Do you agree with the French government’s charges against Lafarge and its managers?Why or why not?What arguments did Lafarge managers make to justify their decision to pay terroristgroups in Syria? Do you believe that these were their real reasons?Do you believe that Lafarge’s actions in Syria were ethical or unethical? Use the fourmethods of ethical reasoning (see Figure 5.5) to support your view.Evaluate the moral intensity of the decision Lafarge managers made, based on thedimensions of moral intensity.Is there anything Lafarge could have done to protect its employees adequately withoutpaying terrorists? negotiate with these [ISIS] networks classified as terrorists' networks by internationalorgani zations and the USA," the memo concluded.Despite the company's efforts, workers continued to be at risk. French courts reviewedcharges submitted by 11 Lafarge workers through Sherpa, a French law association whoseprimary mission was the protection of workers, that Lafarge placed them in a high-riskenvironment and put their lives in danger. "Lafarge acted as if it was above the law," saidMarie-Laure Guislain, the head of litigation at Sherpa. "But it played a role in an armedconflict, as well as in the violation of human rights, and must be held accountable."Olsen resigned as CEO amidst an internal investigation of the firm's top managementthat found that the money funneled to the terrorist groups was used, in part, to permitfactory workers to move to and from the facility. This inquiry also found that Olsen wasnot responsible for, or aware of, the activity. According to extensive testimony and eyewit-ness accounts of former and current employees as well as a review of internal companycorrespondence, the payments to the militant groups did not guarantee the safety of plantemployees. More than twelve workers were kidnapped between 2012 and 2014. There weremultiple accounts of employees being held at gunpoint on their way to and from work.In 2014, ISIS forces declared a caliphate, asserting their control over a region, includ-ing parts of Syria. Within weeks, as the fighting for territory continued, air strikes wereheard outside the Lafarge plant. When ISIS militants claimed respon sibility for the truckbombing at a Turkish-owned cement plant nearby, Lafarge temporarily halted productionand told its workers to stay home. Some workers, considered nonessential by manage-ment, were ferried by bus to operations in Manbji, a city in northern Syria. Yet, managersordered about 30 workers to report to work to keep the Jalabiyeh plant operating.Ultimately, in 2015, as a team of employees and managers gathered for work one morningoutside the plant, the factory's doctor warned that ISIS had just captured a nearby village."You've got to get out of here," he warned. "ISIS is coming !" When the workers discov-ered that evacuation buses promised by management were not there, they escaped in theirown vehicles. ISIS captured the factory that evening. "What I want to know," Mostafa HajiMohamad, a medical worker at the Syrian factory, said of Lafarge in an interview, "is whydid they leave us there to face our deaths? The factory was the only thing they cared about." Discussion Case: LafargeHolcim and ISIS in SyriaIn 2017, French authorities investigated and indicted several former executives of theworld's largest cement manufacturer, LafargeHolcim (Lafarge), for paying the IslamicState terrorist group to protect their factory in Syria and its workers. The indictmentcharged Bruno Lafont and Eric Olsen-two former CEOS-and the former senior exec-utive of Syrian operations, Christian Herault, with financing a terrorist organization andendangering the lives of others.Lafarge was a major multinational cement company based in France, employing 81,000workers at 2,300 sites in 80 countries around the world. The company had maintai nedoperations in Syria since 2010, after investing more than $708 million to refurbish a fac-tory in Jalabiych, a town near the Turkish border. This plant created hundreds of jobsfor local residents, generated thousands of tons of cement every day, and supported otherbusinesses nearby.Just a year after Lafarge started operations in Jalabiyeh, civil war broke out betweenPresident Bashar al-Assad's government and various rebel factions. Between 2011 and2013, the area near the factory was occupied by a succession of armed mili tary groupsbefore the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) seized control. During this period, militantsintercepted and detained Lafarge employees as they came and went from work, making itdangerous for employees and difficult for managers to run the plant efficiently.In 2011, Lafarge management started paying the militants through intermediaries,essentially to leave the company alone and allow it to operate. The company's subsidiaryin Syria, Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), paid about $15.2 million for this purpose between2011 and 2014; a large part of this money went directly to ISIS. Herrault admitted thatLafarge was involved in a "racket," but said that he regularly informed top managers of thecompany and that everything was under control.In an official statement justifying management's decision to pay off the militant groups,the company stated, "Very simply, chaos reigned, and it was the task of local managementto ensure that the intermediaries did whatever was necessary to secure its supply chainsand the free movement of its employees." Lafarge said that they did not think they had anyother options to keep the plant operational and minimize risks to their employees.The company also took other steps to protect its workers and keep the militants at bay.After militant forces kidnapped nine Lafarge employees and transferred them to local mili-tia camps, local managers spent more than $200,000 to secure their release. Lafarge alsoattempted to ease tensions by purchasing raw materials from ISIS-held areas to support theregion's economy. In 2013, a Lafarge memo emphasized the threat posed by terrorists. "Itbecomes more and more difficult to operate without being required to directly or indirectly

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Chapter1: Marketing: Creating Customer Value And Engagement

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