>>Institute News Releases  l  Media Kit

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009

>> Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov l Dec

September, 2008

GE’s weaker view better than none IR Magazine, September 30, 2008 By Janine Armin
	GE, which has a large financial services business hit by the credit crunch, was in the unfortunate position of revising down its 2008 guidance last week. Yet its stock wasn’t punished as much as it could have been.   "At the end of the day, there was a positive reaction to the GE news," says Dean Krehmeyer, executive director of the Institute for Corporate Ethics, part of the Business Roundtable, commending the company for ‘additional clarity into a number of different market segments’ in a webcast featuring both the CEO and CFO.
Hard lesson The Boston Globe, September 29, 2008 By Robert Weisman
	Last week, Harvard Business School mounted its own emergency rescue mission on Wall Street. In the school's first intervention on behalf of newly minted graduates, seven Harvard career coaches flew to New York to huddle with 18 members of the Class of 2008 who had taken jobs at troubled firms like Lehman Brothers Holding Co. and Merrill Lynch.  Thomas Donaldson, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has called "time outs" in his classes to address the Wall Street turbulence, and is modifying his course next semester to address the issues being raised.
Paulson's banking ties taint Wall Street bailout plan Reuters.com, September 26, 2008 By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
	Henry Paulson spent his life amassing a fortune on Wall Street. Now, as Treasury secretary, he is demanding unprecedented authority -- and $700 billion in cash -- to bail out the teetering U.S. banking sector.  In addition, the draft legislation contained language that would excuse Treasury officials, including Paulson, from any court review of their actions -- the bailout's own get-out-of-jail-free card. "I find this particularly troubling," said Jared Harris, professor of ethics and strategy at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.
Burst of the Wall Street ‘Levee’ Second guesses, missed opportunities, and the blame game The Epoch Times, September 23, 2008 By Heide B. Malhotra
	Barclays PLC, U.K.’s third-largest bank, took a calculated approach before acquiring portions of Lehman Brothers after it had filed for bankruptcy. By waiting until the last minute, Barclays kept its exposure to Lehman Brothers’ toxic assets at a minimum. The present crisis appears to parallel the problems within the accounting industry after Enron Corp.’s collapse. “The entire accounting industry was at one time participating in ways to shelter income from taxes that either broke the law, or came close to it—until regulators finally cracked down,” suggested Thomas Donaldson, Wharton professor.
Work &Amp; Play: Corporate Road Warriors Are Discovering How To Take The Family Along. And It's Completely Legit Newsweek, September 22, 2008 By Barney Gimbel and Karen Springen
	Dave Nowicki, a marketing director for a Silicon Valley wireless-telecom company, has a job that should wreak havoc on his family: he spends 50 percent of his time overseas on business. The stereotypical image of the corporate road warrior is an exhausted guy in a wrinkled suit spending too many nights in lonely hotels. But that image is changing, as more travelers find ways to include their families in trips. Despite the trend, not all travelers tell bosses they're bringing the family in tow. And some surely act unethically by padding expense accounts to cover extra costs. But for folks who behave honestly, there's nothing to feel guilty about, says ethics professor David Messick of Northwestern's business school. He recommends employees run their bring-the-family travel plans by their accounting department or boss to agree on how to divvy up the costs.
Leadership Fails Wall Street Human Resource Executive, September 22, 2008 By The Wharton School
	With eyes on the wrong prize, leadership lapses fueled Wall Street's fall, say experts. The new generation of business leaders, however, are more team-oriented and may be less likely to allow extreme individualistic behavior to push organizations into taking big risks. Thomas Donaldson, a Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, says top-level managers too often focus narrowly on issues that concern their organizations and do not pay enough attention to what is going on across their industry. "These problems are so tightly connected to broader problems in the overall financial services and banking industries. Everybody in those industries needs to be better attuned to slowly percolating [crises] and ethical issues," he says.
Business schools assess the market carnage CNN.com, September 22, 2008 By Peter Walker
	Some called it the "Monday meltdown". It was the day when the world learned Lehman Brothers had gone bust and Merrill Lynch was hurriedly sold. Within days, two other giants of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were in big trouble as their shares plunged. The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton school has been quick off the mark, wheeling out a series of experts to give their view of how last week's turmoil came about. Thomas Donaldson, a professor of legal studies and business ethics noted that too many senior managers have an excessively narrow view, failing to take account of long-running, slow-developing crises across a sector -- in this case the subprime mortgage market and its effects. (Also appeared in Maeil Business Newspaper.)
Lenders lost moorings, some say The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 21, 2008 By Linda Loyd
	Will history show the forced sales of Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and parts of Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. to banks, and the government's bailout of one of the world's largest insurers, American International Group Inc., were wise decisions? Proper risk management gets drummed into students, finance and business-ethics professors said last week. But when times are good, risk and ethics are frequently forgotten amid easy money and greed. The teaching of business ethics has always been influenced by financial crises such as insider-trading scandals, or the Enron debacle, said Thomas Donaldson, ethics and legal-studies professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. (Also appeared in Philly.com, Individual.com, Trading Markets, Quote.com, Modesto Bee, Waterbury Republican-American, and Catholic Online.)
David and Goliath Meet in the CSR Super Bowl csr-news.net, September 18, 2008 By William C. Frederick
	As the 2-Minute Warning approaches, it’s time to sum up before the final showdown in this first-ever CSR Super Bowl. As for the SAGE Big Guy, if room can be found, put it up on the library shelf (“What’s a library, Daddy?”) next to its predecessors — Blackwell’s 1997 and 2005 Business Ethics encyclopedias edited by Pat Werhane and Ed Freeman, and Bob (not Bill) Frederick’s 1999 A Companion to Business Ethics, where all of them can try to compete with Wikipedia.
Weltweit führende CSR-Konferenz an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Innovations Report, September 18, 2008
	Corporate Social Responsibility and Global Governance lautet das Thema der 3. Internationalen CSR-Konferenz der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin vom 8. bis 10. Oktober 2008. Zu den Hauptrednern zählen neben Professor Michael Spence unter anderem [Among those speaking at the conference are:] : Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati, Ökonom und Verteidiger der Globalisierung gegen Kritiker und Protektionisten. Prof. Edward Freeman, Philosoph und Schöpfer des Stakeholder-Ansatzes. Prof. Pietra Rivoli, Expertin für die sozialen Aspekte der globalen Wirtschaft mit Schwerpunkt China.
Special Issue Philosophy of Management: Management and Stakeholders – 25 Years On csr-news.net, September 17, 2008
	In 1984, R. Edward Freeman published Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. While the term ‘stakeholder’ was then hardly used, it became one of the central concepts in the business ethics revival since the 1990s and quickly gained currency in mainstream management discourse. Today it is practically a household term used by many different types of actors in a very diverse set of fields. In 2007, Freeman, Harrison, and [Andy] Wicks published Managing for Stakeholders as a practitioner’s version of the revised 1984 book. In 2009, they will publish the academic revision of Strategic Management. To celebrate this 25th anniversary of Freeman’s classic work, we invite scholars and practitioners to reflect upon avenues and perspectives on management that this work has opened and/or closed.
Short-term earnings focus led to Wall Street woes, former SEC chief Donaldson says Financial Week, September 17, 2008 By Nicholas Rummell
	Speaking today at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York City, Mr. Donaldson said “the excessive focus by too many corporations on achieving short-term results, fanned by the practice of ceding to demands for regular guidance and forecasting, such as quarterly results, certainly is one of the root causes for some of the problems we face today.” He joined members of the CFA Institute, Business Roundtable, Aspen Institute and other groups calling for an end to quarterly earnings guidance, which he said is a “ridiculous game” that “threatens to undermine our economic future.” (Also appeared in Investment News.)
Cultivating Where We're Planted Christianity Today, September 8, 2008 By Derek R. Keefe
	In their book Church on Sunday, Work on Monday, Laura Nash and Scotty McLennan tell the story of the woman who litigated the clean up of the terribly polluted Boston Harbor for the Environmental Protection Association—one of the major environmental breakthroughs of the twenty-first century. She was a member of an evangelical church, and the only time she was ever recognized from the front of this church was the year that she taught second grade Sunday school.
AT THE PODIUM South Bend Tribune, September 8, 2008
	7 p.m. Tuesday. "Climate Change: Technical, Business and Ethical Implications," panel discussion with Mark McCready, professor and chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering; Gerard Pannekoek, management professor and former chief executive officer, Chicago Climate Exchange; and Patrick E. Murphy, professor and co-director, Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide. Room 141, DeBartolo Classroom Building, Notre Dame.

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008| 2009
 
>> Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov l Dec