Ethics in the Workplace Can Be Complicated I have blogged many times before about the importance of having a code of ethics in business that promotes an ethical culture. A code of ethics is needed to memorialize the firm’s commitment to ethical behavior. It also details the ethical expectations of... Read more →
Suggestions for Top Management There are many writings about corporate culture but one stands out in my mind because the thoughts are those of Big-4 firm Deloitte. Providing advice to clients on how to strengthen corporate culture says a lot about the firm’s commitment to serve their clients not only... Read more →
Transcendent Values Must Lead the Way Are organizations ethical? How can we know? One way is to ask key questions such as: What are the values that inform ethical behavior? What is necessary to ethically evaluate whether and how their actions affect stakeholders? Does the organization have an ethical culture... Read more →
The Best Way to Measure Results of Performance in Today’s Organization Social enterprise has been a buzz word for millennials for some time now. A social enterprise is a commercial organization that has specific social objectives that serve its primary purpose. Social enterprises seek to maximize profits while maximizing benefits... Read more →
Why Ethics Should Take on a Greater Role in Business Decision-Making According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Culture Trends, 71 percent of employees said they would take a pay cut to work for a company whose values they share and 39% would quit if asked to do something unethical by their... Read more →
Should a Company (or person) Be Defined By Their Worst Act? Every time I walk into the local branch of Wells Fargo Bank I wonder whether I should change banks simply because of the massive fraud committed by Wells Fargo that was made public in 2016. I thought about last... Read more →
Product Safety Scandals Keep On Coming How can we explain the extent of recent corporate wrongdoing that raises the question: Where were the top officials? Just in the past few years we learned of fictitious accounts set up for customers at Wells Fargo and adding costs to the products sold... Read more →
Wells Fargo, VW, Takata Air Bags, and J&J: Failing the Ethical Tests of Moral Agency One reason businesses still struggle with ethical behavior is they are unaware of their role as a moral agent. A moral agent is a person who has the ability to distinguish between right and wrong... Read more →
Managing Employee Behavior Online A version of this blog was first posted on October 16, 2012. Online social media applications are quickly gaining the mindshare of company employees and changing just as rapidly. With all the benefits that social media is bringing to the corporate world, a company faces numerous... Read more →
From Ethics Hero to Goat On July 12, 2018, J&J was ordered to pay $4.69 billion to 22 women and their families who had claimed that asbestos in the company’s talcum powder products caused them to develop ovarian cancer. The punitive damage part of the award ($4.14 billion) was the... Read more →