Blog
January 1 often kicks off with intentions: New Year’s resolutions. The importance of intentions also surfaces widely in spiritual, political, literary, and philosophical works too numerous for a blog, as well as in criminal law (e.g. intentional murder versus manslaughter) and various social interactions (“it’s the thought that counts”). However, in ethics oversight organizational leaders all too often fail to clarify the intentions underlying ethics initiatives. That is, instead of focusing on intended ethics outcomes, they stop short and consider the analysis complete upon identification of a list of ethics actions. (more…)
Perfection is not possible … imperfection is not an excuse The recently updated guidelines to the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices entitled A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (November 2012) offers myriad helpful principles, case studies, and clarifications to facilitate compliance and proactive engagement with the authorities on various issues potentially covered by the FCPA. However, perhaps the most useful and reassuring guiding principle appears late in the document in Chapter 5 “Guiding Principles of Enforcement”: neither the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nor the Department of Justice (DOJ) seek perfection. Nor should you. (more…)
September 26th, 2012
Board Matters, Board Matters @zh, Conseils d'Administration, Corporate Matters, Corporate Matters @zh, Crisis Management, Crisis Management @zh, Ethics in the News, Ethics in the News @zh, Gestion des Crises, L'Éthique dans l'Actualité, New Ethics for New Issues, New Ethics for New Issues @zh, Nouvelle Éthique pour Nouveaux Problèmes, Sujets relatifs aux Entreprises Commerciales, Uncategorized
I just finished Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt’s fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable The Swerve [1]. Professor Greenblatt guides us through the wanderings of the main character, book hunter Poggio Barcciolini, who finds the lost manuscript of Lucretius’ poem “On the Nature of the Universe” that was to influence the start of the Renaissance and scientific and humanistic thought for centuries thereafter. The book’s key underlying theme, the unexpected collisions of tiny particles as a foundation for the universe, leads this blog to ask how events and people engaged in business, the non-profit sector, or academia (organizational atoms) handle unexpected collisions. In...
August 27th, 2012
Accountability / Transparency / Risk Management, Board Matters, Board Matters @zh, Corporate Matters, Corporate Matters @zh, Crisis Management, Crisis Management @zh, Governance, Accountability and Transparency, Uncategorized
I recently reread renowned Stanford University Professor Philip Zimabardo’s brilliant essay “The Psychology of Power”. [1] Using examples from Abu Ghraib to his own famous prison experiments, Professor Zimbardo reminds us that we “are all subject to…underemphasizing situational explanations” while overemphasizing “individual orientations”.[2] (more…)