Corporate social irresponsibility and stakeholder ecosystems: The case of Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal

Abstract

The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal, known as “Dieselgate,” demonstrates that businesses can safeguard corporate social responsibility objectives and prevent or repair damage from corporate social irresponsibility by involving the stakeholder ecosystem in positive value co‐creation. There is a lack of strategic management research offering a systematic approach to different stakeholders and their varied roles in responding to companies' corporate social irresponsibility. We adopt the theoretical lenses of stakeholder ecosystems and stakeholder value co‐creation to re‐examine Volkswagen's Dieselgate scandal to delineate the complex and evolving interactions among concerned stakeholders, which can shed light on the ongoing debate and research on brand management, corporate reputation, trust, sustainability, and sustainable mobility.

People, performance and transition: A case study of psychological contract and stakeholder orientation in the Toyota Australia plant closure

“…This concept has attracted a small amount of attention in managerial and leadership studies, yet the engrained value structure within Toyota merits further attention, both in terms of its theoretical and practical implications. It has been standard practice for Western automotive companies to take more agent-like stakeholder postures focusing foremostly on profit (Samson et al, 2018), sometimes leading to deleterious human outcomes such as in the Ford Pinto exploding gas tank debacle (Lee & Ermann, 1999) or the more recent Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal (Zhang et al, 2021). Future research might build upon the findings of the TMCA story to formulate actionable prescriptions for broader values-based management perspectives.…”

Through the Smokescreen of the Dieselgate Disclosure: Neutralizing the Impacts of a Major Sustainability Scandal

“…Second, the Dieselgate case was triggered by the large-scale fraudulent behavior of VW-and also other car manufacturers-to downplay the impact of a certain type of vehicle (diesel), particularly during the period 2009-2015 (Huckabee, 2018;Mujkic & Klingner, 2019;Siano et al, 2017;M. Zhang et al, 2021).…”

“…Zhang et al, 2021). These behaviors were essentially based on the installation of new types of software which make it possible to falsify the evaluation of vehicles' polluting emissions-in particular NO X -during homologation tests, and thus appear to meet the increasingly strict regulatory requirements, particularly on the North American market (Nunes & Park, 2016;Pries & Wäcken, 2020;Siano et al, 2017;Spapens, 2018;Zhang et al, 2021).…”

“…The ins and outs of the Dieselgate case can be summarized in four main interrelated components. First, Dieselgate emerged within a historical, technological, and institutional context that facilitated the emergence of cheating behavior in the measurement of vehicle emissions (He & Jin, 2017; Walgren, 2000; Zhang et al, 2021). Thus, these behaviors are far from being new.…”

“…C. Jung & Sharon, 2019; Mujkic & Klingner, 2019). Some studies have focused on the strategic and economic issues that prompted VW to attempt to enter the U.S. market with inexpensive and seemingly clean diesel vehicles (Aggeri & Saussois, 2017; Bovens, 2016; Mujkic & Klingner, 2019; Siano et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2021). Research has also highlighted the difficulties, if not the impossibility, of meeting American NO X standards at reasonable costs and without compromising the efficiency of diesel engines (Bovens, 2016; Gaim et al, 2019; Zachariadis, 2016).…”