Ethical challenge Create a work culture that emphasizes doing the right thing
Although as Canadians we sit on the sidelines of the U.S. presidential election primaries, it is interesting nonetheless to see how things unfold. One of the dynamics occurring is how contenders and news leaders alike are continually exposing the personal frailties of Newt Gingrich by raising the issue of his personal ethics and reputation for off the job behaviour. While the question recently posed by CNN threw Gingrich a little off balance, he quickly lashed back by saying his personal life is no one else's business. And now that the North Carolina primaries have put Gingrich in the lead, some voters might suggest this proves ethics indeed don't matter.
Yet, I believe if you ask any employee, supervisor, manager or shareholder, ethics do matter and how this is dealt with in the workplace also matters. It matters for the recruitment of new employees and especially new leaders, it matters for promotion and it matters for the general treatment of your employees. Finally, it matters for the type of organizational culture that you are able to build.
What are some of the ethical issues that arise in the workplace? The more common accusations attributed to senior management and executives include falsifying financial data, misrepresenting financial assets, taking bribes or kickbacks, and/or lying to shareholders. Currently, for instance, three senior executives from the now defunct multinational telecommunications company, Nortel Networks Corp. are being charged with "cooking the books" in order to make the company financial position look more positive.
Front-line employees themselves are not immune to unethical behaviour in the workplace. Employees have been found to lie to their employer or their customers, they've been known to falsify data in their reports, misreport their time worked, or pad expense accounts. Employees have been found to take credit for another employee's work, violate company policy, fail to report a conflict of interest and/or accept gifts and bribes. And this just represents a short list of the many examples out there in the workplace.
Ethics And Spying - News
While it's one thing to read about a local volunteer stealing money from a community club, it's another to learn about allegations of spying against a Canadian naval officer working in Halifax. This extreme high risk ethical behaviour in an agency we
(He wore the title of the RTC's Inspector General-Ethics, but all that really mattered was that he answered to only one person -- Miscavige.) "Nicole spotted Miscavige and didn't like what she saw. Her big issue was that Tom was becoming like Miscavige
Shell General Counsel Richard Wiseman (now RDS Plc Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer) confirmed to us in an email dated 11 November 2005 Shell's censorship of Tell Shell postings. Richard Wiseman subsequently, at his own initiative, sent us an updated
Last month, Wikileaks published a collection of documents called the "Spy Files" which details just how extensive and pervasive the global surveillance industry has become over the past decade. US. corporations such as Blue Coat sell software to
That is, leaving aside Newt's various & sundry “ethics” issues (which is – if you look at the 1000 plus pages House Ethics Committee Report to the full House – Kellogg, Brown & Root would use up it's entire truck inventory moving that monster – not at
Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional, Volume 2
Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional, Volume 2 seeks to define an intelligence professional while utilizing various theoretical and practical perspectives. Prominent scholars explore ethics through the intelligence cycle and how ethics is evolving and viewed in a post-9/11 world. The book concludes with a survey on ethical conduct by interrogators, a brief history of intelligence reform, and a bibliography on this subject.