The Ethical Barometer

There is a bit of a problem with students cheating in high school, in college, and now right on into graduate school – something that cannot be good for those of us counting on our doctors having memorized body parts and getting the multiple choice exam questions on tibia and fibula correct. We faculty face an uphill battle on cheating prevention and detection. However, we had found Turnitin, a software program that causes papers that have been lifted from or downloaded from the internet to light up like Christmas trees upon detecting those suspiciously similar passages from existing papers floating in cyberspace, including those featured on pay-to-get-your-term-paper sites. We had found a detective agency for ferreting out paper fraud. We fed 100,000 papers per day into the Turnitin data base. But, students from Fairfax County, Virginia and Tucson, Arizona protested mightily. You can’t download our papers and use them for free, they cried loudly with their iPods earbuds in place playing pirated music. So, the little darlings sued iParadigms, the LLC that developed Turnitin. Copyright infringement, cried they! Read more »

The late scholar, Robert Solomon, had a list of 33 admirable characteristics of those who are really trying to live the ethical way, or as it was known in days of yore, the examined life.  The list was published in his book, A Better Way To Think About Business.  Two of the qualities were “caring” and “graciousness.”  President-elect Obama, in his first news conference, was asked if he had spoken to the living presidents.  Mr. Obama laughed and joked with the press, “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing seances.”  The press was giddy with a glee the Barometer heard even over the AM car radio.  Read more »

There were ethical lapses during the eternal 2006-2008 presidential election.  And those lapses were aplenty on both sides of the aisle. The Barometer does not grapple with ideology.  Reasonable minds can differ; this country was founded amidst passionate disagreement among the Philadelphia delegates.  However, a conflict is a conflict and truth is truth.  Breaches of ethics know no ideological bounds. But breaches of ethics sully the process.   The role of ethics is to keep the process pure.

In a democracy, the Fourth Estate plays the critical role of dissemination of information.  The Barometer is not sure the founders anticipated SNL and The Daily Show would play a critical role in elections, but, bless their hearts, they do disseminate information to those who do not read.   Still, their parody and satire may well be more accurate than the unsourced and anonymous source stories that became front-page stories in this election.  For the Fourth Estate: Write the truth and get the information to the public, but report via sources who are on the record.  Unsourced and anonymous source stories were a problem in this campaign.  The New York Times twice breached this simple ethical standard of journalism.  The first was the poorly sourced story on Senator McCain about Read more »

Ah, the tension between the need for “face time” and those ethics policies that prevent managers and employees from accepting “stuff” from vendors.  We’ve tried it all.  First, we put limits on gifts:  $25, $100.  The questions then sprung up: Is that face value?  Market value?  Then we tried the “No more than $200 per annum.”  From this approach sprung more questions and refinements, “Could I count this against my next annum?”  The response of confused “stuff” police was, “How many annums have you had this year?”  The new math on “stuff” soon drove us to “Nothing!” policies on “stuff.”  Nothing, and we mean nothing.  We even sent out cards at Thanksgiving, “Thank you for understanding we neither give nor accept gifts.  We wish you fine holidays.”  Translation:  Don’t even attempt “stuff.”  Where there’s a yearning for face time and a corresponding human need for stuff, the market finds a way. It found golf.  More precisely, it found the golf tournament. Read more »

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has given us some insight into uncovering fraud in companies.  First factoid:  Nearly one-half of the fraud cases were uncovered purely serendipitously.  Second factoid: Another 46% were uncovered by tips from employees.  So much for the heavy hand and success rate of SOX 404 requirements and internal controls.  The Barometer once again reminds all:  The single best source for uncovering financial fraud is your employees.  Put all your effort into tapping into their knowledge base. Work on getting what they know to those in your organization who can take action.  Protect those employees who throw down the flag.  Indeed, recognize and reward employees who do the right thing.  For more info on the insights of this new study go to www.asfe.org.  For more information on tapping into what those employees know and how they can help, see Marianne M. Jennings, “The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse.”  

During the filming of their movie, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” representatives of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (the movie’s stars) denied that there was any romance, affair, or other activities untoward for the then married Mr. Pitt (his wife was Jennifer Aniston).  However, in an interview that appeared in the New York Times on October 19, 2008, Ms. Jolie indicated that she was looking forward to the time when the couple’s six children could watch “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” because, “Not a lot of people get to see a movie where their parents fell in love.”  Uh-oh.  We can’t keep a falsehood straight.  Truth does percolate.  Thanks to pop culture for a reminder of this principle through a vivid Entertainment Tonight moment.

Representative Vito J. Fossella (R) was convicted of drunk driving by a judge in Alexandria, Virginia.  Mr. Fossella, who is married and has three children, was pulled over after he ran a red light in the wee hours of the morning on Seminary Road (there is some irony here) in Alexandria.  Arresting officer Jamie Garrett indicated that Rep. Fossella’s eyes were bloodshot and his lips were stained red.  He had a blood alcohol content of 0.133 measured by a breathalyzer at the roadside arrest.  After his arrest, his BA level tested at 0.17.  The legal limit in Virginia is 0.08.   Publicity resulted in further investigation of the congressman.  He was on his way to visit his mistress and their child.  There had to be some tense conversations in the Fossella household that day.  Mr. Fossella has wisely abandoned his re-election bid.  The case was colorful.  Read more »