Case 3 Mattel Toy Recalls

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1) Identify the major stakeholders in the case and answer the question, “Who was responsible for what went wrong and why?” The major stakeholders in this case are their customers within the retail stores, manufacturers, vendors, both governments and all executives involved with Mattel production both in the US and China. The two stakeholders who were at fault for what went wrong were the Mattel executive team and the Chinese manufacturer. We feel that Mattel should have been more involved in the day-to-day operations of toy manufacturing. The Chinese manufacturer should have updated their daily operations with Mattel. The rules and regulation that specified within the original agreement should have not been modified or adjusted. 2) What are the ethical issues in the case, and for whom? Ethically, Mattel should have took it upon themselves to tell the public about the issue as soon as they found out about it. This would has created a positive look for Mattel and avoid major risks. This issue involves all the executives in the senior positions in charge of distribution. With the magnitude of the production assigned to the Chinese, I would only assume that there was a specific contract drawn up for production that should have been enforced. 3) Do you think cross-cultural dynamics and misunderstandings played a role in the resulting problems in the case? Explain. I think that cross-cultural dynamics and misunderstandings could have had an effect in this case but Mattel should have had representatives there to overlook the process of production. This would have ensured quality control, and product assurance without the risk. 4) Was there a “prodromal phase” in this case? If so, identify this stage and the event that explain it. There was a prodromal phase. It is represented in this article on page 79, when on August 2, 2002 John

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