Ethos International, Inc.

The Past is a Foreign Country:Old Rules+New Technologies = Surprising Risks

2008-07-07T22:00:00+00:00

The Past is a Foreign Country:Old Rules+New Technologies = Surprising Risks L.P. Hartley, the English author, once memorably wrote that “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” I am not yet old enough to collect Social Security retirement benefits. When I attended law school and entered into the practice of law, people appearing to talk to themselves as they walked down the street were considered deranged; Bluetooth was a temporary dental problem resulting from eating fruit; Blackberries were a fruit; Google was the misspelling of a very high number; cells were places in jails where criminal clients were detained; Shepardizing a case involved red paperback books; and Spam was a canned pink gelatinous substance that pretended to be meat.

Government Contracting: False Claims and Integrity

2008-06-14T17:15:00+00:00

Not long ago, I responded to a comment about fraud and misconduct not being reported, with reflections on the history of the defense industry and the Qui Tam amendments to the 1986 U.S. False Claims Act. This week, in ALLISON ENGINE COMPANY, INC., et al., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES ex rel. ROGER L. SANDERS and ROGER L. THACKER, the U.S. Supreme Court made news when it voted unanimously in favor of restricting the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. The bottom-line appears to be that whistleblowers will not be rewarded, if they cannot prove the false claim was a key factor in the Government's decision to make payment. Probably good law, but not good sense.

Norm Augustine Responds to Comments

2008-06-03T15:45:00+00:00

Pat Harned and Scott Avelindo provide important data and insights answering the question I had raised.

Two additional reasons for not reporting misconduct, by Daryll Ward, Ph.D.

2008-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Over my twelve years as a business ethics consultant and Senior Fellow of the Ethics Resource Center it was my privilege to work with some 70 corporations as well as with the Ministry of Health of the United Arab Emirates. I worked with senior executives in drafting codes of conduct for more than a dozen large corporations including General Motors and Lockheed Martin. In addition to this direct work in description and evaluation of corporate cultures and the efforts to positively impact those cultures, I spent more than a decade managing clinical programs for general acute hospitals. Today I teach ethics to future health care professionals.

Response to Hal Shear's query

2008-05-23T16:15:00+00:00

Good question from Hal about the concern that fraud and misconduct were not being reported due to the economic vulnerability of those who observed it. This concern was one basis for the Qui Tam amendments to the US False Claims Act in 1986. These provisions-- inspired by perceived problems in the defense industry -- provide both Rewards and Protections to certain Whistleblowers who in effect "stand in the shoes of the government".

Lockheed Martin ethics officer responds to Norm Augustine

2008-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

I’ve just now been able to review the responses from Norm Augustine, Pat Harned, and Scott Avelino to your Dangerous Silence blog. Having served for twenty years as an ethics officer for Lockheed Martin, both for operating units in the field and at the corporate headquarters, I would like to share my perspective on the dangerous silence of employees who know of misconduct, but who choose not to report it.

Comments on responses to Norm Augustine

2008-05-20T13:45:00+00:00

Is it possible that the reluctance to report "observations of mis-conduct or violations of corporate policy" is an assessment by the employee that such pronouncements do not paint an absolute bright line of moral or ethical judgment?

Scott Avelino Responds to Norm Augustine

2008-05-19T10:45:00+00:00

I count myself among the many who have long admired Mr. Augustine as a champion in the field of business ethics. His observations are consistent with what I hear from others who are on the receiving end of hotline calls; namely, that many hotline allegations are of the routine HR variety, and few ever produce a “stop the presses” moment. But it may be premature to end the story there.

ERC's Patricia Harned Responds to Norm Augustine

2008-05-14T20:45:00+00:00

We invited Patricia Harned, president of Ethics Resource Center, to respond to Norm Augustine's questions regarding the data underlying "Dangerous Silence" Here are Pat's comments:

Norm Augustine's Response to "Dangerous Silence"

2008-05-12T21:15:00+00:00

The unwillingness of employees to report misconduct, even anonymously to corporate ethics offices or external hotlines, poses a continuing risk to companies, as I observed in my posting in January, "Dangerous Silence" Some time afterwards, I had lunch with Norm Augustine, the retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, and we discussed that topic. He brought up a salient point, and I asked him to post it on our blog.

Protecting Privacy Key to Corporate Ethics

2008-02-25T21:00:00+00:00

The Ethisphere Institute (http://ethisphere.com/influential/ ) recently compiled a list of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics ranking executives' “influence” based upon their involvement in government rulemaking, company practices, corporate responsibility and sustainability efforts and many other things. The final list, released last month, is notable primarily because it includes a number of privacy protection advocates including Ethisphere’s top honoree, Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner For Competition

Garbage In, Liability Out (GILO)

2008-02-20T21:00:00+00:00

Speaking at a recent National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) chapter meeting, I was stunned to hear CEOs and directors alike question why they should care about data quality—after all, isn’t that just the CIO's problem? To my even greater surprise, among the least concerned in attendance were those who, like myself, were lawyers by training. Executives, Directors and ethics or compliance officers all need to recall the computer science teaching mantra “Garbage In, Garbage Out” or GIGO coined in the early days of computing to remind students that computers, unlike humans will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical input data and produce equally nonsensical output.

What Happens When Cultures Collide?

2008-03-07T21:00:00+00:00

Is what you consider a bribe what your international partners consider a necessary investment? Do your international managers follow consistent standards of ethical behavior across national borders or do they follow the maxim: “When in Rome, do as the Romans”? Consider the implications of “When Does National Identity Matter? --Convergence and Divergence in International Business Ethics” by Wendy Bailey and Andrew Spicer in the Academy of Management Journal (www.aom.pace.edu/amjnew/). The two academics’ dense but award-winning earlier work with Tom Dunfee about how location and culture affect what U.S. and Russian business executives working domestically and in Russia will do when faced with different ethical dilemmas is underscored by this survey of business students. Their newest findings contain a cautionary tale for multi-national corporations and all doing business in the emerging global economy. (See,“Does National Context Matter in Ethical Decision Making?: An Empirical Test of Integrative Social Contracts Theory.” http://aom.pace.edu/amjnew/unassigned/spicer.pdf)

Internet Driven Corporate Responsibility

2008-02-14T19:00:00+00:00

This week, IBM released a study on Businesses Seeking Growth through Social Responsibility available at: www.ibm.com/gbs/csrstudy. IBM surveyed more than 250 business leaders globally to gauge how deeply Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has penetrated the core of corporate strategies and operations to discover that two-thirds of them are focusing on CSR activities to create new revenue streams. However, IBM found fewer than one-quarter of those surveyed believe they understand their customers' and other stakeholders CSR expectations well. This should be an alarming finding in today’s economic environment when customer expectations - and clout - are an increasingly important business dynamic.

Law and Ethics, Part One

2008-02-13T23:00:00+00:00

Law and Ethics Many organizations have turned to their lawyers to ensure proper conduct by employees, only to have the U. S. Sentencing Commission redress the focus on law with a call to take into account the influence of the ethics and culture of an organization on its employees’ decision-making and conduct. It may be useful to ask, just what is the relationship between ethics and the law?