Case Study: Chicago Tylenol Murder
As you read this case study, consider the response of Johnson & Johnson in this situation. Do you think it was appropriate? Could they have done more ethically to resolve the situation? Also, review the critical thinking questions at the end of the case and determine what your answers might be.
The Chicago Tylenol Murders
In the fall of 1982, Johnson & Johnson faced a public relations nightmare when customers in Cook County, Illinois, began dying - eventually, a total of seven people died - after taking over-the-counter, Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules. Analysis showed the presence of potassium cyanide, a fatal poison in no way connected with the production of the pill. Johnson & Johnson voluntarily removed all Tylenol products from the U.S. marketplace and offered to pay full retail price for any pills returned to the company. This represented about thirty million bottles of capsules worth more than $100 million. (Significantly, too, Johnson & Johnson decided on this wide-ranging action despite the fact that it and law enforcement realized the cyanide poisoning was limited to Cook County, Illinois).
Because Tylenol was a flagship product bringing in significant revenue, this was an extreme action but one based on the company's ethics, rooted in its corporate credo. Investigation showed that someone had tinkered with the bottles and injected cyanide into the product in stores. Although no one was ever apprehended, the entire drug industry responded, following Johnson & Johnson's lead, by introducing tamper-proof containers that warned consumers not to use the product if the packaging appeared in any way compromised.
The strong ethical stance taken by Johnson & Johnson executives resulted in immediate action that reassured the public. When the company eventually returned Tylenol to the market, it introduced it first to clinics, hospitals, and physicians' offices, promoting medicine's professional trust in the product. The strategy was successful. Before the poisonings, Tylenol had 37 percent of the market of over-the-counter analgesics. That plunged to 7 percent in fall 1982 but was resurrected to 30 percent by fall 1983.
Critical Thinking
- In its corporate credo, Johnson & Johnson identifies multiple stakeholders: users of its products (output), employees (input), employees' families (diffused linkage), and the government (enabling linkage). Applying Grunig and Hunt's theory, do you believe Johnson & Johnson acted as an enlightened company that includes and communicates with a variety of publics?
- U.S. business leaders are often accused of acting on a short-term obsession with profitability at the expense of the long-term interests of their corporation. Which aspects of the Tylenol crisis demonstrate a short-term perspective? Which show the value of a longer-term perspective?
Source: Rice University, https://openstax.org/books/business-ethics/pages/3-2-weighing-stakeholder-claims
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