Image
In a competitive world, industrial companies must be concerned about their corporate image. An image of being concerned about employee safety and health will help companies attract and keep the best people. An image of being concerned about product safety will help companies mark their products. An image of being concerned about the environment will make a company a welcome neighbor in any community. Correspondingly, a poor image in any of these areas can undermine a company’s competitiveness. A product safety problem that become a media story can cause a company’s sales of a given product to plummet overnight. This happened to a major automobile manufacturer when it was discovered that one of its economy models had a tendency to ignite and explode in rear-end collisions. It also happened to pharmaceutical manufacturers when various headache relief products were tampered with and found to have been laced with poison. Had these manufacturers not shown