Ethics

Interactive discussions with experts to make business case for corporate social responsibility, offer advice to companies, nonprofits and students

The Rutgers Institute for Ethical Leadership (IEL) will host its fourth annual Ethical Leadership Conference bringing together business and academic leaders in corporate social responsibility (CSR) to share lessons learned and help attendees work through challenges in starting and developing CSR programs.

"Ethics in Action: A Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility" will be held April 19 from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. at the Newark Museum (49 Washington Street, Newark, NJ), near the Rutgers campus in Newark.

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BEDMINSTER — The school district's website was changed early Friday morning to edit a letter from Superintendent Carolyn R. Koos that, until then, appeared to be plagiarized from another school system.

According to Standard Five of the New Jersey Standards for Teachers and School Leaders, "School administrators shall be educational leaders who promote the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner."

"Plagiarizing is not acting with integrity, and it certainly isn't ethical," Ann Buchholtz, a professor of Leadership and Ethics and director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership at the Rutgers Business School, told NJ.com last week.

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If Harvard does go the honor code route, it could help create a culture where students and professors are more trusting of one another and cheating is less likely to occur.

Honor codes vary in form and are relatively rare, with probably fewer than 100 around, said Donald L. McCabe, a professor of management and global business at Rutgers University who has conducted research and surveys on student cheating for more than two decades. Honor codes generally include at least one of four components: a pledge students sign to affirm they won’t or didn’t cheat on an assignment; a non-toleration clause in which students promise to turn in students they see cheating (these are rare); a judiciary board controlled evenly or mostly by students; and unproctored exams.

McCabe’s surveys have indicated honor codes do reduce rates of cheating, but by how much varies. In three surveys of about 30 small- to medium-sized liberal arts colleges, slightly concentrated in the East, fewer students at colleges with honor codes than those without reported copying exam answers from one another. 13, 19 and 8 percent reported cheating at “code schools,” compared to 31, 32 and 14 percent at “no-code schools.” The surveys are from the 1990-1, 1995-6 and 2005-6 academic years.

“I’m a great believer in honor codes, and if I were [Harvard] I would look at how I might be able to implement an honor code,” McCabe said, adding that faculty and administrators who resist honor codes – as seems to have been the case at Harvard – tend to do so because it means surrendering control to students via a student judicial board or unproctored testing.

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It’s no wonder that public confidence has sunk to an all-time low with so many financial scandals and so many of them self-inflicted, said Ann Buchholtz, a professor of leadership and ethics at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“This is a case of heroes doing more harm than good,” Buchholtz said. Investors tend to romanticize corporate leaders and attribute success within an organization to them when the drivers of that performance are far more complex, she said. “We tend to make them bulletproof, looking the other way when we see signs of problems. We don’t believe ill of a leader until the evidence is overwhelming.”

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The Rutgers Institute for Ethical Leadership will host its Third Annual Ethical Leadership Conference on May 3 & 4, 2012.  Each year the Institute for Ethical Leadership hosts a conference to address ethical issues within the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors.  This year senior leadership from colleges and universities around the country will come together to discuss what it takes to build an organizational culture imbued in ethics and how leaders from across sectors can learn from each other to enhance and renew organizations that benefit civil society.  Ralph Izzo, PhD, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of PSEG and Chairman of the Rutgers University Board of Governors, will deliver the keynote address on Friday, May 4th.

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By now everyone has heard the story of the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship and its captain, Francesco Schettino, who has come under fire for abandoning the ship as it was sinking.  Although the saying is, "the captain should go down with the ship," many people are not exactly sure of the ethical consequences of the situation.

While many people will have different responses to this particular episode, the sinking of the Costa Concordia has raised the interesting question of what is a business leader or owner's ethical responsibility to his or her customers and employees when facing a life-threatening or dangerous situation?

According to Ann Buchholtz, professor of leadership and ethics and research director at the Institute for Ethical Leadership at Rutgers Business School, leaders must ensure safety to employees and consumers, regardless of the situation.   

"Safety from harm is one of the basic rights of consumers," Buchholtz told BusinessNewsDaily. "In fact, we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the 'Consumer Bill of Rights' that President Kennedy introduced in a speech to Congress (on March 15). The first, and arguably the most basic right, is the right to safety – 'to be protected against the marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or life.' Of course, the use of any product or service entails some degree of risk, but what happened to the Costa Concordia passengers is beyond the pale."

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Calls for better ethics education at business schools are growing in the wake of the financial crisis and the Occupy movement. In this interview, two business school leaders discuss innovative ways that different schools are injecting business ethics into their curricula.

First up is Adlai Wertman, founding director of USC's Society and Business Lab. Wertman is expert on the interplay between business, society, and business school because he has significant experience in all three worlds. He spent 18 years at a managing director and manager of Prudential Securities, and has worked at several other major banks. He was president and CEO of Chrysalis, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that serves the homeless.

Next up in our tour of business ethics education is the Rutgers University Institute for Ethical Leadership, which provides supplemental ethics education to Rutgers business students and continuing education for professionals. Alex Plinio is co-founder of the institute. He teaches at the school and also runs a consulting and coaching firm, Alex J. Plinio and Associates.

(Source: Carnegie Council)