Mngt 5192 Business Ethics 2009

---

This year Business Ethics is comprised of the course Mngt 5192 and extra work and lectures. It is taught/supervised by Professor Robert Marks, with inputs from Associate Professor Damian Grace, Noa Erez-Rein and Emeritus Professor Dennis Turner.

---

• The lunchtime presentation is Here. Here (printable).
• 2009 BE Course Outline here (PDF)
  2009 BE Readings CD

• The MBA Oath ("Responsible Value Creation") website is Here.

• Ethical dilemmas:
  • Ethical dilemmas suggested by the 2008 class here
  • Ethical dilemmas suggested by the 2005 class here
  • Ethical dilemmas suggested by an earlier class here
  • Ethical dilemmas that were faced by readers of a newspaper Dear Mr Ethicist column here
  • Ethical decisions faced by an Australian CEO here

• A list of 14 cases to be answered in teams here

• A glossary of ethical terms here, from U Nebraska.
• Make a map of philosophy papers, here, from David Clowney.
• A Guide to Ethical Principles in Business, here, from Rutgers University.

• Recommended book: Rush Kidder, How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living,, (NY: HarperCollins, 2003).

---

Lectures and Cases

Week 1: Personal Ethical Dilemmas.

• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable
• Notes on Writing Down Your Reflections

• Cases:
  • IGE Dilemma: Justified Inflated Costs?
  • IGE Dilemma: Mates' Rates?
  • IGE Dilemma: The Smooth Accounts
  • IGE Dilemma: The Insurance Adjuster's Dilemma
  • IGE Dilemma: Off-Piste?

  • IGE Dilemma: Letting the Chips Fall?
  • IGE Dilemma: Second to None?
  • IGE Dilemma: Letting Jim Go

  
  

  • A page of clippings on James Hardie asbestos Here. In chronological order, from June 2004 to August 2009, from the daily press.
  • The 2004 NSW "Report of the Special Commission into the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation" Here

Week 2: Managerial Approach to Business Ethics

• The Homework
• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable

• Edelman's 2007 Australia Stakeholder Research Here
  Edelman's 2006 Australia Stakeholder Research Here
  -- Australian stakeholders' views on what makes a responsible corporation.
• Cases:
  • Case: Harry Stonecipher
  • Case: Merck
  • Case: The Ford Pinto
  • Mr Ethicist's answers.

Week 3: Organisational Ethics/Cross Cultural Ethics

• The Homework

• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable
• Cases:
  • Death sentences in Chinese tainted milk scandal
  • Steidlmeier on "Gift giving, bribery and corruption"

Week 4: Organisational Ethics/Cross-Cultural Ethics.

• Early Term Feedback here and here.
• The Homework
• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable

• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable
  • The ethics of Confucius, a summary
  • The Hundred Schools of Thought, including Kong Zi (Confucius).
  • A further discussion of Confucius' ideas

• Notes on ethics from the Indian tradition:
  • Indian ethics here
  • The Buddhist list of five vows (pancha sila)
  • The ethics of Hinduism here, and
  • Ahimsa in business here.

• Cases:
  • Case: Classic Containers
  • Case: SEA Inc.
  • Case: The Kader fire
  • Case: BHP Ok Tedi (PDF)

• Other links:
• Transparency International's Corruption Surveys:
  • TI corruption perceptions index 2009 and
    map.
  • TI's bribe-payers index 2008
  • TI corruption perceptions index 2008
  • TI corruption perceptions index 2007
  • TI corruption perceptions index 2006
  • TI bribe-payers index 2006
  • TI corruption perceptions index 2005
  • TI corruption perceptions index 2004
  • TI bribe-payers index 2002, 1999
  • TI corruption perceptions index 1998

Week 5: Enron, the movie

• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable
• An Enron timeline.

Week 6: Cross-Cultural Ethics, continued with Noa

• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable
• Noa on Values
  • Grace: IBM and Nazi Germany, CBS News, March 27, 2002. Here.
  • Amnesty on Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google in China Here
  • Tallay: Google in China: Do no evil? Amnesty International, 16 May 2008. Here
  • Gettler: Is Google getting too big to 'do no evil'? SMH, Oct 14, 2009, Here.
  • Donaldson: Values in tension: ethics away from home, HBR, September 1996.
• Vignettes and syndicate discussions

Week 7: How Useful are Codes of Ethics?

• Bob's overheads: OH || Printable

• Codes of Ethics:
  • Why not sign the MBA Oath? Here.
  • An FT article on the oath, with readers' comments. Here.
  • Codes of Conduct in light of Sarbanes-Oxley, NYSE listing requirements, and the SEC, Steve Priest and Jeff Kaplan, January 2003.
  • The Nature of the Relationship between Corporate Codes of Ethics and Behaviour, by M. Schwartz, JBE, 2001.
  • Why Ethical Codes Constitute an Unconscionable Regression, by Michael Schwartz JBE 2000.
  • From Enron's Code of Ethics
    • For more detail.
    • CBS airs the tapes.
    • and more from CBS.
  • Novartis' Responsible business practice
  • Sony's compliance page.
  • Johnson & Johnson's Credo

• Resources for Creating Codes:
  • Creating a Code of Ethics for Your Organization, by Chris MacDonald, Ph.D.
  • Resources for Writing a Code of Ethics

• Cases:
  • Case: A Hippocratic Oath for Business? (PDF)

Week 11: Presentations

Bob's overheads: OH || Printable

---

Writing aids (look at these for your essay):

• Issues / Actors / Processes (PDF)
• Writing Well (PDF)
• Rules to Write Good

---

Other Links:

• "Does the free market corrode moral character?" A Templeton Conversation.

• Other clips:
  • Ad: "CO2: They call it pollution, we call it life"

• Links to other Business Ethics sites
• The Wharton Business Ethics pages
  • The 2005 BE web page.
  • The 2006 BE web page.

Humour:

• The Daily Show on the MBA Ethics Oath
• The CEOnistas
• Personal Ethical Assistants
• Osama bin Laden, CPA
• The Lawyer's Dilemma

---

• A page of readings put together for the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship Program. 2011-2012

---

Up
Last Updated 3 August, 2009

Robert Marks, bobm@agsm.edu.au