Saturday, August 06, 2005

Business ethics: a guide to the automotive industry

These past few days I've been on a market research assignment - a top secret mission, involving prototypes of next year's DaimlerChrysler 'Jeep' range. Clients are asked to rate various designs of vehicle and interiors.
One particular display caught my eye. Participants were requested to rate the shell of one car, and the interior of another (which would be brought together in a single model for production). Interestingly, a close look at the second car reveals that it isn't a Jeep; the interior was actually designed by those nice folks at Hyundai who surely won't mind their design being stolen by a rival company.
My tentative enquiry sheds some light on the duplicity: "Oh, this sort of thing is done all the time..."
So that's all right then.

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