Question: Identify and Explain which Stakeholder(s) would be directly affected by the consequences of the ethical dilemma. 2.0 SUMMARIZATION OF THE PROBLEM The electronic seller company,

Identify and Explain which Stakeholder(s) would be directly affected by the consequences of the ethical dilemma.Identify and Explain which Stakeholder(s) would

2.0 SUMMARIZATION OF THE PROBLEM The electronic seller company, Samsung was caught paying people to write and give a false, negative comment on their competitor's product. The issue arose in April 2013 and was done by one of the branch of the company in Taiwan. It was stated that Samsung Taiwan has been hiring a lot of people mostly students to write and publish comment on an online forum which gave them advantages while giving bad reviews and comments to their competitor's product. Samsung has also hired at least two third-party marketing companies to do the dirty work of posting fake reviews about competitors. Samsung has claimed that this as one of their marketing strategy. The victim of the false comments that has been getting bad reviews on their products was also an electronic seller company named HTC. The further investigation later revealed more of the negative comments on competitor's product while Samsung got a rather positive evaluation on their products. This kind of marketing is known in the industry as astroturfing which is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization for example political, advertising, religious or public relations to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by a grassroots participant. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection. Samsung is not the first company to engage in this kind of act but it has been caught twice on that particular year. This is rather an unethical practice by the marketing department of Samsung. It is clear that the company have played dirty to gain more support from the customer and also an attempt to eliminate competition by the other company

Step by Step Solution

There are 3 Steps involved in it

1 Expert Approved Answer
Step: 1 Unlock blur-text-image
Question Has Been Solved by an Expert!

Get step-by-step solutions from verified subject matter experts

Step: 2 Unlock
Step: 3 Unlock

Students Have Also Explored These Related General Management Questions!