BA300 Part 2

Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT): Decision Rule

Norm is authentic and not inconsistent with hypernorms

Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT): Biggest Con

The concept of a "Hypernorm" is vague and it's hard to respond properly when a norm conflicts with a hypernorm • Hard to pin down exactly when a hypernorm requires that a local norm be disregarded • May not be practical

bribe

a payment to someone to secure a sale or to obtain approval or assistance from an individual or organization, often a government bureaucrat. • Bribery is widespread even in regions where it is illegal. • "Although an accepted part of commercial transactions in many Asian, African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern cultures, it is usually against the laws in those very same countries."

Transparency International Corruption Index

a regularly updated list of countries based on their level of corruption in the conduct of business, based on surveys of business people, political analyst and the general public

Conflicts of Interest

definition: "the circumstance of a public officeholder, corporate officer, etc. whose personal interests might benefit from his or her official actions or influence." • Arise in business when the personal interests of the decision-maker diverge or conflict, or appear to diverge or conflict, with the best interests of the company or business • May lead to jail time in extreme cases Critical to remember that your employer has the right to expect your loyalty to the company when you are making decisions on the company's behalf. • If that loyalty is compromised by personal benefits to you or those close to you from those outside the company, the company will act to protect itself. • The company's response may take the form of an internal investigation, cutting employment or business ties with those involved in the conflict, and, in some cases, alerting the authorities. • That will be true whether the conflict of interest comes in the form of overt bribes, subtle bribes, improper influence by those close to you, or misuse of privileged information.

"survivor syndrome"

following a lay-off; refers to the decreased morale, lower productivity, distrust of management, and cautiousness in the survivors of a layoff. Those left wonder if they're next.

ethical relativism:

when you are dealing with a foreign culture, you should adopt their ethical norms lock, stock, and barrel and not impose your norms on them. "when in Rome, do as the Romans do"

(ISTC) Managers should deem a practice permissible only if they can answer no to both of the following questions:

1) Is it possible to conduct business successfully in the host country without undertaking the practice? 2) Is the practice a violation of a core human value" or what we have been calling a hypernorm? • The practice of gift-giving in Japan as part of doing business satisfies this test

Hypernorms (core human values) that satisfy the overlapping ethical norms of Western and non-Western culture:

1) Respect for human dignity • not treating people as simply tools, but instead recognizing their value as a human being such as by providing employees a safe workplace 2) Respect for basic rights • "avoiding relationships that violate human beings' rights to health, education, safety, and an adequate standard of living." 3) Good citizenship • business working with communities in which they operate "to support and improve the institutions on which the community depends."

According to ISCT, a decision is ethical if it is compatible with the ethical rules of the community in which you are doing business, meaning those ethical rules or norms that a community develops within its broad moral free space that are:

1) authentic, in that they are supported by the attitudes and behavior of a substantial majority of the members of that community; 2) permit members to exit when they are distressed about a particular community norm; 3) allow community members a voice in influencing the development and evolution of the norms; 4) legitimate, in that the rules do not conflict with any hypernorm, a norm sufficiently fundamental that it serves as a guide for evaluating authentic but less fundamental norms. Hypernorms are generally reflected in broadly shared religious, philosophical, and cultural beliefs.

Five guidelines for managers doing business abroad (framework through which the American businessman or woman can overcome the many ethical challenges raised by doing business in other countries)

1. "Treat corporate values and formal standards of conduct as absolute." The point here is that a company's principles, while perhaps flexible in their execution depending on where it is operating, may not be flexible at their core. 2. Set conditions or limits on those suppliers and customers with whom the company will do business. Possible conditions include not doing business with those who use child labor or abuse the environment. 3. Use the company's foreign divisions to help set ethical standards and resolve ethical questions where they operate. 4. Support efforts to decrease corruption where the company operates by banding together with other companies. As Professor Donaldson points out, one company cannot effect change by itself no matter how many bribes it turns down. The Caux Roundtable is an example of the kind of collective effort contemplated by this guideline. 5. Exercise moral imagination." This is another way of saying that, when ethical conflicts arise, think outside the box. A good example of this was the way Levi Strauss resolved the problem of underage workers being used by some of its suppliers in Bangladesh.

(At least) four kinds of discipline:

1. An oral warning that the employee's performance or actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the future (this is the least serious discipline) 2. A written warning, a statement of what the employee did wrong that goes in the employee's personnel file. Typically, the employee signs the warning and may be given a chance to provide comments about his or her reaction to it. 3. A suspension of some number of days, generally without pay, reserved for serious misconduct. 4. A demotion in position, typically carrying with it a reduction in salary (may come before or after a suspension) If all forms of discipline fail, a company may terminate an employee.

Four common types of conflicts of interest:

1. An overt bribe or kickback 2. A subtle bribe 3. Influence 4. The misuse of your company's privileged information for personal gain

Steps of whistleblowing

1. Approach your immediate manager first 2. Discuss the issue with your family 3. Take it to the next level 4. Contact your company's ethics officer 5. Consider going outside your chain of command 6. Go outside the company 7. Leave the company

Professor Carroll's four CSR's of business (more expansive view of CSR)

1. Be profitable 2. Obey the law 3. Engage in ethical practices 4. Be philanthropic This is a pyramid of corporate values, with the economic obligations forming the base and philanthropy at the somewhat narrower top of the structure.

Professors Buchholz and Rosenthal's seven arguments in favor of Carroll's more expansive view of CSR:

1. Business must accommodate itself to social change if it expects to survive. 2. Business must take a long-run view of self-interest (and help to solve social problems to create a better environment for itself) 3. Socially responsible behavior can improve business' public image 4. Government regulation can be avoided if business can meet the changing social expectations of society. 5. Business has enormous resources that would be useful in solving social problems. 6. Social problems can be turned into profitable business opportunities. 7. Business has a moral obligation to help solve social problems that it has created

Professors Buchholz and Rosenthal's five arguments in favor of Dr. Atkins' more limited view of CSR:

1. CSR provides no mechanism for accountability for the use of corporate resources. 2. Managers are legally and ethically obligated to earn the highest possible rate of return on the stockholder's investment. 3. CSR poses a threat to the pluralistic nature of our society, meaning corporate intervention on one side of a social question unfairly tilts the playing field against those who hold different views. (better to leave that to be worked out through the process of politics and government.) 4. Business executives have little experience in solving social problems, and little or no incentive to do so. 5. Social responsibility is fundamentally a subversive doctrine that would undermine the foundations of a free enterprise system.

Break down the analysis of a conflict of interest into two questions:

1. Can you honestly say that your business decision-making will be unaffected if you accept the direct or indirect benefit for yourself or someone very close to you personally? • If the answer is no, the benefit should be declined. 2. Could someone looking at it from the outside, aware of all of the facts, reasonably conclude that your business decision will be affected if you accept the particular benefit? • If the answer to that question is yes, the benefit also should be declined.

Four ways to discipline in a constructive and effective manner:

1. Discipline should be constructive and done professionally 2. Discipline should be done privately rather than in front of others 3. The employee should have input into the process, such as an opportunity to respond 4. Discipline should be appropriately harsh and consistent with what other employees have done for similar offenses, which requires the person doing the discipline to know how similar offenses have been handled.

Two of the ethical risks of deciding even to do business abroad:

1. Failing to understand the stakeholders of a foreign culture and 2. Being bound by foreign laws that may not comport with ours and making a decision whether to apply higher US safety standards (children's sleepwear) or lower foreign standards for goods that only will be sold abroad.

Five pieces of advice to managers doing a termination regardless of reason:

1. Prepare carefully. (Role play different ways the conversation could go and how they should respond. Don't fire someone on their birthday or on a major holiday.) 2. Have an outplacement counselor available. 3. Do it on neutral ground like a conference room (not your office nor theirs) 4. Do it privately and don't get personal 5. Keep information private. (The grapevine will disseminate information if the termination is the result of objectionable behavior, such as sexual harassment or misconduct.)

Three kinds of termination:

1. Terminations for cause, such as violating a company policy or insubordination 2. For poor performance 3. Layoffs and downsizings, typically caused by a short-term long-term slowdown in work. Sometimes, a company decides to terminate employment. Some people call termination of employment industrial capital punishment because of how closely one's identity may be tied to the job they hold.

2 distinct reality checks (guidelines for people following virtue ethics) to determine whether one is behaving in a manner consistent with an ethical character:

1. The "role model" test 2. The "headline news" test

Several traps in doing business abroad to which the well-trained businessman must be alert. Those concepts include:

1. The assumption of behavioral consistency 2. The assumption of cultural homogeneity 3. The assumption of similarity Even where the well-trained businessperson avoids these cultural traps, and understands the legal requirements imposed by the host country, the businessperson must deal with the problem of bribery, which brings into play the law and ethical norms of both the country in which business is being done and the law that America imposes on American businesses doing business abroad.

Three reasons discipline is important:

1. To ensure worker productivity 2. To set the standard of employee behavior 3. To meet the requirements of the Federal Organizational Sentencing Guidelines • Discipline is particularly important to comply with factor 6 of the guidelines: "Consistently enforcing the organization's written standards through appropriate disciplinary mechanism, including, as appropriate, discipline of individuals for failure to detect an offense."

Four principle ethical values that guide ethics in advertising: (from Professor George Brenkert)

1. Truth 2. Freedom 3. Well-being 4. Justice

Bottom line result of "conflict of interest" rule:

A businessperson should decline a personal benefit, and refuse to give or offer a personal benefit to another, if he or she believes that accepting or extending the benefit will compromise the impartial decision-making on behalf of the business of either the person who gives the benefit or receives it. The same analysis applies to: • Personal gifts or benefits given to government officials in exchange for official action benefiting the business. • Promises to provide a gift or benefit after a decision is made in favor of the gift giver is as much of a conflict as providing the gift or benefit before the decision is made.

Caux Round Table

A group representing American, European, and Japanese multinationals who developed a set of non-binding business standards; and the United Nations, through its global compact, committing companies that sign the agreement to follow certain broadly shared principles. They are institutions that promote adherence to standards of conduct in international business

Professors Buchholz and Rosenthal's definition of CSR

A private corporation has responsibilities to society that go beyond the production of goods and services at a profit. Corporations are more than economic institutions; they have a responsibility to help society to solve pressing social problems, many of which corporations helped to cause, by devoting resources to the solution of these problems.

Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT): Biggest Pro

Accepts variations in cultural norms without succumbing to ethical relativism • Acknowledges the legitimacy of different cultures having different standards for approaching ethical dilemmas that come up in business • Respects the autonomy, or freedom, of other cultures to adopt ethical values different from our own

2. A subtle bribe

An extravagant gift or entertainment to the decision-maker given in exchange for favorable consideration of the giver of the gift. Example: Expensive tickets to sporting events or first class travel and accommodations Rule of thumb to be used in deciding whether to accept entertainment from someone trying to influence your decision on behalf of the company for which you work: "If you can't reciprocate with the same kind of entertainment being offered to you, it's probably inappropriate to accept it."

Objectivism: Decision Rule

Be rational • The only way humans should be convincing someone of your position is through reason • The primary obligation of humans is to be rational at all times Be all that you can be • Build yourself into the best human being you can be

The assumption of similarity

Belief that countries perceived to be culturally similar to one's own will in fact behavior similarly to one's own in business. • The pitfall there is that you are not alert to differences, not within individuals, but between two seemingly similar cultures. Example: • An American businessperson assuming a Canadian businessperson will behave the same way as, say, a Seattle businessperson. But borders and cultures and traditions affect the way people view the world and behave in business.

The assumption of cultural homogeneity

Belief that everyone within a culture acts alike. • The trap here is that the businessperson will assume that everyone in the country in which he or she is doing business will behave the same way. • That leads the businessperson to fail to recognize individual differences that present themselves in any society of human beings. • It is the same pitfall as acting on stereotypes on an individual level.

The assumption of behavioral consistency

Belief that if a businessperson understands how people tend to think and behave in their native environment, the businessperson will understand how a particular businessperson within that culture will behave toward the outsider doing business there. Problem with this belief is that people are adaptable. Examples: • American women have been shown to do quite well working for companies in countries with a paternalistic, male-dominated culture. • Foreign negotiators may adapt their style to the behavior of a foreign negotiating partner.

Betsy Atkins six CSR's of business (more limited view of CSR)

CSR means not acting irresponsibly, and that is limited to six things: 1. Being financially transparent 2. Produce quality product 3. Be forthright about danger to public from product 4. Do not use child labor in foreign manufacturing 5. Don't pollute 6. Be a fair and open employer • specifically rejects the idea that philanthropy should be part of what a socially responsible conduct does - considers it the very essence of corporate irresponsibility • argues beyond this & says that companies should not spend corporate resources for social purposes

Ethic of Care: Example

Certain small, entrepreneurial businesses • Usually small businesses that are able to adopt certain positions • The founder may have a different goal than making a profit - they want to help people

3. Well-being

Does the ad encourage the consumer to purchase an unsafe product or encourage the imprudent assumption of debt or other risks? How does this concept of well-being play out in advertising? What about an advertisement for mortgages to buy a home, aimed at low income earners, that says nothing about the high probability of an increase in rates that may eventually force them out of their home? What about advertisements for casinos? On the other hand, is an advertiser really responsible for the choices that consumers make, even choices that may not be good for them? Or, to use another example, what about the producer of an alcoholic beverage featuring in its commercials a prominent golfer riding in a golf cart and carrying what appears to be an alcoholic beverage? Does that violate the concept of well-being? What if the golfer is a passenger in the cart rather than the driver?

2. Freedom

Does the ad pressure or coerce the consumer? Is it aimed at an especially vulnerable audience? Does it intrude into the consumer's sphere of privacy? On the other hand, does it promote competition? Remember Nozick's rights theory discussed in the second block of videos? Professor Nozick, as an ethical minimalist, does not place many limits on business practices, but this one of them: Though shalt not lie.

Not every action that on some level may be described as a conflict of interest is fairly characterized as unethical (not generally considered unethical)

Example: accepting a small, token gift from a current or prospective vendor of goods or services to your company.

Not every action in business that may be considered unethical is a conflict of interest.

Example: racial discrimination in employment • Generally is considered unethical and illegal, but generally is not categorized as a conflict of interest, except perhaps in the very limited sense of advancing the decision-maker's personal prejudice at the expense of the company's interest in getting the best qualified employees.

Ethic of Care: Decision Rule

Focus on preserving relationships important to the decision-maker • Take care of the people you have a relationship with • In business: relationship with your suppliers or customers Focus on your responsibilities • Every right has a responsibility • You feel that you have a responsibility toward someone else in your relationship

Is ever ethically appropriate to discipline a senior company official more severely than a lower level employee who committed the same offense or vice-versa?

High-level employees must be held to the same standards and with the same consequences as lower level employees for transgressions When punishment is perceived by workers to have been unfair, it can be demoralizing both to the person who was disciplined and others who learn about it through the grapevine

4. The misuse of your company's privileged information for personal gain

In the case of misuse of privileged information, the discloser's or user's personal interest in receiving cash or something else of value conflicts with his or her company's obvious interest in keeping its secrets for its own commercial use. Example of privileged information being misused: 1. The attempt to sell an employer's secrets to the highest bidder. That actually happened in a case involving the attempted sale of the secrets of Coca-Cola to Pepsi officials. Pepsi alerted Coke officials, the employees were arrested, and were sentenced to time in federal prison in 2007. 2. Moonlighting for a competitor, whether you actually use, or appear to use, your primary employer's secrets in your moonlighting job. 3. Where you work for one company and someone close to you works for a competitor. Here, the best way to avoid even the appearance of a conflict is for both of you to avoid discussing the privileged information of each other's employers and to disclose the relationship to your respective managers. There is no need for either one of you to quit if those safeguards are used.

Objectivism: Biggest Con

Individualistic • "too self-centered" • Individualism taken too far is a negative thing - critics want people to be more community oriented and think Rand is too focused on the self Judgmental • To people that believe in being kind, this theory is too quick to say that someone is not doing what they should be doing

4. Justice

Is the advertised price fair given the target audience? Does the ad exploit those it depicts or targets? What about targeting ads for drinks that are high in sugar to children? How about using scantily-clad women in commercials for beer or body deodorant? As far as price, what about targeting payday loans with very high rates of interest to those with low incomes, but little access to credit?

1. Truth

Is the advertisement is dishonest? Does it mislead the consumer? This is the trickiest one. Where does fair puffery, or exaggerated claims about this or that product being "the most amazing product of its kind in history" end and a misleading claim, such as saying a product has features it can be shown not have, begin? Are there any ads that come to mind that you think are false or misleading? What distinguishes those ads from those you consider questionable, but not over the line? What about a bottled water company that advertising how its production methods are good for the environment, but does not mention the environmental effects of shipping its product by truck over long distances? Is truth in advertising incompatible with the whole truth given what advertising is designed to accomplish?

Ethic of Care Theory

It is very moral to focus on your relationships and responsibilities Does not have to be a gender-based theory • Depends on how people develop and care for people • People develop in two different ways: some remain focused on others, other remain completely autonomous The C in the survey stands for "care", an approach to decision-making focused on preserving relationships important to the decision-maker (this is in contrast to a justice, or rules based, approach to ethical decision-making) The care approach is more common in women than in men • Women respond "C" just fractionally more than the men • This says that the ethic of care is a valid ethical decision-making rule, but not necessarily as a differentiator in the way men and women approach ethical decision-making in business. • Authors of the book (both are women) say: "Business ethics researchers now agree that additional research on the question of gender differences [in ethical decision-making in business] is unnecessary and likely to be fruitless."

Example of company doing business according to ISCT

Levis Strauss and underage workers in Bangladesh • Adopted global guidelines that banned the use of child labor by its suppliers, specifically children under 14 • Company learned that two of its contractors in Bangladesh were using workers who appeared to be under the age of 14 (but no proof of age) • Levi's had a choice to make. Firing the young workers would have hurt their families, who depended on the children's income as an important source of income. The children might be forced into prostitution and other unsavory ways of making money for their families. • Ultimately, those children determined to be under the age of 14 were removed from the factory, the contractors continued to pay the children's wages, and the company paid the children's schooling expenses. The children would be rehired at age 14.

Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT)

Lies somewhere between ethical relativism and ethical imperialism • ISCT is not guided by ethical relativism because it accepts a community's ethical norms as legitimate only to the extent they do not conflict with a hypernorm, or fundamental, broadly shared norm • Followers of ISCT reject unqualified ethical relativism because it could justify murder • ISCT rejects ethical imperialism because it would impose the company's ethical standard, generally reflecting the ethical standard of its home country, on other communities. • May be applied in domestic contexts • Provides a useful analytical framework for doing business abroad (but it is not the only ethical rule) • Context matters in making these decisions

Costs to badly handled terminations:

Major cost: costs of defending a potential lawsuit brought by the fired employee, perhaps claiming that he or she was terminated for discriminatory reasons such as race or gender, or for whistleblowing either internally or those outside of the company about corporate misconduct, or for some other unlawful reason. Costs for company that has fired an employee for an unlawful reason such as discrimination: costs a company suffers from damage to employee morale and the company's reputation.

The Ethics of Employee Discipline and Termination

Many of us will either be disciplined or terminated by a superior on the job or be required to discipline or terminate a subordinate.

Example of company doing business according to Objectivism

Motive Communications • Entrepreneur who founded company wanted strong people - founded his business on Rand's principles • This firm has become very financially lucrative • Turnover rate is 4% • Judgmental, rational, competitive, productive place

Ethic of Care: Biggest Con

Neglects justice • "denies justice" • Enables a person to continue to be helpless or weak

Advertising on the internet

Poses its own set of ethical challenges. "The one-to-one world of the Web is very different from the one-to-many world of broadcast advertising. The Internet is ethically agnostic. Which makes your ethics more important." In the relatively unregulated world of Internet advertising, how you apply Professor Brenkert's principles and others especially matter.

Ethic of Care: Biggest Pro

Protects the weak and dependent • Cares for people who are less advantaged (but not as extreme as Rawl's) • Helps the weak people who are having issues • Not a negative thing - means that you may be temporarily having issues or being dependent

Objectivism

Rand was the developer of objectivism • Her goal: convince America that we have a wonderful system, our founding values are very important & we should treasure them • Thinks Americans have tended to get sloppy in believing that people intuitions give them reason to change our ways of interacting with one another Objectivism pushes American values to the limit and values capitalism Bottom line: • be rational • think hard • don't let emotions get in the way • focus on your life to be the best you can be

Objectivism: Biggest Pro

Reinforces personal responsibility • Rand didn't want people to be moochers • Important for each human to take responsibility for themselves and develop into being responsible for both the pros and cons of your life • It was a virtuous thing for people who have large capabilities to help those who are not so capable

1. An overt bribe or kickback

Simply money or something else of substantial value given personally to the business decision-maker in exchange for a decision in favor of the giver. Example: When a businessperson agrees that his company will buy office supplies from a particular warehouse store in exchange for that company giving the businessperson personally some amount of the money the store receives from the business for supplies. The businessperson's interest in getting that cash for personal use conflicts with the interests of the company for which he or she works in having the decision of office supply vendor made impartially and in getting the best deal on office supplies.

3. Influence

Specifically the special influence the person seeking a favorable decision may have with the decision-maker because of a personal relationship with him or her. Example: If a family member or close friend is seeking business or employment with your company, it is considered a conflict of interest for you to make the decision to do business with or hire him or her and, more broadly, to make the decision whether others seeking the same business or job are chosen instead. It may also be a conflict for you even to be involved in the decision-making process at all, at least without some way to hide the identity of all of the applicants.

Global Ethics

The marketplace has become global, largely, though not entirely, because of the birth and growth of Internet-based commerce, which can transform a corner store into an international marketer. Dealing with the unique ethical challenges of doing business abroad first requires a comprehensive understanding of the laws and ethical norms of the country or countries in which your company does business and a willingness continually to add that to the "box" of your understanding

Difference between individualist cultures and collectivist cultures:

The most basic difference between groups of countries is the difference between individualist cultures and collectivist cultures. Members of individualist cultures tend to think of themselves as primarily responsible to themselves and their immediate family members. • those in the United States and Europe Member of collectivist cultures tend to focus on acting in business with group, rather than individual goals, in mind. • most Asian and Latin American countries

What is privileged information?

Under California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act, trade secret information is information that: 1) Is actually or potentially valuable because it is unknown to others who could exploit it for their own use; and 2) Is subject to reasonable efforts by the company to keep it secret

The Ethics of Advertising

Webster's definition of • "advertising": "the act or practice of offering goods or services to the public through announcements in the media" • "advertisement": "a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc." The subject of ethics in advertising is a murky one, simply because there are varying opinions of what truth is, and furthermore, what 'responsible' is. "Almost all advertising is, like art, representational, not the real thing, a distortion, literally a falsehood. . . . • The consumer understands that since advertising cannot be the real thing itself, its representation must be discounted. • On the other hand, this moral neutrality does not require the justification or defense of advertising practices that, however rarely, may seem sleazy, tricky, noisome, tawdry, immoral, unethical, or unfair." • In other words, there are limits to the distortion that is part of the very nature of advertising. But what are those limits, or at least, what are the principles that determine which advertisements cross the ethical line.

The "headline news" test:

Whether one would be proud of oneself if the decision appeared in the media. • Shortcut approach to virtue ethics • Consider how a particular ethical decision would reflect on the character of the decision-maker if it appeared in the media • Example: Business executive was says that he evaluates whether a business decision is ethically justifiable by considering how his mother would react if she saw the decision discussed on the front page of the executive's hometown newspaper

The "role model" test:

Whether one's action is consistent with what an ethical role model would do if confronted with the same dilemma • The question someone following virtue ethics may ask themself in deciding how to resolve an ethical dilemma in business is what "our strongest ethical role model or harshest moral critic" would think of our proposed course of action. • Example: WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?)

social contract:

concept that members of society or a particular community agree among themselves on certain standards of acceptable behavior, even without a formal agreement among the members of society

ethical imperialism:

idea that absolute truths require adherence to a single ethical standard wherever one does business "when in Rome, they'll do as I do."

Most companies practice progressive discipline

meaning that the first time there is an infraction, the lowest appropriate level of discipline is imposed. Even those companies that generally adhere to progressive discipline, reserve the right to impose more serious discipline, up to and including termination, even for a first-time offense if it is particularly bad.

Precursors to whistleblowing

• Dealing with a serious issue • Assembled the facts • Checked to be sure facts are accurate • Asked peers or manager for advice • See a law or policy about to be violated

Virtue Ethics Theory

• Focuses on whether the decision-maker is ethical or not, through the qualities of character he or she has that are used to make the decision (unlike the other 6 theories which focus on whether a particular decision is ethical or not) • Virtue: "conformity of one's life to moral and ethical principles." • Virtues are considered ingrained traits, but traits that may be nurtured and reinforced. • Whether the decision-maker's character is ethical is defined in large part by the community to which the decision-maker belongs.

Justice-Oriented Approach

• Has the benefit of consistency and impartiality, but at the expense of failing to take into account the particular circumstances confronting the people to whom the rule is applied. • It can seem cold • One size may not fit all

Examples of offending a hypernorm:

• International bribery • Prohibiting women from doing certain kinds of jobs • "feasible workplace safety practices essential to protect against serious physical injury" • The practice of shading the truth of why you are conducting the survey WOULD NOT offend a hypernorm.

In most places (including California) an employer can fire you "at will" just as you may quit "at will" as long as the reason does not offend fundamental public policy such as:

• Laws against discrimination • Laws against retaliating against you because you complained of discrimination or harassment • Laws against firing you because you blew the whistle on reasonably suspected unlawful conduct. Nonetheless, as a practical matter, most employers have a reason and articulate the reason for a termination.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):

• Means many different things to different people. • Has a protean quality, meaning that people pour into it their own values • There is little agreement between and among academic and business commentators about whether there is any such obligation at all, what corporate actions properly fall under CSR, and how far such an obligation extends and should be discharged.

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

• Passed by Congress in 1977 in response to an investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1970's that resulted in over 400 US companies admitting to over $300 million in questionable payments or bribes to foreign officials, politicians, and political parties. The FCPA prohibits: • representatives of US corporations from offering or providing significant payments to foreign political parties, candidates, or government officials for the purpose of inducing the recipients to misuse their powerful positions to assist the company to obtain, maintain, or retain business' to make a decision or take an action that he/she otherwise might not take. • paying, offering, promising to pay (or authorizing to pay or offer) money or anything of value to a foreign official. • Since 1998, the law also has applied to foreign firms and those taking any action to further a corrupt payment while in the United States. • Under the law, corporations are subject to fines of up to $2 million for each offense. • Individuals who are officers, directors, stockholders, employees or agents who engage in criminal misconduct under the FCPA are subject to fines of up to $100,000 and prison sentences of up to 5 years. • Violators also are subject to civil liability, including suits under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, commonly known as RICO, by competitors charging that bribery caused the wrongful award of a foreign contract. • There have been more cases under the FCPA in the 4 ½ years ending in mid-2007 than in the previous 26 years combined. • Through July of 2007, 3 individuals had been indicted, sentenced, or pled guilty under the law, including one case in which criminal penalties totaled $26 million.

Whistleblowing "triggers"

• Truth • Employee or customer rights • Trust • Harm • Your personal reputation • Your organization's reputation • Breaking the law

Virtues are not skill sets

• While being excellent at marketing, accounting, or other business techniques may be necessary to those who practice in those areas, excellence in technique is not sufficient to the virtue ethicist • The virtue ethicist would deny that someone may be considered a truly excellent marketing, accounting, sales, or financial services professional without also upholding ideals of good character.