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July, 2004

 

Halliburton Defends Iran Work As Ethically Sound Dow Jones Energy Service, July 30, 2004 By John M. Biers
	Business ethicists, however, said technical compliance alone doesn't guarantee ethical behavior. George Brenkert, a professor of business ethics at the Georgetown Business Ethics Institute in Washington, said he was disturbed by Halliburton's embrace of what he called a "standard of bare legality." "It sends a message that employees and subsidiaries can bend and stretch the law so long as they can reasonably say they're acting within the law," Brenkert said. Halliburton's other defense, that the company's Iranian business can help lead to reform, "has some merit," he said. But Thomas Donaldson, a professor at the Wharton School of Business who specializes in business ethics, said Halliburton's engagement defense is also insufficient.
'Schoolyard' Root of Biz Problems The Chautauquan Daily, July 16, 2004 By Steve Odland
	Actually, our subject is “Ethics: The Foundation for Corporate Governance.” Corporate Governance refers to the ways in which rights and responsibilities are shared between the various corporate participants, especially management, the Board, and the shareholders. The key to good Corporate Governance is a strong commitment to ethics. Ethics are motivation based on ideas of right and wrong. They are the rules or standards governing conduct. Ultimately good corporate governance is driven by the ethics of the individuals in the company. We must focus on the ethics of the individual, and insure those ethics translate into the corporation. To that end, we established the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, with the leading business schools in the country, to help strengthen the link between ethics and business practices. Business leaders and investors more than ever believe that companies with the best governance will be the best performing companies, they will be in business longer, and they lead to more stable markets. In a review of 42 studies of the subject, Professor J.D. Margolis of Harvard, found a strong correlation among corporate social responsibility, high ethical standards and financial success.
Enron, other corporate scandals give way to emphasis on ethics, watchdogs say The Baltimore Sun, July 9, 2004 By Meredith Cohn
	Business schools and corporations are scrambling to expand their programs, new associations are forming and new laws and rules are hitting the books. And while the ultimate impact of photos and headlines of executive perp walks and trials is uncertain, those in the field are seizing the moment. The cases of [Kenneth] Lay, who pleaded not guilty yesterday to 11 criminal charges alleging a massive conspiracy; of [Martha] Stewart, to be sentenced in a week for her part in a coverup on an inside stock deal, and of John and Timothy Rigas, the father and son convicted yesterday of looting Adelphia Communications Corp., have stoked a sense of urgency, said R. Edward Freeman, academic director of the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics. "They know businesses can't operate without public trust," Freeman said. "The legal problems and scandals all create a moment." (Also appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and Hoover's Online.)
Ex-chief Lay indicted in fall of Enron Baltimore Sun, July 8, 2004 By Robert Little
	"It's been a wake-up call to a lot of corporate executives," said Dean W. Krehmeyer, executive director of the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics at the University of Virginia. [Kenneth] Lay's indictment "reinforces the message. We've seen enough executives and folks walked away in handcuffs and indicted that I believe the message has been received."
Indictment of Enron's Lay Caps Two-year Purge that Restored Confidence Agence France Presse, July 8, 2004
	The indictment of Enron's Kenneth Lay culminated a purge of corporate leaders over the past two years that experts say has helped restore faith in US business after confidence plunged to new lows. "While there will be big scandals in the future, we're in a much better position now because of what Sarbanes-Oxley and the public backlash has done to the view from the top" of corporations, said Thomas Donaldson, business ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Dean Krehmeyer, executive director of the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, said the latest corporate scandals are nothing new, but that the magnitude of the scandals were shocking. "The size is something different, but the root causes are nothing new," he said. (Also appeared in Business Report, South Africa.)
A Lesson in Secrets: They Bite The San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2004 By David Lazarus
	Edwin Hartman, director of the Prudential Business Ethics Center at Rutgers University, said most people probably wouldn't be shocked to learn that officials from the energy business enjoyed significant clout with the Bush administration. "But by keeping it a secret, it suggests that there's something going on that they don't want you to know about," he said. "It raises suspicions because they're going to considerable lengths to keep you from knowing."
View From the Top: Interview With John J. Castellani Journal of Accountancy, July 1, 2004
	Business Roundtable president highlights challenges facing nation's CEOs. The JofA recently sat down with John J. Castellani, Business Roundtable president, to discuss the group's approach to the widespread changes in corporate governance following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and how the accounting profession can work more closely with the organization to bring about improvements. Castellani says there has been a sea change in the nation's corporate governance system, but more must be done to regain the public's trust.
Can Ethics Be Taught? Virginia Business, July 1, 2004 By Jim Strader
	The fall of [Andrew] Fastow and other top executives from the corporate suite to prison makes the case for the kind of ethics training started recently at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. Working with other leading business schools and the Business Roundtable — a group of 150 CEOs of leading corporations from around the country including Virginia-based Norfolk Southern and The Brink’s Co. — Darden has become home for the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics. “A number of the CEOs saw that through a few scandals, corporations and executives were being painted with a broad brush as unethical. That finally became too frustrating for them, and they wanted to do something serious about this,” says veteran management consultant Dean Krehmeyer, who was hired as the institute’s executive director.” The need for renewing the relationship between ethics and everyday business practices was brought home by the scandals, says Darden professor Pat Werhane. She points out that Fastow has been described as deeply religious, coached his son’s baseball team and started a foundation that gave away lots of money. “He’s an exemplary citizen,” Werhane says. “But then from nine to five … he was not living up to it. I think he’s one of the best examples of someone who didn’t do what we aim to do in the classroom.” (Also appeared in the Bristol Herald Courier and Culpeper Star-Exponent.)
How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics: Moral Muteness, Moral Myopia, and Moral Imagination Journal of Advertising, July 1, 2004 By Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy
	This study examines how advertising agency personnel perceive, process, and think about ethical issues. We conducted in-depth, elite interviews with advertising practitioners at all levels in 29 agencies in eight cities. Many of our informants reported few ethical concerns in their own work or in advertising in general. They exhibited "moral myopia," a distortion of moral vision that prevents moral issues from coming into focus, and "moral muteness," meaning that they rarely talk about ethical issues.
Recommended Reading The Secret to Success Healthcare Executive, July 1, 2004
	How do you define success? To most people, success means achieving a specific goal, which in turn requires a single-minded focus that may cause them to cheat other areas of their life. In their Harvard Business Review article "Success That Lasts," Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson present a new way of thinking about success. (Also included in Government Executive and the Boulder County Business Report.)
New Institute Focuses on Ethics, Business Practices National Society for Professional Engineers, July 1, 2004
	Business Roundtable has announced the creation of an ethics center designed to renew and enhance the link between ethical behavior and business practices. “Roundtable CEOs consistently have been out in front on issues of corporate ethics,” contends John Castellani, Roundtable president. “Their commitment to this institute will allow us to make an enduring contribution to the education and professional conduct of business leaders for years to come.”

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