Product Recalls: Ethics and Business Impacts

Kristin Smith-Crowe, associate professor of management, can comment from a perspective of the ethical dilemma faced by companies offering a recall. As a point of interest, she also drives a Toyota that has been recalled.

Professor Smith-Crowe’s research focuses on ethics in organizations including the factors that tend to precede unethical behavior in organizations, as well as reactions to these transgressions (such as the willingness to forgive and the desire to punish). Recently, she has begun studying the role of emotion in behavioral ethics. She also conducts research on worker safety training and research methods.

Don Wardell, professor and chair of the department of operations and information systems, can comment on the perspective of operational effects of recalls on business.

His research interests are mainly in the areas of quality control and management, Six Sigma, and especially statistical process control. He has served as an associate editor for Technometrics, is a member of the editorial review boards of Production and Operations Management and IIE Transactions on Quality and Reliability and reviews articles for numerous journals.

Kristin Smith-Crowe, associate professor, dept of management, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah, (801) 587-3720, [email protected]