Editor’s Top Choice:
Business Schools Aren’t Producing Ethical Graduates
From Deborrah Himsel of BloombergBusinessweek:
You can’t accuse them of not trying. Business schools make efforts to teach students to carry ethical lessons from their MBA program into the working world and to behave ethically as professionals. Most top schools include ethics courses or build ethics-related segments into classes on global management and leadership.
As much as they try to impart ethical lessons, programs often fail to contribute to an ethical business climate. At least 100 publicly traded companies, including Wal-Mart (WMT), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), have reported investigations relating to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Over the last two years, Walmart has paid $439 million in legal fees in response to a probe of possible violations in Mexico. In May, Avon Products (AVP) reached a preliminary $135 billion settlement over allegations of bribery in its China operations. Read more
Other Featured Picks of the Week
A Bold Vision to Truly Evolve Your Culture
Tim Kuppler of Culture University writes, “CEO’s continue to publicly proclaim their efforts to manage significant and meaningful culture change. Some miss the mark and show their lack of understanding this critical topic. Others, like Satya Nadella of Microsoft, share a much clearer vision and appear like they truly ‘get it.’ What separates the visionary and capable culture champions from the vast majority of leaders that don’t understand the culture fundamentals?
Evolve the culture at your own peril
It can be a bold move to tackle the challenge of evolving your culture. Some iconic leaders like Steve Jobs and Howard Schultz focused on leveraging many aspects of the core of their culture they helped create as part of a new strategy when they returned to the top job. Others like Mary Barra of General Motors and Satya Nadella of Microsoft made it clear that change was needed and crafted a new vision.” Read more
Always Listen to Your Internal Code of Ethics
Jordan H. Green writes, “All entrepreneurs that want their businesses taken seriously have a code of ethics for their business ventures.
Sadly, it is often tasked-out to someone in human resources. Like the mission statement and the vision of the company, a corporate code of ethics is part of the very ethos that defines one business from another.
A corporate code of ethics must be written by the very founder of the business, if it is to have any real meaning.
Why?
How can a code of ethics be part of the fabric of uniqueness of the business?” Read more
Corporate Governance: Why the Board Must Lead on Ethics
From Nicole Dando, of Ethical Corporation, “Much is written about the role, indeed duty, of the board in setting the ethical values of the organisation. A board is responsible for determining, articulating and communicating the values and standards of the business, and for ensuring that the policies, procedures and controls in place act to embed, rather than hinder, ethical values throughout the business.
But can boards demonstrate that they are committed to ethical standards and their application to the way they govern and conduct themselves?
The business case for business ethics has been well demonstrated through the costs and impacts of the repeated high profile cases of corporate greed and misconduct. Often those integrity failures are a result of senior individuals crossing ethical boundaries as well as ignoring or circumventing the rules set out in law.” Read more
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