Can business ethics be taught?
Post-Enron, business schools are boosting ethics courses. But critics say book learning won't change much.
from the March 21, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
Ethical action requires ethical culture
"What I see in my field is better rationalization of hiding things," Mr. Fleming says. "I think [executives] have just become brighter. We're always having to deal with the narcissistic executive brain, which has propensity for amazing talents but also for incredible illusions."
On at least one central point, academics and consultants agree: Ethical behavior at the top requires better training.
Organizational structures and cultures, they say, can effectively encourage or discourage decisionmaking that's apt to incur some measure of cost, personal or organizational, in the process of doing what's right.
Goldsmith notes that scandalous behavior among executives is almost always correlated with an organizational culture that punishes people for critiquing their superiors. And for all their efforts, Fernandes concedes, business-school programs aren't going to determine executive behavior on the job as much as incentives from an employer will.
"The governance structure is the conscience of the organization," Fernandes says. "That conscience, the board of directors, has to set the tone for the CEO [and] has to be the conscience of the chief executive when the chief executive thinks about doing something that is more short-term and risky from an integrity standpoint.... In the end, [board members] set the reward system that recognizes the CEO."
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