Ethos International - Ethical Solutions for the Global Economy http://www.ethosinternational.net/ 2010-03-12T00:05:00+00:00 FeedCreator 1.7.2-ppt (info@mypapit.net) 2010-01-23T01:15:00+00:00 2010-01-23T01:15:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/767/ Ethos International, Inc.

The Justice Department announced its largest bust under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ever on January 20th, arresting 22 people on charges of trying to pay bribes to a foreign official to secure contracts for weapons sales. The foreign official in this case was actually an undercover FBI agent. This signals a new commitment by the Justice Department to conduct large FCPA investigations (this case alone stretched from Las Vegas to London and involved 150 or more investigative agents) with sophisticated tools and strategies.

2010-01-04T01:30:00+00:00 2010-01-04T01:30:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/766/ Ethos International, Inc.

Stewart Baker former Assistant Secretary for Policy at DHS under George W. Bush makes some excellent points in his Dec. 29th 2009 blog Skating on Stilts Are You A Privacy Victim? Part 7. Please read on...and think about what he has to say.

2009-05-05T18:00:00+00:00 2009-05-05T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/761/ Ethos International, Inc.

To be sure, public trust is declining, not only within companies, but across many of our institutions—government, the news and other media, nonprofits, the major professions and educational institutions—but the focus of our concern here is the eroding trust of employees in their own companies and their leadership.

2009-04-27T14:30:00+00:00 2009-04-27T14:30:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/758/ Ethos International, Inc.

The unwillingness of employees to report misconduct or volunteer their good ideas for helping their companies to improve products and services lies in their lack of trust that good will come from speaking up. Their mistrust, as Detert and Edmonson found, may be a result of their own personal experience, their knowledge of the negative consequences suffered by others who spoke up, or a culture of collective myths, which may be rooted in fact or only in their fears.

2009-04-27T15:00:00+00:00 2009-04-27T15:00:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/757/ Ethos International, Inc.

A Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) subsidiary's widely reported problems with a whistle blower and federal government contracts should serve as a cautionary tale for all businesses now subject to the FAR/DFAR mandatory disclosure requirements.

2009-04-09T20:45:00+00:00 2009-04-09T20:45:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/754/ Ethos International, Inc.

In our first blog (January 1, 2008), we asked, Why do employees continue to remain silent in the face of corporate ethical lapses? We cited data from the Ethics Resource Center’s 2007 National Business Ethics Survey which found that more than half (56%) of employees witnessed what they believed to be serious misconduct in the previous twelve months, and nearly half of them (42%) refused to report that misconduct to anyone.

2009-04-10T21:00:00+00:00 2009-04-10T21:00:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/753/ Ethos International, Inc.

This week at the National Contract Managers Association's (NCMA) Annual Congress in Long Beach, California, I heard a number of concerns from those nervous about the FAR/DFAR's new ethics and mandatory disclosure requirements for government contractors. But, I also heard many strong indications from government contracting officers that they view this new basis for suspension and debarment as being both welcome and long overdue.

2009-03-23T12:15:00+00:00 2009-03-23T12:15:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/photos/detail/750/ Ethos International, Inc. 2009-03-23T12:00:00+00:00 2009-03-23T12:00:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/748/ Ethos International, Inc.

Last week, insurance industry regulators agreed to take an exceptionally strong position on managing environmental risk issues driven by climate change.

2009-03-21T19:45:00+00:00 2009-03-21T19:45:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/747/ Ethos International, Inc.

This is the first in a series of posts about the many new compliance obligations contained within the recently signed, recovery Act, formally called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The initial posts will not focus on the expected reforms related to new rules for executive compensation at companies taking government bailout money but instead will highlight lesser known new policy reforms on data protection and privacy, healthcare, taxes, and corporate whistleblowers. Part One looks at how the law expand's HIPAA scope and the the compliance risks associated with breaches of Protected Health Information or PHI. To enhance enforcement, the Act also makes HHS audits of HIPAA-covered companies mandatory and requires investigation of privacy and security rule related complaints. Although we can describe the rough contours of the changes based upon statutory language the HIPAA provisions also will be subject to rulemaking that will determine more exactly how challenging managing the new reforms may be.

2009-03-21T14:30:00+00:00 2009-03-21T14:30:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/document/detail/746/ Ethos International, Inc.

The federal contracting ethics and compliance environment is rapidly evolving. The following selected resources and frequently updated websites can link you to the latest developments affecting your government related business.

2009-02-20T16:45:00+00:00 2009-02-20T16:45:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/742/ Ethos International, Inc.

New research by Wharton School Management Professor Maurice Schweitzer and three colleagues documents how ambitious corporate goal setting can cause more harm than good. Moreover, he concludes that not only is it overprescribed but it helps to drive destruction of an organization's ethical culture increasing risk and corruption.

2009-02-06T13:30:00+00:00 2009-02-06T13:30:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/740/ Ethos International, Inc.

The Caux Round Table is an international network of experienced business leaders, who work with business and political leaders to design the intellectual strategies, management tools and practices to strengthen private enterprise and public governance to improve our global community.

2009-01-28T14:00:00+00:00 2009-01-28T14:00:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/739/ Ethos International, Inc.

This is the first in a series of "Thinking About Risk" posts directed at improving business processes among the growing number of government contractors facing the new federal compliance requirements which include mandatory disclosure regulations. Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) have become a ubiquitous part of doing business with the government and with other government contractors. Yet the proliferation of NDAs may have actually increased the risk of failure to protect and safeguard truly sensitive information such as trade secrets. While the use of NDAs provides evidence of an intent to comply with non-disclosure requirements, we must ask whether their overuse--often driven by an abundance of caution and the desire to assure the availability of a legal defense should it become necessary-- actually increases risk by undercuttting the true value of such instruments.

2008-10-13T16:15:00+00:00 2008-10-13T16:15:00+00:00 http://www.ethosinternational.net/content/blog/detail/732/ Ethos International, Inc.

The systemic erosion of ethics and responsibility in business and individual decision-making has brought the world economy to a virtual standstill. Algorithmic risk management designed to ignore real world problems, short-term profit driven decisions, extremist free market fundamentalism, and shareholder primacy at the expense of other stakeholders, have divorced business leadership from standards of good faith, wise stewardship and care for the public interest. Trust the essential element of credit-based market transactions has become a rare commodity. Indulgence in the race-to-the-bottom, profit-at-all-costs, instant gratification mentality of the entitlement culture, can no longer be cloaked in terms of capitalism and the free market. The blame for where we are can be shared by everyone in government and industry who acted only in their immediate self-interest and in apparent belief that the bubble would never burst. Is it any wonder that a recent Washington Post story was headlined, The End of American Capitalism?