Who say's Corporate America has ethics?

Great Debates
1

Do most large corporate entities function on a certain amount of unethical behaviour? Should X amount of corruption be factored into every corporate environ’s equation of functioning properly?

I have worked in the corporate world for many years, I have seen the old replaced by the young, proud fathers and husbands bumping their secretaries, and financial reports embelished to show inflated gains.
I have worked in corporations who demonstrate the converse as well. Good working environments, open door management tactics, outsourcing their financial departments to try and thwart internal bias, quality control departments ensuring employees are happy…the whole nine yards…

Puting the facts together and looking at corporate life as a whole, I would go as far as to say that there is a certain underlying amount of corruption and unethical behaviour out there in each of the corporations I have worked for. But to me (working in the marketing and advertising/PR) realm, I can safely say I had the chance to stay away from the career busting, gigantic decision making aspect of corporate life. I basically try to get people to invest in the corporations I work for… But there is a certain amount of office flirtation, “…psst…don’t tell out supervisor …” and that kind of thing.
However, should we deduce these companies that are headlining lately (Enron, Worldcon, Xerox) started off their respective businesses wanting to breach the system by lying and cheating their way to world monopolies…? I doubt it.

Along the way, there were certainly corruptions and unethical practice, but I’d say those were the natural progression of monster corporations like the above mentioned. Cut a corner here, embelish that there, etc…etc… It’s companies like Arthur Anderson who ‘lose documents’ and ‘shred’ scandalous materials, that are making news groups turn their heads and perk up their ears. Unethical practices and scandalous happenings will forever be in corporate America, its the CEO’s who hope their company is not profiled on Dateline as having a ‘less than honest’ reputaion. Unethical practice is out there, no doubt, the question lies in can corporate giants limit and possibly irraticate dishonesty and unethical behaviour? Just how deep does this problem go with-in the corporate psyche? Can corporate corruption be stopped?

2

Ironically, it can be curbed by the free market as a whole developing a moral compass. The only problem is right now the proverbial lodestone is missing, so it does not know what direction to point to.

3

capacitor, would you care to be less mystical with respect to the free market developing this compass?

Here, since it seems apropros, is the latest Krugman column on the recent spate of scandals. I think he does a good job here of explaning what’s been going on in each case with his ice cream parlor analogy.

BTW, I suspect that people “bumping” co-workers, including esp. people bumping subordinates, happens in many contexts, not just corporate ones. I have many thoughts on the issue of subordinate-bumping. That said, IMO, the issue of workplace bumpage and the issue of book-cooking in the Fortune 500 should be kept separate.

4

Mandlestam. I liked the article, and Krugman does put an interesting twist on his Flavors of Fraud.

From the Article:

There is much more to be said about this, but to sum it up, if an invester does not think your chunky monkey ice cream will sell, then change the name and LIE LIE LIE… Because it’ll sell in the future right? Wrong!!! Unless your Pfizer Inc and marketing something that will help a man with this male-hood. That problem will be around for ever!

as for the corporate bumping I could have left that out, I see your point, and yes it does transcend corporate worlds.