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January, 2005

 

Philadelphia Businesses Hold Internal Scrimmages Over Super Bowl Tickets The Philadelphia Inquirer (KRTBN), January 29, 2005 By Tony Gnoffo and Suzette Parmley
	Three brothers and a cousin, all avid Eagles fans, are owners of a Delaware County company that has the good fortune to possess two tickets to next Sunday's Super Bowl. Thomas J. Barker, the chief executive officer at the company, Visual Communications Inc. in Aston, was not so sure last week. Barker was thinking last week that the smartest solution to the family-business dilemma might be to give the tickets to a key customer. But which one? And how could he best ensure the gift would pay off? After all, what is the difference between a bribe and giving a customer a trip to the Super Bowl in the hope that it will lead to future business? Not much, said Wharton professor, Thomas Donaldson, who heads the school's new doctoral program in ethics and legal studies. The ethical question turns on whether the gift is given to a company or to an agent of the company -- one who might allow his or her decision-making to be swayed by a ticket. The gifts "are not charity, they're a marketing decision," he said.
Wal-Mart sets new policy on ethics USA TODAY, January 28, 2005 By Elliot Blair Smith
	After Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) fired seven top managers in mid-December for failing to meet company standards, the world's biggest retailer quietly issued a sweeping new ethics policy just two weeks later. Wal-Mart has not identified the fired managers, nor disclosed why they were ousted, but the new policy, dated Jan. 1, became public last week. Wal-Mart attached it in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission related to the retirement of Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin, 55, whom the company says voluntarily quit in early December. University of Virginia ethicist Edward Freeman says, "It was a small company run like a small company. Now it's a real big company, and they're struggling. They can't afford to lose the public trust."
Workers Try Hard to Overcome Long-held Ethical Stereotypes Salt Lake Tribune, January 26, 2005  By Michael L. Diamond
	As a result of having a dishonest reputation, some business people may be charged higher transaction fees. Others may be the target of regulations from lawmakers, said Edwin Hartman, director of the Prudential Business Ethics Center at Rutgers University. Car salesmen, advertising professionals and lawyers were joined by congressmen, business executives and reporters as the professions with the lowest honesty and ethical standards in a Gallup Poll released last month.
Training Tomorrow's Lecturers -- TEACHING METHODS: Linda Anderson Explains Why Two Leading Schools Have Moved Beyond Educating Students and Now Also Aim at Professors. Financial Times, January 24, 2005  By Linda Anderson
	In Boston, Massachusetts, two of the world's most famous business schools, Harvard Business School and the Sloan school at MIT are doing more than merely teach business students. Both have taken a leading role in teaching professors from underdeveloped regions of the world - in how to teach business. Harvard is the pioneer of the case method and it is big business. But Thomas Piper, professor of business administration at the school, says many people do not understand what is involved in teaching a case effectively.
Thus Spake Robert Solomon ; The Longtime UT Philosophy Professor (and 'Waking Life' Star) Talks About Nietzsche, Existentialism, Old Austin and What's Wrong with Philosophy These Days. Austin American-Statesman, January 23, 2005  By Jeff Salamon
	Yet for Robert C. Solomon, who has been reading Nietzsche and other existential philosophers for four decades and teaching them for three, the eternal recurrence is as real and morally charged as Kant's categorical imperative. In the early '60s, Solomon was unhappily enrolled in medical school at the University of Michigan and taking philosophy courses on the side. One day, his instructor explained -- to the extent that it can be explained -- the theory of the eternal recurrence, and it acted like a universal solvent on his professional ambitions.
Meetings and Seminars South Bend Tribune, January 16, 2005
	Michiana Chapter of the American Marketing Association will meet Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Windsor Park Conference Center, 4020 Edison Lakes Parkway. "Developing Moral Imagination in Marketing Managers" will be the topic of discussion led by Patrick E. Murphy, professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.
Hiring Ethics Guru Evidence of ‘New Tone,' CEO Says; New Officer Offers 30 Years of Experience in Investigating Crime, Conflicts of Interest The Globe and Mail, January 12, 2005 By Shawn McCarthy
	Lawyer Susan Shepard has spent the past 18 months monitoring the ethical standards of politicians and bureaucrats as a member of the New York State Ethics Commission, a Herculean task given the reputation of the state government for entrenched conflicts of interest. Now, Nortel Networks Corp. has hired the Manhattan lawyer to be the new sheriff in its troubled corporate town, as it seeks to put some clout behind its commitment to raise the bar on its corporate ethics. Experts in corporate ethics applauded Nortel's decision to create a chief ethics and compliance officer who reports directly to the chief executive officer and chairman, rather than through the corporate counsel or chief financial officer.  Thomas Donaldson, who teaches business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said Nortel was just catching up to a system that has been in place in leading corporations for years. “This is not anything revolutionary; this is something that was considered ‘best practices' for a long time,” Mr. Donaldson said. (Also appeared in Canada Stockwatch.)
Visibility of Religious Beliefs Grows in Workplace  The Charlotte Observer, January 9, 2005 By Rick Rothacker
	Over lunch at SouthPark's upscale La Bibliotheque restaurant, Glenn Love is talking business, but it sounds a lot like a sermon. With PowerPoint slides glowing behind him in the darkened dining room, he urges a group of small-business owners and executives to bring their faith to work. Companies should strike a balance between encouraging faith in the workplace and pushing specific beliefs, advises Laura Nash, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. "Religion has a history of being a divider as well as a uniter," said Nash, who has written extensively on the movement. "You can see this in the workplace. It's a realistic concern."
Eliyon Steps Up the Search Workforce Management, January 1, 2005  By Patrick J. Kiger
	Patricia Werhane, executive director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul University, thinks there's already so much information available on the Web that people should expect companies to conduct searches. The company's software, constantly combing the Web for information on top executives, has given rise to a massive database that recruiters can tailor to their most particular needs. "But there's a whole lot else this technology can do," a spokesman says. VERSATILITY Eliyon Technologies' Gary Halliwell and Susan Fitzgerald see myriad uses for the firm's search engine.
Creating Value With Values IndustryWeek, January 1, 2005 By John S. McClenahen
	Given recent examples of corporate excess, misgovernance and unethical practices, there is a legitimate question whether manufacturing and its executives can be trusted with providing solutions to today's great societal problems: education, energy, health care, poverty and resource management. Manufacturing executives might apply the Ben, Emma and Molly test to their companies' actions. Ben, Emma, and Molly are the children of R. Edward Freeman, a professor at the Darden School and academic director of the newly created Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics. "If I go home at the end of the day, explain to my kids what I did that I am proud of, [and] what I want them to learn from, we've got the bar in the right place," says Freeman. "I actually look at the hope in the world as being in business. That's where we create value. And we have to make our corporations places where we want our children to create value as well."

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