HOT COLLEGE TOPIC:
Re-examining business ethics
USAToday,
September 2006
By Gary M. Stern |
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"There's a renewed push for courses in
ethics from [undergrad] students and
accreditation associations," says Joe
DesJardins, executive director of the
Society for Business Ethics. The same
goes for MBA students, who "requested
that the [ethics requirement] be
extended to more classes," says
Thomas W. Dunfee, chairman of the
business ethics department at the
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton
School. |
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The Business of
Making Clean and Green Money
Indian School of Business Magazine,
September, 2006
By Gurneeta Vasudeva: |
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R. Edward Freeman: I am no scholar
of the Indian society or business but I
have studied Indian culture and history
in the last 20 years, and I think there
is a sort of natural acceptance of
stakeholders. A lot of Indian business
leaders want to make
society better, and they see that as a
part of what the business does. I did a
seminar last year in a particular
company where the managers felt that
part of their job was to make the
community prosper. Thinking about
stakeholder interest is the same idea
that goes in a similar direction. It is,
in a way, more natural in the Indian
context than in the American one. |
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Striking a Balance
Independent Financial Adviser,
September 4, 2006
By Justin Wood |
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A recently issued paper from the CFA
Institute, "Breaking the Short-Term
Cycle", puts forward a number of
recommendations for encouraging firms
and their executives to think more
long-term, including increasing the
proportion of executives' compensation
that is linked to long-term performance |
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HP chairman faces
furor over board investigation
Mercury News, September 2006
By Michelle Quinn and Therese Poletti |
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``If boards don't work well, it spells
trouble for the company,'' said
Thomas Donaldson, who specializes in
corporate ethics, leadership and
strategy at The Wharton School of
Business. `It's like a ship with a
captain that's only half awake.''
He added, ``My advice would be to
apologize. If I were Patricia Dunn, I
would turn to the board and say: I'm
prepared to leave. Do I have your
confidence? That would be the important
thing to do for the sake of the future
of the company.''
(This article also appeared in
Alameda Journal, CBS Marketwatch,
Contra Costa Times, Saint Paul
Pioneer Press, SiliconValley.com) |
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Guerber case puts
spotlight on ethics
Boise Idaho Statesman,
September 18, 2006
By Shawna Gamache |
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Dean Krehmeyer,
the executive director of the Business
Roundtable Institute for Corporate
Ethics in Charlottesville, Va., said if
an employee believes he or she needs
more than the standard reimbursement,
the employee should talk to the
accounting office ahead of time even if
overcharging isn't strictly illegal or
expressly against company policy.
For example,
Krehmeyer said, it may have
been legal for Guerber to have charged
both the city and state's daily
allowances, and he may have spent both
of those allowances on meals, but he
should have talked to both agencies
about the charges ahead of time to make
sure they thought his double-charging
was fair, too.
"It's called reimbursement for a reason;
it's not called income,"
Krehmeyer said.
"It's asking for permission rather than
asking for forgiveness." |
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Survey Finds
Widespread Cheating in M.B.A. Programs
The
Chronicle of Higher Education,
September 19, 2006
By Katherine Mangan |
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The report's authors --
Donald L. McCabe, a professor of
management and global business at
Rutgers Business School; Kenneth D.
Butterfield, an associate professor of
management and operations at Washington
State University College of Business;
and
Linda K. Treviño, a fellow in
business ethics at Pennsylvania State
University's Smeal College of Business
-- suggest a number of possible reasons
for why business students might be more
likely to cheat. |
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A Crooked Path
Through B-School?
BusinessWeek.com,
September 24, 2006 |
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For starters,
there's probably something different
about the kind of people who are
attracted to business in the first
place.
Linda Treviño, Cook Fellow of
Business Ethics at the Smeal College of
Business at Penn State University and
one of the researchers who worked on the
study, says the most likely reason is
that business students are more
bottom-line driven, which could drive
their willingness to cheat.
(This article also
appeared in RedOrbit (formerly RedNova) |
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Business Can't Get
Rid of Liars, Cheats: Matthew Lynn
(Correct)
Bloomberg.com, September 26,
2006
By Matthew Lynn |
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The trouble is, in the long run, we'll
all pay a price for that. You can
introduce more rules and hire more
regulators to police them. Yet the
system will only work if people regulate
themselves. And if they hadn't bluffed
and cribbed their way through their
economics paper, even MBA students might
realize that a market based on integrity
will be a lot more efficient than one
dominated by deception. |
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Bypassing board
troubles experts
Detroit Free Press, September
28, 2006
By Jennifer Dixon |
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"You get in serious
trouble making a decision by yourself,
taking on Nissan,"
Werhane said. "That's not ethical.
It's threatening the whole idea of
corporate governance, where the whole
board is" supposed to be responsible. |
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Bad Harvard grads
are poster boys for ethics classes
USA Today, September 27, 2006
By Greg Farrell |
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"It's been unbelievable," says
Timothy Fort, a professor at George
Washington University. "When I started
teaching an ethics class in 1994, the
first third of the class was spent
convincing students it was worth taking.
I had to do a lot of singing and
dancing. Now the class size has
quadrupled."
In part, the appetite for ethics courses
has grown because of a mandate from the
Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business. In 2004, the AACSB
issued a report that acknowledged the
embarrassment felt throughout the
business-school community following the
exposure of accounting frauds at Enron,
WorldCom and elsewhere. The report urged
business schools to do more to teach
ethics in the classroom |
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Ford Announces Major Restructuring; A
Look at Campaign Finance Reform; Author
Speaks About Public Education; Russell
Simmons Teaches Budgeting
CNN: In The Money, September
16, 2006
By Fredricka Whitfield, Jack Cafferty,
Jennifer Westhoven, Andy Serwer, Allen
Wastler, Jen Rogers |
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Thomas Donaldson: Well, that's part of it.
That's part of it. And the way we
educate people to become managers and
assume their roles on the board, that's
another part of it.
But I've got to tell you, the way we've
been approaching it, I think, doesn't
work. We've focused almost entirely on
rearranging the deck chairs, if you
will, new rules of corporate governance,
more outside directors and so on.
We need to start paying attention to the
people whose seats we put into the
chairs. Are these people with enough
courage? Do they show a past history of
courage to step up and make the hard
calls or not? |
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Under Fire, H-P’s Dunn Speed Exit from
Company
NPR: All Things Considered,
September 22, 2006 |
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Dr. Thomas Donaldson (Warden School
of Business): The irony here is that HP
has a venerable track record in the area
of ethics. It was one of the leaders in
making integrity and ethics important in
the management of business. Ethics have
taken a huge blow with what looks like
an almost Keystone Cops approach to
managing what is a very sensitive issue. |
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Choosing Ethical Solutions to RIM
Problems
Information Management Journal,
September 1, 2006
By Alan A. Andolsen |
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The result-based
approach, also known as utilitarianism,
analyzes moral actions from the
viewpoint of the results that flow from
ethical decisions. A key principle in
the evaluation of results is "the
greatest good for the greatest number."
However, there has always been
substantial discussion to define the
"greatest good" and to determine who is
included in the "greatest number." The
earliest proponents of utilitarianism
were John Stuart Mill and Jeremy
Bentham. In contemporary business
ethics, social contract proponents such
as John Rawls and
Thomas Donaldson have provided a
renewed emphasis on the utilitarian
approach. |
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Biggest cheaters in school? M.B.A.
students
CBS MarketWatch,
September 29, 2006
By Thomas Kostigen |
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"To us that means that
business-school faculty and
administrators must do something,
because doing nothing simply reinforces
the belief that high levels of cheating
are commonplace and acceptable," say the
authors of the academy report, Donald
McCabe of Rutgers University, Kenneth
Butterfield of Washington State
University and
Linda Klebe Trevino at Penn State
University.
However, what's holding many professors
back from taking action on cheaters is
the fear of litigation. To that end, the
academic world is becoming much more
like the business world where those who
walk with a heavy legal stick can swat
others out of the way; it may be time to
impose a whistleblower statute for
students and teachers.
(This article also
appeared on Morningstar.com, My Way
Finance, and IWon Money) |
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Captains of
Industry, Masters of Cheating
Washingtonpost.com, September
27, 2006
By Richard Morin |
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McCabe and colleagues Kenneth D.
Butterfield of Washington State
University and
Linda Klebe Trevino of Penn State
University collected data from 5,331
business and non-business graduate
students at 32 colleges and universities
in the United States and Canada during
the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic years.
The researchers asked participants how
often, if at all, they had engaged in 13
specific behaviors, including cheating
on tests and exams, plagiarism, faking a
bibliography or submitting work done by
someone else. |
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Ex-chief Lay
indicted in fall of Enron
Baltimore Sun,
September 2006
By Robert Little |
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"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. 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." |
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Survey: M.B.A.
students more likely to cheat
The Philadelphia
Inquirer,
September 19, 2006
By Stacey Burling |
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"People tend to do what they think other
people are doing," said
Linda Klebe Trevino, one of the
researchers and a professor of
organizational behavior at Penn State's
Smeal College of Business. "The fact
that other people are doing it creates
an environment where this is normative."
The study asked about 13 different types
of cheating, ranging from copying a
classmate's test answers to lifting
sentences from the Internet without
attribution.
(This story also appeared in Calgary
Herald, Lexington Herald-Leader,
The Miami Herald, Optionetics,
Salt Lake City Tribune, and
Sun Journal) |
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Business students
sold on cheating
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram,
September 24, 2006 |
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“People tend to do what
they think other people are doing,” said
Linda Klebe Trevino, one of the
researchers and a professor of
organizational behavior at Penn State’s
Smeal College of Business. “The fact
that other people are doing it creates
an environment where this is normative.”
The study asked about 13 different types
of cheating, ranging from copying a
classmate’s test answers to lifting
sentences from the Internet without
attribution. |
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Survey of grad
schools finds that MBA students cheat
most, although engineering students come
in a close second
Academy of
Management Journal,
September 23, 2006
By Benjamin Haimowitz |
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"We have found that
graduate students in general are
cheating at an alarming rate and
business-school students are cheating
even more than others," conclude the
study's authors, who, in addition to
Prof. McCabe, are Kenneth D. Butterfield
of Washington State University and
Linda Klebe Trevino at Penn State.
"To us that means that business school
faculty and administrators must do
something, because doing nothing simply
reinforces the belief that high levels
of cheating are commonplace and
acceptable." |
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Survey: MBA
students cheat most in grad school
Gainesville Sun, September 20, 2006 |
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In light of the
scandals, area business schools have
been beefing up their ethics education.
Penn State is trying out a business
school honors code this year as part of
its attempt to foster a "community of
honor and trust,"
Trevino said. To discourage
cheating, Temple University's Fox School
of Business makes cell phones and
laptops off limits during tests.
Students are also told that computer
software will check their papers for
plagiarism, said Debbie Campbell,
assistant dean for undergraduate
programs. |
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Survey: MBA
Students More Likely to Cheat
University
Business, September 20, 2006 |
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"People tend to do what they think other
people are doing," said
Linda Klebe Trevino, one of the
researchers and a professor of
organizational behavior at Penn State's
Smeal College of Business. "The fact
that other people are doing it creates
an environment where this is normative."
The study asked about 13 different types
of cheating, ranging from copying a
classmate's test answers to lifting
sentences from the Internet without
attribution. |
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Graduate business
students more likely to cheat, study
shows
Lincoln Journal Star,
September 20, 2006 |
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The results come as the
nation faces a growing list of corporate
ethics scandals, including the use of
trick accounting to boost earnings, and,
more recently, the backdating of stock
options grants, a tactic that makes
executive pay even more lucrative. While
there is no proof that students who
would cheat on a test might later cheat
stockholders, the researchers said it
made sense that people who would bend
one rule might bend another. |
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Study: MBA
students cheat more
Richmond Times-Dispatch,
September 20, 2006 |
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The students were
surveyed between 2002 and 2004. They
told researchers from Pennsylvania
State, Rutgers and Washington State
universities that the most important
reason for cheating was that they
thought that other students were doing
it.
"People tend to do what they think other
people are doing," said
Linda Klebe Trevino, one of the
researchers and a professor at Penn
State's Smeal College of Business. "The
fact that other people are doing it
creates an environment where this is
normative." |
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Need a hip, knee
replaced?
South Bend Tribune, September
5, 2006 |
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"The obvious marketing answer is to get
their brand name in the consumer's
mind," said
Patrick E. Murphy, professor of
marketing at the University of Notre
Dame's Mendoza College of Business.
Murphy is also co-director of Notre
Dame's Institute for Ethical Business
Worldwide.
But is it really branding when none of
the commercials explicitly ask people to
buy a certain company's knee or hip
product?" I'd say it's a more subtle
approach to dealing with the consumer,"
Murphy said. "But if they're Zimmer (for
example), and they're the leader of the
market, they know that they're going to
get 40 percent or whatever their market
share is." |
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The social responsibility of
corporations
Minnesota Public Radio,
September 4, 2006 |
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Advocacy groups have
brought corporate social responsibility
to the foreground of the private sector
by targeting retailers and insisting
they behave ethically. Now, retailers
are trying to get ahead of the
criticism, demanding ethical behavior
from their suppliers.
GUESTS
Michael Marx: Director of Business
Ethics Network
Norman Bowie: Elmer Anderson Chair
in Corporate Responsibility at
University of Minnesota
Joshua Margolis: Associate professor
at Harvard Business School |
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