Mattel Case Study Essay

1. Do manufacturers of products for children have special obligations to consumers and society?

Yes, manufacturers of products for children have special obligations to consumers and society.

If so, what are these responsibilities?

Manufacturers are responsible for making sure the products they produce are child safe. What this means is the products must be designed and marketing to children based on the age appropriateness. The products must comply with all safety requirements for each country Mattel does business. The products advertisement targeted to children must not exploit their innocence and age restriction should be placed on the products they produce so that the appropriate consumer age group is purchasing the products. Parent of these consumers must be informed, when parental guidance is needed in deciding to purchase a particular product because the product requires

children’s maturity level within that age group to be more advanced for the child to benefit from using the product.

In addition, manufacturers’ must make sure that the products they produce do not pose a substantial risk to the environment and the products can easily be recycled. With the increased pressure from stakeholders for companies to produce sustainable products, companies are becoming more innovative in their design of new products to meet consumer demand. These newly designed products cost less and are easier to recycle or environmental safe. It also complies with the social concern for the environment as well as decreasing the recyclable cost for the companies. Companies that focuses on producing sustainable products often produces greater revenue overall.

2. How effective has Mattel been at encouraging ethical and legal conduct by its manufacturers?

Mattel has been very successful in the methods they use to encouraging manufacturers they
do business with to conduct their business activities ethical and legally. However, there was evidence of a facility in China used lead based paint in the production of toys, which resulted in Mattel recalling millions of toy made by that manufacturing facility. As a rule of thumb, Mattel only collaborates with business that has similar ethic and legal standards as they do.

Manufacturer who does business with Mattel were instructed that as a condition of their business relationship, they must be in full compliance with all child labor or human rights
laws or Mattel will sever their business relationship. In 1977, Mattel began conducting ethical
audits at its manufacturing facilities to insure they were complying with all legal and ethical responsibilities. Any facilities that were not within legal and ethical boundaries where encouraged to change their operations or risk losing their business relation with Mattel.

What changes and additions would you make to the company’s Global Manufacturing principles?

Mattel must also make sure that the facilities they have partnered with are also using suppliers that have been approved by Mattel, this include distribution centers that supplies Mattel manufacturing facilities with potentially hazardous materials, such as paint, or rubber.

Any change in suppliers must be approved by Mattel, which includes a sampling of each product to be used at their facilities.

3. To what extent is Mattel responsible for issues related to its production of toys in China?

Mattel is directly responsible for the production of toys in China. The manufacturing facilities are acting as agents or in partnership with Mattel and as a result, any errors or mistake made at any of these facilities becomes the responsibility of Mattel to resolve them. Mattel is responsible for making good business decisions when choosing business partnership, therefore any association with partners who does not comply with the principles or standards set by the Mattel in production of their products will affect that company’s business success.

How might Mattel have avoided these

issues?

Many domestic companies outsource the production of the products to other counties because the labor cost in that country is low. Possible ways that Mattel could have avoided the massive recall of toy products produced in China would have been not to pressure the manufacturer facility to keep cost low even when the cost of labor and material was raising. Because of the pressure from Mattel, corner-cutting mistakes were made to keep cost low that resulted in one of the largest recall ever. Other companies should learn from the mistakes made by Mattel.