It is always a privilege to be invited to speak at a University to accounting and business students and their faculty. This last week I had that honor- of presenting to Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management and Wheatley Institution, to these groups on ethics and how important integrity is in the business world…. [Read More]
Technology Can Build Ethics
How ethical is your company? Would you give your company an “A” on doing the right thing? If misconduct is observed, is speaking up ignored and punished, or encouraged and rewarded? Unfortunately as I can personally attest to, misconduct is often not reported because employees are fearful of retaliation and potential job loss. In some… [Read More]
TRUST Matters! How to Build a Tier One Organization…
The Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI), the oldest ethics research and best practice community in the US has conducted longitudinal, cross-sectional studies of workplace conduct from the employee’s perspective since 1994. It, recently released its latest Global Business Ethics Survey (GBES) Building Companies Where Values and Ethical Conduct Matter, the third of a four-part series… [Read More]
Strategy and Culture: Divided they fall.
A well thought out strategy and a vibrant, responsible culture are the two top tools at leaderships’ disposal in their never-ending quest to maintain organizational viability and effectiveness… Culture expresses goals through values and beliefs and guides activities through assumptions and group norms. A corporate culture matters. It is a key differentiator between the companies… [Read More]
Can Winning Cultures Be Built? Ok- but How?
What do Disney, USAA, Campbell Soup, H.E.B., Southwest Airlines and dozens more like them share in common that Wells Fargo, Volkswagen, Facebook, UBER, United Airlines and unfortunately many others do not? Leading organizations in the United States and elsewhere share traits which have earned them the loyalty of their stakeholders, employees, customers, shareholders and the… [Read More]
Boards Must Take Responsibility!
In the recently released Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI), 2018 Global Business survey, the study found that even the minimum standard of E&C implementation produces very encouraging results. Without question, they established that ethical behaviors in an organization impact the bottom line. They also found that adhering to any of the 15 operational standards of… [Read More]
Ethics: The Road to Profits
A firm’s culture can predict how much market value that firm will create for stakeholders. Researchers have found that companies with ethical cultures significantly outperform other companies in stock value. In fact, researchers have shown that a firm’s culture is the strongest predictor of how much market value that firm will create for shareholders’ investments. A… [Read More]
The Ethics Merry Go Round
The McCuistion program, which airs in Dallas/Fort Worth on PBS station KERA, recently re-aired its program, Ethics and Transparency as Antidotes to Financial Fraud. Host Dennis McCuistion asked the guests what ethics and the lack of transparency may have done to contribute to the 2008 financial crisis? One of his guests, Marianne Jennings, J.D.: Professor… [Read More]
Who’s Trying Now to Save Citigroup’s Soul?
The headline in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal captured my immediate attention. “The Banker-Turned-Seminarian Trying to Save Citigroup’s Soul”… What?? Supposedly, Citigroup is taking a “new” approach to the cultural and other issues they have had for years and have hired Dr. David Miller, a Princeton University professor, theologian and former banker to be their… [Read More]
A Case Study on Enron: How to Destroy a Company!
One of the most celebrated companies in America, Enron, became the poster child for greed and fraud. Today it is a case study for how quickly a bad corporate culture can sink a business. WNET, which is the flagship public station of the New York City tri-state area, and the most watched public television channel in the… [Read More]
