafe to others. On the other hand, no reasonable mind would choose lose or safety over profit, which makes no point of his business at all. That what makes this case a dilemma and it is hard to make a choice about who is right and who is wrong. It all depends on which stakeholder do you represent and what is your stake to do what is good for your company, yourself and the others.

The image above is from:

http://www.martprint.com/foto/loga_firm/Ford.gif