Skip to ContentGo to accessibility pageKeyboard shortcuts menu
OpenStax Logo
Principles of Management

Critical Thinking Case

Principles of ManagementCritical Thinking Case

Wells Fargo

The Wells Fargo recent crisis over mismanaging customer relationships, fraudulently implementing illegal and unethical sales practices with trusted clients, has cost the company in fines, lost business, and the resignation of the CEO. The following online sources offer a narrative and factual source of what happened, when, to whom, and why. Use these sources to answer and provide evidence to the following questions to present to the class:

Critical Thinking Questions
  1. What were the sources and causes the problems in the first place? Explain.
  2. Who were some of the primary decision makers that led to the illegal sales activities?
  3. What were these individuals’ motives and motivations?
  4. How were the illegal and fraudulent activities discovered?
  5. Who was to blame?
  6. What unethical activities occurred before the illegal actions took place?
  7. What would you have done, if anything, had you been one of the sales professionals pressured to engage in unethical, illegal practices there?
  8. How would a stakeholder approach, if taken by the company’s top leaders and board of directors, have possibly prevented the crisis?

Sources: Comrie, Harley, “Wells Fargo Fake Accounts Scandal”, Seven Pillars Institute, March 15, 2017, http://sevenpillarsinstitute.org/case-studies/wells-fargo-fake-accounts-scandal ; “Wells Fargo Banking Scandal a Financial crisis We Can Finally Understand”, The Guardian, accessed January 2, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/business/us-money-blog/2016/oct/07/wells-fargo-banking-scandal-financial-crisis; Glazer, Emily, “Wells Fargo’s Textbook Case of Botched Crisis Management”, The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/wells-fargos-textbook-case-of-how-not-to-handle-a-crisis-1476380576.

PreviousNext
Order a print copy

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Citation/Attribution

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction
Citation information

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.