Business Ethics 2009

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The half-unit course, Business Ethics, in the full-time MBA at the AGSM, is taught by Professor Robert Marks, with inputs from Associate Professor Damian Grace, Noa Erez-Rein and Emeritus Professor Dennis Turner.

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• The lunchtime presentation is Here. Here (printable).
• 2008 Course Outline here (PDF)
  2008 Readings Package

• The MBA Oath 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.

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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

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:
  • Chinese leader vows better food safety, business ethics
  • Steidlmeier on "Gift giving, bribery and corruption"

Week 4: Organisational Ethics/Cross-Cultural Ethics.

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

• Guest: Mr Peter Houston, NSW Roads & Traffic Authority
  • The NSW RTA Code of Conduct and Ethics
  • The Corruption Prevention Network: BIG (Big Issue Grappler) (requires Windows).

• 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:
  • 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 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: How Useful are Codes of Ethics?

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

• Codes of Ethics:
  • 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 6: Presentations

Bob's overheads: OH || Printable

Today's agenda here

The choice of topics for the final 2000-word essay (individual) due by 4pm on Wednesday, October 29th, see here.
See Notes on Essay Writing here.

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Writing aids (look at these for your essay):

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

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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

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Up
Last Updated 7 July, 2009

Robert Marks, bobm@agsm.edu.au