Q8/10_12

Week 8:  Bring it All Together: What Would Make People and Corporations Act More Ethically?

 “The time is always right to do what is right.”

Martin Luther King 1929-1968, American leader of civil rights movement and Nobel Peace Prize winner

Overview:

The final week of this class is devoted to thinking about the lessons we will take away from the discussions. What are our ethical responsibilities to ourselves and the business we work for? What responsibilities should employers have toward their employees and to society? How do we act ethically across the borders of many countries, with innovative technology, and environmental sustainability?  The 21st century poses many new ethical dilemmas and there is a moral imperative for business to deal with them.

Theme: Lessons Learned from the Class

     Sub Theme One: Individuals Need to Set Personal Values

Watch:

· Barry Schwartz, Our Loss of Wisdom

Read: 

· Making People Behave More Ethically, An MBA's View

· When Good People Do Bad Things at Work

 

      Sub Theme Two: Corporations Need to Set Values for within and without

INSIDE THE BUSINESS:

Read:

· Starbucks Code of Behavior

· Barclays boss tells staff 'sign up to ethics or leave'

· Business Ethics: A Manual for Managing Responsible Business Enterprise In Emerging Market Economies

OUTSIDE THE BUSINESS:

· Dispatches From the Frozen North (Standard Setting in the Way to do Business)

· Why Good Managers Make Bad Ethical Choices (Setting corporate responsibility)

Here in our last week of posts, the discussion might turn again to the role of Corporate Codes of Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, especially if ethics really is relative to culture, background, location, etc. As an ethicist, of course, ethical relativism would not be my recommended take-away! But neither is the opposite extreme, namely that all CSR is bogus and that Codes of Ethics are useless.

Perhaps we can consider instead companies' actions (as opposed to programs) that are actually 'socially responsible' rather than what they say on paper - and publicize. Perhaps - if ethics is indeed what we do when no one is watching - lifting up our actions to be watched (and applauded) is somehow counter-productive, ethically. It's something to consider in light of the Barry Schwartz video you're interacting with this last week.

To that end, consider the September 2015 article in Forbes, Enrique Dans, "Volkswagen and the Failure of Corporate Social Responsibility." I would suggest that Dans and Schwartz are singing from the same sheet of music, even though they might not realize it.