Given the devastation caused by the current Financial CRISIS: can Business continue its path without questioning what ETHICS is all about?

1. BUSINESS
ETHICS?
“Accordingly, executive bonuses provide the perfect tool to screen
candidates for the CEO job. Anyone who insists on them should be
dismissed out of hand, because he or she has demonstrated an
absence of the leadership attitude required for a sustainable
enterprise. Of course, this might thin the roster of candidates.
Good.”
MINTZBERG for WSJ

2. Ethics at work

3. Financial Crisis:
Ego Management: GREENSPAN
• Federal Reserve Board 1987-2006
• SAVE THE WORLD
• Free Market = BEST MODEL
• Deregulation by Govt. = ERROR
• SHEILA BAIR: dismissed
• Self-interest can moderate itself
• Not all Derivatives are bad
PBS FRONTLINE:
• WORLD CRISES: 2007-2012 + “Money, Power and Wall
Street.”
• WERE YOU WRONG? www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontlne/money-power-wal-street/

4. SAMPLE 1
BP: Oil Spill crisis
CEO disconnect

5. SAMPLE 2
Maple Leaf Foods: deaths
CEO connect

6. Orwin: Can we teach ethics?
When pigs fly.
• Ethics is not about oaths
• Can ethics be taught?
• Ethical Character BEFORE
University
• Narrow ethics = what is penalized
• Study ethics = refines
understanding “Students indifferent to justice
just aren’t going to be won over
• Danger of self-celebration; a pose to it by anything that I could say.”
www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/can-we-teach-ethics-when-pigs-fly/article1204475/

7. “SANTA CLARA” CASE STUDIES:
Easy on the Wallet or Easy on the Earth
• Company: Fashionforward
• Brilliant Marketing Intern: Carly Leblanc
• Greater Success = Greater Dilemmas
• OPTION 1: Order from low-cost company in China
Total= $1,100
• OPTION II: Order from fair-trade company in San
Francisco Total= $8,595
• + YOUR Case Study: Unit 10, “Principles or Profit?”
www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/business/sourcing

8. ETHICAL SCHOOLS:
The Thomas Jefferson Center
for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas
• Socrates/Aristotle
• Cicero
• Bible/Quran
• Machiavelli + Montesquieu
• Kant
• Smith + Mill
• Nietzsche + Heidegger
www.blogtalkradio.com/westernwordradio/2012/05/02/an-interview-with-
thomas-pangle
www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/coretexts/courses/

9. QUESTIONING: BUSINESS ETHICS
• Can ETHICS be taught? Or isn’t our CHARACTER formed well in advance of University? But
then WHO teaches Ethics? How are ethics and The Law related? Only negatively? Are ethics
and the divine related? Which takes precedence?
• What do you think of ORWIN’S article? Pachner´s? What is the purpose of OATHS in ethics?
Are there parallels between business and MEDICINE? Have you taken an oath? What do you
think of “Santa Clara” CASE STUDIES?
• What is it about business that REQUIRES so much emphasis on ethics? How does your
COMPANY deal with ethics? Which GUIDELINES does it use? Can you think of unethical
behavior in COLOMBIAN companies? DMG? In International ones? ENRON? Is the PUBLIC
SECTOR less ethical than the PRIVATE one? Is EDUCATION in Universities the solution?
Can you give an example of an ETHICAL CEO? Doesn’t one REALLY only see ethics in times
of CRISES?
• Can you discuss ethics in relation to the current FINANCIAL CRISES? What do you think of
GREENSPAN? Is MARKET-FREE Globalization unethical? Why? Why not? What did previous
cultures think of USURY? Do you know about Montesquieu´s SUMPTUARY LAWS? Do you
think companies should learn about Aristotle/Smith/ Montesquieu/Mill?
• BUT MOST IMPORTANT: How have YOU become more ethical?
www.amelo14.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/reflections-the-business-of-change/

10. “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant
or permanent it is. But I have been very
distressed by that fact.”
ALLAN GREENSPAN to the Senate