Surveys have shown that some 75% US professionals subscribe to situational ethics (PeopleSoft CEO Ousted for "Situational Ethics" The opening of a trial related to Oracle's takeover bid of PeopleSoft featured the revelation that CEO Craig Conway was fired last week for making misleading statements about PeopleSoft's sales. http://www.tscpa.org/ethics/default.html ).  

Additionally,  certain Ivy League MBA programs have been under fire lately because of ethical lapses, and the school has been forced to retool its curriculum.  Some say that part of the problem is that ethics is for the most part an afterthought in any given class, and that most instructors are not qualified to teach ethics. 

We like to star the conversation asking the audience to look at the chart below, and then determine if there is a common denominator.  The list was composed from  headlines from the Wall Street Journal over a period of some five years.  The common denominator is that the individuals and or organizations listed have been involved in some sort of breach and or allegations of breach.

We then discuss the specific breach or alleged breach, such as the soda vendor pushing extract shipments to its Japanese distributors, even when the extract was not needed.    These distributors were offered extremely favorable payment terms so they could simply store the extract for a rainy day.  

Or take for instance Harvard professor Adrei Shleifer, sent to Russia to teach and implement an open capital system - he liked it so much, he participated in it.  Usually some in the audience do not think there is anything wrong with this practice,  The US government thought otherwise.

A plausible question then may be:  Is Business and Ethics a Paradox?

What is the common denominato?

List derived from headlines taken from the Wall Street Journal from roughly 2005-2009

The conclusion then is, if corruption and or the appearance of corruption is so prevalent, why should we even bother to study business ethics?  After all, in marketing we are taught to think outside the box.  In decision-making we are taught maximizing strategies and in business law we are taught to find the loopholes. In creative accounting we are taught to minimize payments to the government and in creative financing, we are introduced to shelters so the government cannot claim ownership on non-existent profits - wink, wink.

The Universal Chart of Choices

Any Choice we have or will make can be classified as either 1) prudent, 2) vice, 3) benevolent or 4) crime - even when we say, "we do not have a choice", we make a choice

Time continuum priorities:  What do You believe? why?

This is not an academic question - the answer to these questions can significantly alter a corporate  culture

Ethics Defined

Ethics is not:  Religion; a Fad ; Laws ;  Something that can only be understood by extremely intelligent people

Ethics is:  

•  What we believe, why we believe it, and how (The Threshold of belief) we act out those beliefs;

•Personal & public display of personal attitudes and beliefs;

•Fluid through different situations - that is applicable to all sorts of decision-making, not an argument for relative ethics

•An aid in decision making 

Ethics in the real world

After a brief discussion of what ethics implies, a business person left asserting that ethics in business was a paradox.  Five weeks later he came back and said he had changed his mind - he now thinks ethics in business is not only possible, but is indispensable,  albeit not an easy thing to accomplish.

We view a focus on ethics and or social capital as an investment in a quality control initiative - you may not see a financial return in the short terms, but certainly will pay for itself in the long run.

The Josephson's Institute of Ethics lists several challenges (r excuses or rationalization) we face in the real world including:

• If It is Necessary, it is Ethical-justify-the-means reasoning
  The False Necessity Trap - As Nietzsche put it, "Necessity is an interpretation, not a fact." 

• If It’s Legal and Permissible, It’s Proper

• It’s Just Part of the Job
  It’s All for a Good Cause

• I Was Just Doing It for You 

• I’m Just Fighting Fire With Fire- 

• It Doesn’t Hurt Anyone - Used to excuse misconduct,

• Everyone’s Doing It 

• It’s OK If I Don’t Gain Personally 

• I’ve Got It Coming 

• I Can Still Be Objective - By definition, if you’ve lost your objectivity, you 

Ethics in the business world

It is widely known that discussing  religion and or  politics in the workplace is not acceptable,  for obvious reasons.   This implies that any attempts to search for the truth in the workplace may be frowned upon.  This being a typical situation, is it even possible to speak about ethics?

Elsewhere we noted than in a brief discussion of what ethics implied, a business person left asserting that ethics in business was a paradox.  Five weeks later he came back and said he had changed his mind - he now thinks ethics in business is  not only possible, but a necessity, albeit not an easy thing to accomplish.

We view a focus on  ethics and or social capital as an investment in a quality control initiative - you may not see a financial return in the short terms, but certainly will pay for itself in the long run.

The good news is that although there is no consensus about how to search for the truth, or whether there is such a thing as absolute ethics, there are four widely accepted ethical principals:

Additional Ethics Links:

•  What is ethics? from Santa Clara University (2002)
• Pearson Custom Publishing.  Ethics.  
• Approaching Ethics
• Can Ethics Be Taught?
• Consistency and Ethics
• Ethical Relativism
• Ethics and Virtue
• Everyday Ethics
• Conscience and Authority
• Thinking Ethically
• Justice and Fairness
• Rights

• Welcome to Ethics 101 B-schools are trying a host of new methods to teach MBAs lasting lessons in leadership principles. More... Is the Focus Too Fine? B-schools are narrowing down their core curriculums in favor of programs that develop marketable skills. More... India: Big Brains on Campus Its select Institutes of Management draw recruiters from top companies, but national job prospects are up, too. More...

Ethics-  Conclusions

• Making ethical decisions requires the ability to make distinctions between competing choices
  
• No one can simply read about ethics and become ethical.
  
• People have to make many decisions under economic, professional and social pressure. 
  
• Rationalization and laziness are constant temptations. 
• But making ethical decisions is worth it, if you want a better life and a better world. 
  Keep in mind that whether for good or ill, change is always just a decision away.

Ethics and the Decision Making Process:

• A Framework for Ethical Decision Making 
• Rodney and Rosalie Starzomski[2] Ethical Decision Making

•  McDonald, Michael.  “A Framework for Ethical Decision-Making       

• Confronting Unethical Conduct (Jan 1, 2003)  By Kirk O. Hanson

• The Josephson Institute of Ethics.  “Making Ethical Decisions.”   

• Mattison, M. (May 2000) Social Work, Volume 45, Number 3. Ethical Decision Making: The Person in the Process.  from the EBSCOhost article database

• Petrick, J., Wagley, R. and Von den Embse, T. (2001) Structured Decision Making: Improving the Prospects of Managerial Success in Business . from the EBSCOhost article database

• Robson, M. et al, and Robson, D. (2000) British Journal of Guidance Counseling, Vol 28, No. 4. Towards ethical decision making in counseling research. from the EBSCOhost article database 

• Bernstein, M.  (n.d.). The method to arrive at an ethical decision.

• Josephson, M. (n.d.). The six pillars of character.  Making ethical decisions.

Industry Association Code of Ethics

• American Marketing Association Code of Ethics
• AMA Code of Ethic on the Internet
• Software Engineering Code of Ethics – IEEE
• ACM Code of Ethics

Ethics and Technology

• THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR COMPUTER ETHICS
• The Evolution of Ethics: An Introduction to Cybernetic Ethics

Selected Readings on Ethics, privacy and security

Surfers want privacy
Americans want Net privacy, but don't know how to protect themselves.
September 14, 2000 - WebBusiness

Squatting for the Cause
Anti-hate groups reclaim the internet.
February 10, 2000 - WebBusiness


Not Fair
A California court shoots down a website’s fair use defense.
January 31, 2000 - WebBusiness



G-Rated Browsers
Argues that so-called gSurfing profiles are preferable to Congress' Child Online Protection Act.
December 03, 1999 - Industry Standard


Scared Straight
How to discourage anonymous troublemakers from badmouthing your company online.
October 1, 1999 - CIO WebBusiness


Who's Spamming Whom?
Who are they and why are they doing it?
August 20, 1999 - The Industry Standard


Lawrence Lessig-Animal Farm Revisited
The pull of the herd.
June 1, 1999 - CIO WebBusiness


Coding Privacy
Advocates changes in code, rather than changes made to privacy statements
May 21, 1999 - The Industry Standard


eCommerceTrust Study
A research project that investigated what factors project trust in e-commerce sites.



Privacy in the Internet World
Special issue with articles covering various topics such as personal information, repelling e-mail snoops, hackers, and online shopping.
September 1998 - PC World


First to Mark It
A new company hopes to stop intellectual property thieves in their tracks.
May 1, 1999 - CIO WebBusiness


Beaching Surfers
Keeping tabs on worker Internet use is easy. Deciding whether and how to monitor workers is another story.
February 1, 1999 - CIO WebBusiness


Saving Private Data
What's the best way to build consumer confidence in your use of customer information? Tell them all, and tell them now.
October 1, 1998 - CIO WebBusiness


Too Much Ado About Nothing
A look at history could ease the histrionics in the e-privacy debate.
August 15, 1998 - CIO Enterprise


Child Care
Who will make the rules for Web sites that collect information from children?
June 1, 1998 - CIO WebBusiness


Looking Both Ways
Privacy issues for employees with internet access.
October 1, 1997 - CIO WebBusiness


Invasion of Privacy
Reports on some of the many ways our privacy is compromised with new technology.
August 25, 1997 - Time


The New Right
Notes on a conference on ethics in online journalism at The Poynter Institute for media studies.
June 1, 1997 - CIO WebBusiness

RESOURCES