Thinking Ethics

Ethical Games

Some quick tests and an ethical game to download from the Office of Ethics and Compliance at BellSouth here.

Stem cell research

The furor over the Korean stem cell research project continues with the scientific community protesting and refusing to collaborate with the South Koreans based on the information that the Koreans used eggs donated by female researchers in their lab. Mr. Hwang Woo Suk officially apologized on Thursday  for the ethical breach and   said he was stepping out of his official functions , but will continue his research. A longer article on the subject can be found in the Washington Post. Ethics is very much a matter of culture, and in the case of stem cell research, it is a bit worrying that such advances can be made in countries that have a less developped sense of ethics. For the time being, the scientific community at large still carries enough weight  so that their collective disapproval means enough for countries to take note. In an effort to save their reputation, the South Korean government has announced the creation of a new state-run ova bank, which will have firm, closely monitored guidelines. This is indeed a first, and a real step in the right direction.

All about ethics

In case you have not seen it yet, Wikipedia has a section up on ethics, that introduces most aspects from an academic point of view, and gives a few pointers too. link

Too little too late or a step in the right direction ?

The White House has just launched a mandatory (!) Ethics Refresher Course for the 3'000 staff members who work at the White House compound. The one hour-long briefings are mostly a discussion about classified information and the proper handling of classified national security information. An article in the Los Angeles Times gives more details. Apparently, only the President and the Vice-president are exempt from following the course.

I think the subject of ethics goes a lot farther than just dealing with the proper handling of classified information.... and it is a pity that this refresher course is limited to 1 hour and to this subject. As CitiGroup found out, when you set out to live up to higher ethical behaviour, then you need a culture change. And it takes commitment from the top, and lots of effort. CitiGroup's mandatory training is actually a whole day seminar.  Nike found out over time that its' Corporate Social Responsibilty efforts went from a PR issue, to a risk management issue, to a business issue, to a radar for the business, and they believe it will take them to new business models and to perform better as a company. It all has to start somewhere - but what with the bad news coming out of the US government (indictments, leaks, firings for whistleblowing, torture in covert prisons... ), we can only hope that they will not stop at this one hour mandatory refresher course.

Corporations loss of control ?

Corporations are usually control freaks about their image and the messages that they put out for PR purposes. So no wonder that they have not embraced the blogosphere. It is also hard for them to respond to outside people who do blog , and criticize them - because given the culture in the blogosphere, corporations are just not credible. There was some noise going on a while back about some employees being fired for contributing to a blog about their employer (check out Blogging at work and related article), and some people feel that companies are entitled to loyalty from their employees. Google fired an employee for blogging about his workplace environment. Basically, there seems to be a dearth of policies about this.

IBM is taking the lead in this matter, and has asked employees who blog to define guidelines. IBM considered the pros and cons of transparency, and decided to go for it.   James Snell's posting Blogging at IBM gives the scoop and link to the guidelines.

Ethics games

Surfing around for resources, I found three sites offering ethics games:

The Ethics Resource Center periodically creates and makes available games and puzzles designed around ethics and values. They offer values word search puzzles, a presidential quotes matching quiz and ethics &values crosswords.

BellSouth's Office of Ethics and Compliance offers an ethics scenario game available for download at this link.

The Institute of Business Ethics gives an interesting list of games designed for teaching business ethics.

Citigroup's culture change

This spring, following market sanctions against unethical business practices Citigroup announced mandatory ethical training for all its employees. Since then they have made a real effort to change their corporate culture and have developed a five point plan to achieve more balance between short-term results and maintaining a longer-term perspective on their franchise. An interview in Corpedia under news and events with Chuck Prince, CEO, and Michael Schlein, Senior VP Global Corporate Affairs, Human Resources and Business Practices describes what they have put in place and what they have achieved so far.

Citigroup's objective is to be the most respective global financial services company. And they are building their training around the 200 year history of Citigroup. The five point plan is aimed at improving training, talent and development, performance appraisals, communications and controls. They base it around the idea of "shared responsibilities" - to clients, to each other and to the franchise. All employees are required to take their "ethics and code of conduct" training every 18 months, and they are now trying to apply it to directors, temporary employees, contractors and consultants. Their Citigroup Franchise Forum is a full-day program for the top 1% of senior managers (about 3000 persons world-wide), based on case studies.

They have Business Practices Committees at corporate and divisional levels (forums for maintaining high standards of integrity), and have created a company-wide award to recognize outstanding employees. More from their website under Corporate Citizenship.

Citigroup might have had a very hard landing last year and at the beginning of this year, but they are now very intent on imbedding this into their culture, and they might very well be setting the new industry standard.

CRS in Switzerland

Just wrote a letter to the website of ethical corporation on the state of corporate social responsibility in Switzerland. It covers the rise of shareholder activism on the subjects of executive compensation  and severance payments (ABB and CS), and the split of the roles of CEO and Chairman of the Board (Nestle). The Swiss fund Ethos is having an impact, and it might induce other funds to speak out.

The power of example

Incredible consecration for Rosa Parks with a memorial service and a public viewing in the Capitol Rotunda. She is the first woman to be so honored and only one of 30 Americans. It is even more important that this government honors a civil rights activist, because a news survey of the Washington Post shows that 55% of people surveyed think this White House has wider ethical problems than the Lewis Libby indictment. 46% say the level of honesty and ethics in government has declined under the Bush presidency...