Monsanto Company Case Study

Case Summary

Fu, Jiarui 0350512

Chen, Yemin 0329659

Zhang, Xuxiaoxiao 0329692

Case 1 (Monsanto)

Monsanto Company is the world’s largest seed company which focuses on increasing quantity and availability of plant through biotechnology like inserting new genes or adapting existing genes within plants seeds. Since the Monsanto scientist can control what goes into the seed, people are worried about the safety of GM food. People wonder whether GM food has any negative effect to the health of humans; however, it is too hard to test. The main technology of Monsanto is within the plant seeds. In order to protect the patent of the technology, Monsanto asks farmers never to harvest seeds from the plants for use in upcoming season but to purchase new seeds for each season. And Monsanto also employs some investigators to investigate whether there are some people violate the patent. This behavior is easy to lead to an ethical issue. Meanwhile, Monsanto should be careful to ensure its activities cannot be seen as anticompetitive which may let Monsanto have lawsuit to deal with. Anyway, Monsanto is still the number 38 on the 100 Best Corporate Citizens list.

Case 2 (Ethical Leadership at Cardinal IG)

Cardinal Glass Industries Inc. is a company that focuses on manufacture and design the insulating and solar glass. This company is a private limited company and it has 70 shareholders. Each shareholder is the own employee of the company. It is the largest corporation which has more than 5500 employees in this industry. Since 1962, this company has been successful profitable and ethically. The mission of the company is “to make money, by thrilling our customers with our product and service, and by taking care of our people.” According to the case, it can be seen that the success of Cardinal IG depends on the following aspects. For one thing, the fulfillment of the company’s missions by the higher management level. For another thing, top performers’ contributions from 29 different plants. In addition, profit sharing plans, high retention rate, values of diverse workforce and recognition of excellence are highly encouraging the employees to work with passion. Finally, the company’s leaders have the great leadership skills and they can guide their employees to reach the specific goals.