In the business world, change is the only constant thing. It is worth noting that in a business set up various aspects can trigger the change process. These aspects can be either positive or negative. However, regardless of the causal agent, organizations embrace change to keep in touch with the world around them, conform to the set of standards in their lines of operation or enact their corporate social responsibility (Cummings, Todd Bridgman & Kenneth 35). It is in this context that this paper examines the change process in Volkswagen after the Diesel gate incident. It provides an overview of the change itself, a review of the change, the success of the changes and the recommendations for the future leadership team for any organizational change process in the firm. Principally, the organizational change process at Volkswagen after the Diesel gate incident is halfway because most of the reforms have not been fully implemented.
The Diesel Gate Incident
The Volkswagen diesel gate incident was a nitrogen oxide emission scandal that began in 2015 over the Volkswagen’s cars (Fracarolli et al. 286). The United States environmental protection Agency (EPA) discovered that Volkswagen fitted their cars with “defeat devices.” Defeat device is software that could sense test situations and stop emissions to improve the test outcomes. The technology allowed the cars to emit nitrogen oxide up to 40 times above the accepted emission levels while driving (Fracarolli eta l 292). The company accepted the fact that approximately 11 million vehicles globally had the devices (Fracarolli eta l 292). These comprised of eight million cars in Europe and 0.6 million in the United States of America. Research done at the time pointed out to the idea that this emission of the nitrogen oxide caused about 38 000 premature deaths globally in 2015 (Fracarolli et al. 286). Remarkably, this scandal raised international concerns about corporate social and environmental responsibility, integrity, and accountability. Such magnitude of harm and other unquantifiable damages resulting from the firm’s actions impacted the corporation’s reputation and placed it in a legal quagmire.
The incident cost the firm about 30 million USA dollars as fines, settlement, and solution (Fracarolli et al. 286). The diesel gate was a major scandal in the history of the company. It led to the seven-year imprisonment of the chief executive director. Additionally, the court ordered him to pay a fine of 0.4 million USA dollars for breaching the USA clean air policy (Robertson 68). Moreover, the prosecutors from the United States of America charged the Volkswagen executives both current and former (Robertson 69). Other investigations are in progress in Germany and other parts of the globe.