Ethics Albert Heijn

Table of contents

2: Derailers in Business 2

The derailers 2

Why at Ahold 4

Learnings 5

3: CSR 7

Shell 7

Safety 8

Community 8

Climate Change 8

Environment 9

Conclusion 9

Appendix: the case of Ahold 11

2: Derailers in Business

The derailers

Although not literally described, in this case the following derailers are likely to have played a role:

The first derailer playing a role was the anonymity of the shareholders. Michiel Meurs and Cees van der Hoeven did things wrong and did so knowing that what they did was wrong. The victim of their deed were, mainly, the shareholders. Being shareholders, the management does not know them personally.

In this case there has to be said that many of the people in the board and some employees, who the CEO and the CFO generally work with, are also shareholders. Therefore, both Michiel Meurs and Cees van der Hoeven did know some shareholders personally. They probably owned shares themselves as well.

A derailer that could also be present was the dehumanisation. Every player in the market was growing rapidly at the time this affair started. All the players in the market were focussing on growth, and therefore so did Ahold. Also, Walmart had only just entered Europe when the first case started. This was a big threat for Ahold and a good way to protect themselves from Walmart was by growing.

Something that might also play a role is the ‘inflated ego’ of Cees van der Hoeven. Van der Hoeven was a renowned manager. He got many awards for his management and he was a real media man. As CEO of Ahold, he was elected manager of the year 5 times.

His nickname within the management of Ahold was ‘Keizer Cees’ (‘Emperor Cees’) or ‘Koning Cees’ (‘King Cees’). This also shows that Cees had quite an ego and that he had quite some people looking up to him. This could well have played a role in the affair.

A derailer that is clearly displayed is the self-justification. When everything comes out and people know Van der...