ethical behavior in business
Knowledge@W. P. Carey -- Business Ethics
Knowledge@W. P. Carey is an online resource that offers the latest business insights, information, and research from a variety of sources. Content includes analysis of current business trends, interviews with industry leaders and faculty, articles based on the most recent business research, book reviews, conference and seminar reports, and links to other websites.
- The Fruits of Integrity: Trust, Influence, Repeat Business
Each of us, as we go about our daily lives, has opportunity after opportunity to make the right choice, John Johnson told audience at the Spark 2008 IT Invitational conference this fall. Living with integrity encompasses deliberate decision-making in all aspects of one's life, he stressed, including relationships and business. Johnson is chief information officer for the popular P.F. Chang's China Bistro chain of restaurants. - College Cheating Is Bad for Business
In an age where a new cheating/corruption scandal is front-page news nearly every day -- think Enron, Barry Bonds, Eliot Spitzer, and Marion Jones for starters -- it is perhaps not surprising that dishonesty is a problem on most college campuses. Academic dishonesty, which runs the gamut from plagiarizing to purchasing papers and theses, sharing answers on assignments, taking another's exam, and failing to do work for a team project, is, unfortunately, part of the college experience for many students today. In a recent survey of 5,331 graduate students at 32 universities, 56 percent of the business students and 47 percent of the non-business students admitted to cheating one or more times in the past year. These numbers are an ominous sign for the academic and business communities, say experts at the W. P. Carey School of Business.
- Helping Others Cook Their Books: It's a Recipe for Disaster
Your company's best corporate customer needs help. Earnings are down. You could help that company's revenues look rosier with a sham transaction. And, why wouldn't you? After all, it's not your company's financial statements you're sweetening. You're just bringing a little aid to the table for someone else. Should you play along? No way, says Marianne Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies at the W. P. Carey School of Business. Even if your own earnings are for real, you could face criminal charges for aiding another company with "creative" accounting. - Podcast: Are Millennials Prone to Cheating to Get Ahead?
Many employers are finding that millennials -- employees aged 14 to 31 -- are a new breed. Young, bright, eager and tech savvy, millennials also demand frequent validation, quick rewards and permission to shape the rules to fit their lives. Now academics and employers are wondering if millennials have determined that cutting corners and cheating is an acceptable way of getting ahead. Barbara Keats, associate professor of management at the W. P. Carey School of Business, says cheating has always existed in some form in the business world, but she wonders if millennials are taking it to a new level. - Bradley Preber: Aligning Form and Substance to Create an Ethical Business Culture
Marianne Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies in business at W. P. Carey School of Business, recently noted that major business scandals used to be spaced about 10 years apart. Unfortunately, the cycle now appears to be compressing. In a recent talk before W. P. Carey MBA Executive students, Bradley Preber, the partner-in-charge of Grant Thornton's Forensic Accounting and Investigative Services practice, said that any company that continues having pervasive and systematic behavior problems with its employees must look at its culture to see if it could be partly what drives that unethical behavior.
- The Bigger They Are: Ethical Challenges of the Rich and Famous
Think twice about accepting a job with an organization headed by a renowned industry captain, a technological wunderkind or a visionary philanthropist, warns an expert who's studied the downside of charismatic leadership. Business icons become more susceptible to disastrous ethical lapses as their workplace fame spreads, says Marianne Jennings, J.D., a professor of legal and ethical studies at the W. P. Carey School of Business. When the gurus crash and burn, the careers of those around them falter, too. - Straight and narrow: Steering an ethical course through international waters
For Marianne Jennings, a healthy market economy depends on four pillars -- business, investors, government and customers. Each relies on the others in a symbiotic relationship that leads to mutual benefit and smooth operations. But when ethical lines are crossed, even in just one of the four areas, everyone is at risk. "If one of these [four groups] falls, the system falls," said Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies at the W. P. Carey School of Business, during a recent speech in Mexico City.
- Trials and tribulations: Attorney Mark Belnick talks about Tyco
In an early morning speech recently, attorney Mark Belnick recounted his career as a litigator at a powerful New York firm, and the events that made him a defendant in one of the Tyco corruption cases. Acquitted on criminal charges, Belnick served his message like a cup of black coffee to the W. P. Carey MBA -- Executive Program students in the audience: cutting corners ethically leaves you with no place to stand when things go wrong. - Can the government control corporate fraud?
Can the government control corporate fraud? Probably not, according to Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins, and besides, ever-escalating regulation likely would hinder a free-market economy. Atkins, who has devoted much of his 20-plus year career to helping law enforcement investigate and rectify investing scams, recently spoke to students at the W. P. Carey School of Business on the subject of business ethics.
- New ethics rules change the lobbying landscape
Strict new ethics rules governing lobbying interactions with members of Congress make it more crucial than ever for businesses to diversify their influence-building strategies. The W. P. Carey School's management Professor Gerry Keim, who studies the relationships between business and government, says companies need to develop grassroots advocacy networks among employees. - Interview: Marianne Jennings discusses the ethics of the HP situation
The HP situation provides a many-faceted illustration of ethics in the breach, according to Marianne Jennings, professor of legal and ethical studies at the W. P. Carey School of business and author of "The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: Click here to listen in. - When the cure is worse than the disease: the HP debacle
In early 2005, Hewlett-Packard's board of directors was embroiled in controversy. Board discord anonymously spilled into the media, and an effort commenced to find and plug the leaks of board deliberations. The probe has erupted into scandal, indictments and congressional hearings. Experts at the W. P. Carey School of Business say the HP saga is rich with lessons about corporate governance and ethics. - Learning from the Mistakes of the (Formerly) Rich and Infamous
The corporate failures of Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth and Tyco were separate tragedies, but they share a common theme: ethical breakdown that started at the top and permeated the organizations. In her newly-released book, ethics expert and W. P. Carey management Professor Marianne Jennings dissects the failures and identifies the cultural flaws that led to disaster. "The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: How to Spot Moral Meltdowns in Companies ... Before It's Too Late" provides guidance to those in charge of cultural reform in companies as well as those looking for good investments.