Introduction
1. Fundamental Concepts
2. Economics, Market
Failure, and Professional
Dilemmas
3. Legislation, Control by
Law, Agency, and Fiduciary
Duty
4. Why Corruption? –
Behavioural Issues
Fundamental Concepts
RATIONALE
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Teaching Methods
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FAQ
In building essential knowledge of the interplay of markets, ethics, and law, fundamental
concepts lay the groundwork for a business ethics and anti-corruption curriculum.
Fundamental concepts explore the requirements for a “morally articulate” solution to
management issues in general and to resisting corrupt practises in particular. The elements of
a morally articulate solution are: (1) Truth – insistence on truthfulness and accuracy of facts
on which the solution is based;; (2) Justice – “The tribute that power pays to reason” (Robert
Jackson);; and (3) Whether there are limits to reason’s scope in global markets with significant
local cultural differences (Amartya Sen).
In this regard, a just decision-making process requires substantive and procedural fairness,
good faith, and results that are solicitous of rights and rigorous in the imposition of duties. It
also necessitates the utilisation of philosophical or economic problem solving methods that
include, but are not limited to: (a) Classical Virtue;; (b) Duty (Deontology);; (c) Utilitarianism
5. Conflicts of Interest
6. International Standards
and Supply Chain
7. Managing
Anti-Corruption Issues
8. Functional Area and
Anti-Corruption Issues
9. Truth and Disclosure
10. Whistleblowing
11. The Developing Global
Anti-Corruption Regime
LEARNING METHODS
(consequentialism);; and (d) Game Theory, which provide a framework for determining the
appropriate course of action when confronted with an ethical challenge. It is not unusual for
these analyses to prescribe conflicting courses of action.
Whistleblowing dilemmas afford a good example of how utilisation of these methods can result
in different recommended courses of action. Regardless of motive or good faith,
whistleblowing has a Utilitarian justification if it results in the best outcome, while deontological,
duty-based ethics disapproves of disloyal acts under almost any circumstances. Further, how
can the greatest good for the greatest number be determined? To whom is the greater loyalty
owed – to friend or country?
These ethical and economic methods of analysis are useful tools for discussing key
governance and citizenship topics such as stakeholder obligation and sustainability – subjects
in which corruption problems invariably arise. Ethics-based discussion can also utilise
stakeholder analysis, the problem of restricted reasons and permissible violation, omnipartial
rule-making, and the entity and property conceptions of corporate purpose. The issue is not
whether these approaches are consonant with current business decision and strategy
formulations. Instead, their purpose is to offer an alternative for individual and organisational
choice to analytic methods that are now in use.
[3]
[1]
Halbert, Terry and Elaine Ingulli. “Making an Ethical Decision,” Law and Ethics in the Business Environment, 3rd Ed. Southwestern College Publishing: 1999. Applbaum, Arthur Isaak. Ethics for Adversaries: The Morality of Roles in Public and Professional Life. Princeton University Press: 1999. Green, Ronald M. “Neutral Omni-partial Rule-Making,” The Ethical Manager. Prentice-Hall, Inc.: 1994. Miller, Gary. “Ethics and the New Game Theory,” Ethics and Agency Theory, edited by Norman R. Bowie and R. Edward Freeman. Oxford University Press: 1992. O’Neill, Onora. “A Question of Trust,” The BBC Reith Lectures, 2002. Cambridge University Press: 2002.
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Frame ethical issues:
One study found that case study participants “who faced a
potential fine cheated
more
, not less than those who faced no sanctions. With no penalty,
the situation was construed as an
ethical dilemma
;; the penalty caused individuals to view
the decision as a
financial
one” (emphasis added).
[1]This finding will come as no surprise
Having completed the module, students will have ethical decision-making skills to:
to anyone familiar with legal
safe harbour
formulas.
Operationalise ethical choices:
As one business ethicist observed about business
students and ethical problems, people often want to act ethically, “they simply don’t know
how to do it effectively… Instead of asking
what would you do?
Ethical case discussions
should ask the question ‘What if I were going to act on my values: What would I do and
say? To whom? How? In what sequence?’”
[2]This comment raises the question of the
degree to which an ethical temperament is innate and whether and what environmental
factors can be used to enhance it.
[3]Use ethical reasoning for decision making:
(e.g. deontology, utilitarianism) in order to
discipline thinking about ethical choices, and how to use ethics analytics for decision
making.
[4]Different ethics analytics will often lead to prescriptions for different courses of
action.
[1]
Bazerman, Max H. and Ann E. Tenbrunsel. “Stumbling Into Bad Behavior,” The New York Times, April 21, 2011, p. A27. [2]
Mary Gentile: Missing the point on biz ethics, The Providence Journal, July 5, 2007. Gentile has written a book and developed a curriculum on Giving Voice to Values that explores these ideas in
detail. http://www.givingvoicetovaluesthebook.com and www.GivingVoiceToValues.org. The curriculum was developed in collaboration with the Aspen Institute and Yale School of Management and is now housed and funded at Babson College. The approach and materials have been piloted at over 250 institutions on 6 continents. Giving Voice to Values (GVV) is an innovative, cross-disciplinary business curriculum and action-oriented pedagogical approach for developing the skills, knowledge and commitment required to implement values-based leadership. Rather than the usual focus on ethical analysis, GVV focuses on ethical implementation and asks the question: What would I say and do if I were going to act on my values? Drawing on the actual experiences of managers as well as multi-disciplinary research, GVV helps students identify the many ways to voice their values in the workplace. It provides the opportunity to script and practise in front of peers, equipping future business leaders not only to know what is right, but how to make it happen. The institutions established in this process then formulate and enforce specific rules of conduct. See for example, the US Constitution. Such evolution can be critical to success in a global business institution effort to articulate common principles. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the US Supreme Court wrote, “a constitution is made for people of fundamentally different views.”
[3]
Evolutionary biologists have used chimpanzee experiments to suggest that certain moral traits may be innate rather than evolved. As Frans B. M. deWaal said in a May 6, 2011, NYU Paduano Seminar,”if chimpanzees show a sense of fairness maybe we didn’t have to wait for the French Revolution and the human discovery of the importance of equality”. For a discussion of de Waal and other sources, see Frances Fukuyama, The Origins of the Political Order – from Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2011), pp. 31-35.
<[4] Ibid.
