General Motors

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This is a research paper on General Motors. Its ethics and business model will be examined. Custom business case studies and MBA research papers are Paper Masters specialty. Discuss whether General Motors is a socially responsible business and whether General Motors demonstrates ethical leadership.

General Motors Research Paper

The General Motors research paper should support specific company actions and an analysis of these actions based on the criteria established for ethical leadership and social responsibility. The prestigious fourteenth floor at General Motors' World Headquarters in Detroit was the destination that most executives strive for. While General Motors systematically stripped the decision-making power away from the divisions, most of the operating decisions were being made from the fourteenth floor. The fourteenth floor became a paper-shuffling stopover for executives who were in the running for GM's presidency.

General Motors (GM) is faced with increased profitability issues due to the high costs associated with wages, pension benefits and healthcare for its retirees, which is the result of overly generous contracts with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the past. These financial difficulties may be partially attributed to the firm straying from its vision statement that has led to gradual decline in market share in key markets such as North America. Because of the general trend towards increased costs for retirement and healthcare benefits for retirees and the difficulties that the automotive division has in achieving profitability, the firm should consider a dramatic change in operational strategy. A potential solution to the difficulties faced by the firm is to increase the salary of employees sufficiently to allow them to obtain private healthcare, and to increase the level of employee ownership as a disincentive for employees to continue to seek representation from the UAW.

The vision statement of the firm states that GM's vision is to be the world leader in transportation products and related services. The firm also indicates that it will earn customers' enthusiasm through continuous improvement that is driven by the integrity, teamwork and innovation of GM people. In order to support this vision, the firm adopted a policy of generous compensation for employees based on the demands of the UAW. In addition, it readily acceded to the demands of the UAW regarding the addition of healthcare benefits that were not clearly defined to the retirement package for employees. In general, the approach of GM towards the UAW has been conciliatory in order to avoid alienating employees. At the same time, the UAW has traditionally maintained an adversarial position towards GM and has not fostered the development of a collaborative relationship between management and labor. As a result, the continuous improvement articulated in the vision statement has not been supported by the development of teamwork between labor and management.

Social Responsibility and Ethics at General Motors

1. Introduction
2. Background on social responsibility
3. Definition of social responsibility
4. Importance of social responsibility in the organization
5. Ethics in business
6. Definition of ethics
7. Relevance and importance of ethics to the organization
8. Review of General Motors
9. Questions of ethics/social responsibility
10. Overview of paper contents
11. Social responsibility at GM
12. Programs developed by GM for responsibility
13. Environmental Commitment
1. Historical commitment
2. Current commitment
14. Social performance reporting
1. GM one of the few companies
2. Building public relations
3. CSR reporting
15. College scholarships
16. Negative Publicity
17. Unreported automotive failures
18. Foreign operations
19. Ethics at General Motors
20. Corporate ethics program at GM
21. History of the program
22. Impact of the program
23. Public response to the program
24. How ethics impacts GM
25. Employee response
1. Morale
2. Motivation
3. Job satisfaction
26. Ethics issues of concern
27. GM's links to apartheid
28. Deceptive advertising
29. Review/Synthesis of Data
30. Balancing positive and negatives
31. Social responsibility
32. Ethics
33. Overall assessment of GM
34. Positive social and ethical positions
35. Conclusion
36. Challenges of ethics and social responsibility
37. Relation to GM