Script processing ethics

Pinto Fires and Personal Ethics: A Script Analysis of Missed Opportunities Dennis A. Cioia

ABSTRACT. This article details the personal involvement of the author in the early stages of the infamous Pinto fire case. The paper first presents an insider account of the context and decision environment within which he failed to initiate an early recall of defective vehicles. A cognitive script analysis of the personal experience is then offered as an explanation of factors that led to a decision that now is commonly seen as a definitive study in unethical corporate behavior. IThe main analytical thesis is that script schemas that were guiding cognition and action at the time pre.- cluded consideration of issues in ethical terms because the scripts did not include ethical dimensions.

In the summer of 1972 I made one of those impor- tant tran.sitions in life, the significance of vifhich becomes obvious only in retrospect. I left academe with a BS in Engineering Science and an MBA to enter the world of big business. I joined Ford Motor Company at World Headquarters in Dearborn Michigan, fulfilling a long-standing dream to work in the heart of the auto industry. I felt confident that I was in the right place at the right time to make a

Dennis A. Gioia is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior

in the Department of Management and Organization, The

Smeal College ofBusiness Administration, Pennsylvania State

University. Professor Cioia's primary research and writing focus

of the nature and uses of complex cognitive processes by organiza-

tion members and the ways that these processes affect sensemak-

ing, communication, influence and organizational change. His

most recent research interests have to do with the less rational,

more intuitive, emotional, and political aspects of organizational

life — those fascinating arenas where people in organizations tend

to subvert management scholars' heartfelt attempts to have them

behave more rationally. Prior to this ivory tower career, he worked

in the real world as an engineering aide for Boeing Aerospace at

Kennedy Space Center and as vehicle recall coordinator for Ford

Motor Company in Dearbom, Michigan.

difference. My initial job title was "Problem Analyst" — a catchall label that superficially described what I would be thinking about and doing in the coming years. On some deeper level, however, the ride paradoxically came to connote the many crirical things that I would not be thinking about and acring upon.

By that summer of 1972 I was very full of myself. I had met my hfe's goals to that point with some notable success. I had virtually everything I wanted, including a strongly-held value system that had led me to question many of the perspectives and prac- rices I observed in the world around me. Not the least of these was a profound distaste for the Vietnam war, a distaste that had found me parrici- paring in various demonstrarions against its conduct and speaking as a part of a collecrive voice on the moral and ethical failure of a democraric govern- ment that would attempt to jusdfy it. I also found myself in MBA classes railing against the conducr of businesses of the era, whose acrions struck me as ranging from inconsiderate to indifferent to simply unethical. To me the typical stance of business seemed to be one of disdain for, rather than respon- sibility toward, the society of which they were prominent members. I wanted something to change. Accordingly, I culrivated my social awareness; I held my principles high; I espoused my intenrion to help a troubled world; and I wore my hair long. By any measure I was a prototypical "Child of the '60s."

Therefore, it struck quire a few of my friends in the MBA program as rather strange that I was in the program at all. ("If you are so disappointed in business, why study business?"). Subsequently, they were practically dumbstruck when I accepted the job offer from Ford, apparendy one of the great pur- veyors of the very acrions I reviled. I countered that it was an ideal strategy, arguing that I would have a

Journal ofBusiness Ethia 11: 379-389, 1992. © 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

380 Dennis A. Gioia

greater chance of influencing social change in busi- ness if I worked behind the scenes on the inside, rather than as a strident voice on the outside. It was clear to me that somebody needed to prod these staid companies into socially responsible acrion. I certainly aimed to do my part. Besides, I liked cars.

Into the fray: setting the personal stage

Predictably enough, I found myself on the fast track at Ford, parriciparing in a "tournament" type of socializarion (Van Maanen, 1978), engaged in a competirion for recognirion with other MBA's who had recently joined the company. And I quickly became caught up in the game. The company itself was dynamic; the environment of business, especially the auto industry, was intriguing; the job was challenging and the pay was great. The psychic rewards of working and succeeding in a major corporarion proved unexpectedly seducrive. I really became involved in the job.

Market forces (internarional comperirion) and government regularion (vehicle safety and emissions) were affecring the auto industry in disruprive ways that only later would be common to the wider business and social arena. They also produced an industry and a company that felt buffeted, belea- guered, and threatened by the changes. The threats were mostly external, of course, and led to a strong feeling of we-vs-them, where we (Ford members) needed to defend ourselves against them (all the outside parries and voices demanding that we change our ways). Even at this rime, an intriguing quesrion for me was whether I was a "we" or a "them." It was becoming apparent to me that my perspecrive was changing. I had long since cut my hair.

By the summer of 1973 I was pitched into the thick of the battle. I became Ford's Field Recall Coordinator — not a posirion that was parricularly high in the hierarchy, but one that wielded influence for beyond its level. I was in charge of the opera- rional coordinarion of all of the recall campaigns currently underway and also in charge of tracking incoming informarion to idenrify developing prob- lems. Therefore, I was in a posirion to make inirial recommendarions about possible future recalls. The most crirical type of recalls were labeled "safety campaigns" — those that dealt vwth the possibility of

customer injury or death. These ranged from straight-forward occurrences such as brake failure and wheels falling off vehicles, to more exoric and faintly humorous failure modes such as detaching axles that announced their presence by spinning forward and slamming into the starded driver's door and speed control units that locked on, and refused to disengage, as the care accelerated wildly while the spooked driver furilely tried to shut it off. Safety recall campaigns, however, also encompassed the more sobering possibility of on-board gasoline fires and explosions....

The Pinto case: setting the corporate stage

In 1970 Ford introduced the Pinto, a small car that was intended to compete with the then current challenge from European cars and the ominous presence on the horizon of Japanese manufacturers. The Pinto was brought from inceprion to produc- rion in the record rime of approximately 25 months (compared to the industry average of 43 months), a rime frame that suggested the necessity for doing things expediently. In addirion to the time pressure, the engineering and development teams were re- quired to adhere to the producrion "limits of 2 000" for the diminurive car: it was not to exceed either $2 000 in cost or 2000 pounds in weight. Any decisions that threatened these targets or the riming of the car's introducrion were discouraged. Under normal condirions design, styling, product plarming, engineering, etc., were completed prior to produc- rion tooling. Because of the foreshortened rime frame, however, some of these usually sequenrial processes were executed in parallel.

As a consequence, tooling was already well under way (thus "freezing" the basic design) when rourine crash tesring revealed that the Pinto's fuel tank often ruptured when struck from the rear at a relarively low speed (31 mph in crash tests). Reports (revealed much later) showed that the fuel tank failures were the result of some rather marginal design features. The tank was posirioned between the rear bumper and the rear axle ( a standard industry pracrice for the rime). During impact, however, several studs protruding from the rear of the axle housing would puncture holes in the tank; the fuel filler neck also was likely to rip away. Spilled gasoline then could be

Pinto Fires and Personal Ethics 381

ignited by sparks. Ford had in fact crash-tested 11 vehicles; 8 of these cars suffered potenrially cata- strophic gas tank ruptures. The only 3 cars that survived intact had each been modified in some way to protect the tank.

These crash tests, however, were conducted under the guidelines of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 301 which had been proposed in 1968 and strenuously opposed by the auto industry. FMVSS 301 was not actually adopted until 1976; thus, at the rime of tlie tests. Ford was not in violarion of the law. There were several possibiliries for fixing the problem, including the oprion of redesigning the tank and its locarion, which would have produced tank integrity in a high-speed crash. That solurion, however, was not only rime consuming and expen- sive, but also usurped trunk space, which was seen as a crirical comperirive sales factor. One of the pro- ducrion modificarions to the tank, however, would have cost only $11 to install, but given the right margins and restricrions of the "limits of 2 000," there was reluctance to make even this relarively minor change. There were other reasons for not approving the change, as well, including a wide- spread industry belief that all small cars were inherently unsafe solely because of their size and weight. Another more prominent reason was a corporate belief that "safety doesn't sell." This obser- varion was attributed to Lee Iacocca and stemmed from Ford's earlier attempt to make safety a sales theme, an attempt that failed rather dismally in the marketplace.

Perhaps the most controversial reason for reject- ing the producrion change to the gas tank, however, was Ford's use of cost-benefit analysis to jusrify the decision. The Narional Highway Traffic Safety Asso- ciarion (NHTSA, a federal agency) had approved the use of cost-benefit analysis as an appropriate means for establishing automorive safety design standards. The controversial aspect in making such calcularions v̂ ras that they required the assignment of some specific value for a human life. In 1970, that value was deemed to be approximately $200 000 as a "cost to society" for each fatality. Ford used NHTSA's figures in esrimaring the costs and benefits of altering the tank producrion design. An internal memo, later revealed in court, indicates the follow- ing tabularions concerning potenrial fires (Dowie, 1977):