The Challenge of Sustainability
The Week in Ethics
The Challenge of Sustainability
Sustainability as a global movement has for more than 20 years had an aura of ambiguity, meaning different things to different companies – from PR strategies, to building trust and reputation, to marketing strategies, to being a core business strategy, to inspiring a vision that redefines a company. It has operated both like an umbrella, […]
read more »Pete Rose and the Consequences of Apology
Legendary hitter Pete Rose, banned for life from Major League Baseball, is being honored Saturday night, September 11, 2010 on the Cincinnati Reds’ field for beating Ty Cobb’s record 25 years ago when Rose made hit number 4,192. It is his first time back on the field since 1989 when the ban took effect. Rose […]
read more »The Ethics of Making a Film: The American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3a_PTFXjA The American, which opened September 1, 2010 weaves together assassins, prostitutes and a priest who failed to keep his vows into a thriller that pits betrayal against love. The character George Clooney plays is a hit man at the cross roads. He has an unexpected proclivity, an attraction to butterflies. One is tattooed on […]
read more »The Ethics of Being Tested: “The Tillman Story”
We can’t discover who we are until we are tested by life and death, a statement poignantly illustrated by the documentary “The Tillman Story” just released so far in limited distribution. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaMAVAqef7I The death of former NFL star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan in 2004 by friendly fire has been widely chronicled in media reports, congressional […]
read more »Avoiding Crises by Giving Voice to Values
It has been very evident that ethical misconduct carries a huge price tag (consider HP, BP, Toyota, Goldman Sachs, Johnson and Johnson, and on and on). In fact, it doesn’t even have to be proven before reputation and share price fall. So the question is what more can be done to decrease the likelihood of […]
read more »HP Scandal Part 2: Mark Hurd and the Porn Star “Marketing Consultant”
UPDATE: January 3, 2012: The June 2010 letter to Mark Hurd from Jodie Fisher’s attorney (Gloria Allred) detailing Fisher’s allegations of sexual harassment against Hurd was made public December 31, 2011 after a federal judge ruled the letter would not violate Hurd’s privacy rights. Hurd joined Oracle September 6, 2010 as president. The news about […]
read more »Mark Hurd’s Leadership Failure
Hewlett Packard’s Board of Directors demonstrated today (August 6, 2010) that if you violate HP’s Standards of Business Conduct (SBC) you can lose your job, even if you are the chairman and CEO. Mark Hurd, who had served as HP’s CEO for the last five years (and chairman for four years), resigned at the Board’s […]
read more »The Ethics of Brand Identity at Toyota, Goldman Sachs and BP
That three global companies at the pinnacle of their industries, considered superstars with all the trappings of success – Toyota and Goldman Sachs heading Fortune’s list of the world’s most admired companies and BP and Goldman heading the most profitable – could put themselves and their stakeholders in harm’s way so dramatically and needlessly, at […]
read more »The Ethics of Loyalty: Lessons From Conscious Capitalism
Trader Joe’s food store while a clerk tallied her purchases. When she reached for her wallet to pay, it wasn’t in her purse. The clerk – or more correctly “crew member” as the company calls its employees – immediately told her he would pay for the groceries and she could pay him back. He didn’t […]
read more »The Ethics of Crisis: The Human Toll of BP’s Calamity in the Gulf
BP’s oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico vividly illustrates that when things spill out of control in a disaster, some damages can’t be contained. The greatest lesson from BP’s crisis, I think, is for leaders to recognize they have a responsibility to society that goes beyond charitable donations or sustainable and “green” initiatives. What […]
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Gael O’Brien was the Keynote Speaker at the Second Annual Isenberg Ethics Competition at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst….Gael was both informative and inspiring. She challenged her audience to engage in self-reflection, while also providing the participants with many practical strategies for approaching business decision-making….