What has happened to our society over the last few decades? Have we improved our level of understanding of the fundamental principles of life? Have we advanced in technologies that improve the quality of life? Have we increased the expected lifespan of the human race?

Have all the new technologies resulted in the promised leisure time? Look at your own lifetime and ask yourself, “”How far have we really come?”" And I have one additional question: “”Do we know where we are going?”" No ship captain worth his salt would consider leaving port without clearly understanding his destination and charting a course to get him and his cargo there safely and efficiently.

Yet we have seen countless news stories of plans gone wrong when it comes to things like protecting the ecology and the environment. Many large corporations have gone bankrupt, leaving both employees and investors holding the bag while CEO’s and staff members have made personal fortunes. Aid in the form of foodstuffs, clothing and building materials, sent by kind hearted and well meaning people, have been hoarded by gang lords or political leaders for their personal gain, often while their own people starve or die from exposure. Many are now reluctant to contribute to relief efforts because they doubt that the truly needy will benefit.

On a smaller scale, we see whistle blower stories of corruption in local businesses and in local government, where individuals have diverted public funds for personal use, and where confidential information has been sold to competitors or even political enemies. Newspapers and television news programs are likely to show us only those stories that align with their own agendas, and have become very unreliable when it comes to real reporting. Clearly, something has gone wrong, and it is not in isolated areas. Like a disease it has spread throughout society in all parts of the globe.

One survey indicated that only about 14% of respondents place confidence in schoolteachers, 5% in newspaper reporters and journalists, and 3% in corporate CEO’s and political leaders. Why? I believe that the answer is the lack of personal ethics. In my mind there is no line separating personal ethics, business ethics, so called situational ethics, spiritual ethics or any other kind of ethics. One is an ethical, though imperfect, person, or not. We don’t put on a suit of business ethics before we leave for work, and change into our personal ethics attire at 5pm. Just as I have long believed that it is wise to have only one vocabulary, one that you can comfortably use everywhere without fear of embarrassment, I believe that we must also have only one set of ethics.

We live with the same ethical standards every waking moment. Simply stated, ethics is a statement of right and wrong. If a thing is wrong here, it will be wrong there. If it is wrong now, it will be wrong next week or next year. These are rights and wrongs based on principles. Now, a decision whether to buy a car or a truck based on current needs, is not a decision based on ethics. And though we may not need a truck today, next year we may decide that we do. No change in ethics, but a change in conditions. What would be ethical in either case would be to arrange payment and live up to that arrangement, register the vehicle properly, obtain insurance, pay the taxes on personal property, drive carefully, avoid driving while intoxicated, obey traffic laws intended for the protection of everyone, etc. Tons of ethical considerations surround the use of a vehicle.

As John C, Maxwell says in his book “”There’s No Such Thing as Business Ethics”", there is only ONE RULE for making decisions, the Golden Rule. Is it right or is it wrong? Within that framework, we may sometimes have to decide what is right for the greatest number of people involved, but we must do so while carefully considering the effect on ALL of the people. Such decisions will not always be easy. And at times we may be forced to do what is best for someone else, not simply what is best for us.

At times, what is best for another might be inconvenient or even costly for us, but a strong sense of ethics will compel us to make that choice and to live with it. And in the end we become better for it. I recall bidding on a small remodeling job many years ago in the home of an elderly woman. I got the job and didn’t discover until midway through that I had grossly underestimated the time and cost of materials. I completed the work and billed the lady according to our agreement, though I lost money on the job. The result was that I learned to estimate more carefully, and the woman recommended me to all her friends and neighbors, so that I was kept busy that whole season.

Ethical behavior ALWAYS pays off, one way or another. The scales will always balance.

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Tags: ethic, cases, business, issues, article

We often don’t see the connection between the banks and our governments, because we have been sold the fiction that our government is all powerful, and the banks do what they are told.

Yeah, right! The power sits firmly where the money is, and that’s with our old friends the bankers. The Governments of this world do what they can to ease the flow of money into the banker’s coffers.

Witness two recent stories about the British Government that will leave you in doubt that it is always the bankers’ interests that come first, regardless of the detrimental effect on the people and the public purse.

The first story will quite obviously be the Northern Rock fiasco. £25 billion of tax payers money used to shore up a corrupt, mismanaged business. And our money will be paid back (hopefully) within 5 years. However, what our £25 billion does, is allow already filthy rich bankers and business people to buy what’s left of the Northern Rock without taking on its debts and being able to keep all the profits!

Indeed and, this helps the British taxpayer how? Of course, this scheme was dreamed up by the bankers at Goldman Sachs, and of course the bankers were looking to get the best deal for themselves and their cohorts, the British public be damned.

Oh and yes, this deal has been presided over by the UK government, Prime Minister Brown and his Chancellor in particular.

See more on this story at the Times here.

The second story about how the government bends over backwords to help the banks fleece us regards debt relief for people who find they are currently unable to pay their bills.

Currently, we have a system of Adminstrative Orders, which are long term debt management plans administered by the courts. Under these plans all interest on debt is suspended in return for people paying a set amount every month.

So, what would our helpful government like to introduce? New rules being proposed by the Government would enable consumers struggling to pay debts to apply for a court order to have a repayment break.

Repayments could be suspended for up to a year, but interest rates would continue to accrue. The orders will not be allowed to include such debts as mortgages, child maintenance and student loans. And, AND there would be a fee for taking out such a court order.

I’m not sure I see the upside here! However, the Chief Justice Minister Bridget Prentice says ‘Debt’s a problem that can affect anyone at any time. We want to ensure people who run up debts are given every opportunity to pay them off’.

Good for her.Good for the banks. Good for you? I’m not so sure. After all, even though you’re taking a ‘repayment debt’, the total you owe will be higher at the end of the break. Under the current system, no further interest is added to your debts, it’s clear which option serves you and your financial health best.

This administration has presided over policies and actions that have resulted in the UK having a current deficit of £43.6billion. They are further saddling us with another £25billion debt to cover the Northern Rock fiasco. This is money they don’t have because of the profligate spending this government embarked upon since taking office with Tony Blair back in 1997.

The next budget is not going to be able to do anything to stimulate our stagnant economy, no tax cuts, no government spending, because there’s nothing left! And who are we in hock to? That’s right, the banks!

Isn’t it time to step out of such a travesty of a democratic system. We pay over 60% in taxes, do you like where your money is being spent? We then have to try and afford a decent lifestyle even when faced with predatory lending practises and corporate greed.

Take a stand, open you eyes and see what’s really going on. Opt out of the bankers game, opt out of governmental control. Take small steps forward, but move forward to freedom

Cynthia Curry is an ordinary person who came across extraordinary information and now wants to put it into the hands of as many people as possible to help them get out of debt and exit the corrupt banking system.

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Tags: ethic, questions, review, business, law

We have seen Conrad Black, Martha Stewart, Enron, Tyco, and countless others in the headlines as their career or business is examined to see “what went wrong?” Newspaper headlines scream about insider trading, companies cooking their books, and other scandals involving business executives at mostly major corporations. Even today, many are questioning the ethics of lenders and investors in the sub-prime market as people are losing their homes to foreclosure and investors are losing their money through direct or indirect involvement. Why was money lent to people who could not afford payments when normal market rates would come into effect? Why would lenders package these loans without identifying the inherent risk of them to the purchasers?

Scandals such as these tarnish the reputations of business in general, including the small business owner. Investors perceive higher risk, customers are more wary, and the financial industry gets reluctant to extend credit. In spite of this, many small-business owners think a written code of ethics unnecessary. There are even more home businesses that would not believe that a code of ethics is necessary for them. This assumption is simply false. There is a huge benefit to having a written code of ethics for the small business including your home business.

A code of ethics will identify to suppliers, customers, contractors, and employees what behavior is up to standard and what is not. We will come across ethics violators in the normal course of business and we must stand firm to our code of ethics and avoid dealing with these people.

A written code of ethics identifies those basics that you consider essential in operating a business of integrity and character. Communicating this on your website and other informational material will give you an advantage in the marketplace. If you live by it, you will have the added benefit of being able to sleep at night.

A useful code of ethics will have some basic ingredients such as adherence to applicable laws, conflicts of interest to avoid, sexual or other harassment, workplace safety, environmental concerns, industry rules, regulations and practice as well as accuracy of financial information. Be careful however, as one culture or society’s norms may not be the same as yours. For example, some locales require that “special inducements” be paid in order to obtain or carry on business. Or it may be that oppression against people exists where the business will occur. What will the rules be around this? The code of ethics should address these issues.

The code of ethics must fit with the personality, values, and mission of the particular small business. As confusing as it may sound, ethics are a very personal thing. For example, one person may think it unethical (at least to that person) to sell a product of questionable value, while another will say that the determination of value is made by the buyer and to withhold the good from sale would be unethical. (This example assumes that no fraud or misrepresentation occurred.) It will help if you can include your stakeholders in developing appropriate pieces of your code of ethics, thereby gaining a second opinion.

In the examples stated above, a code of ethics was in place, but they were ignored, not understood, or the people involved justified their transgressions as being “in the greater good”. So simply having a code of ethics is not enough. Post your code of ethics, and set up a reporting system that could include accepting anonymous reports. While you don’t want to encourage a culture of “tattle-tales”, stakeholders will need a way to inform someone about any ethics violations they may see. Most important is to show others that you live by the code of ethics yourself. Living by a set of high values will garner trust and confidence in the business and you. They will be then willing to discuss areas of concern with you.

Failing to act on ethics violations will disable even the best intentioned of your efforts just as failing to announce and endorse your code of ethics to your stakeholders renders it practically meaningless. When formulating your code of ethics policy, specify what consequences go with lapses and breaches. Your leadership skills will be tested as you strive to holding people to ethical conduct. But it is worth the peace of mind.

Mark Styranka is the owner this website. He writes on a variety of topics but primarily relating to money making secrets for the stay at home business. To learn more about how you can work & stay at home, Markalso recommends that you visit this website too

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Tags: code, ethic, ethical, business, administration

“While geographic barriers these days don’t present much of an obstacle for global companies that wish to do business with each other, cultural barriers may be another matter.

Sure, there is periodic concern when differences in what is considered “”ethical”" among trade partners result in unwelcome media attention. Remember the heat that Wal-Mart and Kathie Lee Gifford took when a flurry of stories emerged concerning the dismal working conditions in overseas factories where Gifford-branded clothing was produced?

Yet corporate ethics remains largely an abstract “”big picture”" concept that gets short shrift in contract negotiations – and in ongoing management of supplier relationships. This disconnect is coming keenly into focus with the growing unease over numerous product recalls involving goods produced in China – from pet food to children’s toys to tires to toothpaste.

China’s offshoring star continues to rise – despite a problem that the author of a fascinating Knowledge@Wharton article calls “”quality fade:”" Chinese manufacturers’ deliberate dilution of quality in the name of boosting their profit margins.

Quality fade is enabled by several key dynamics, notes the author, a businessman with 15 years of experience in China. And suppliers and their customers share the blame.

Some U.S. customers appear more willing to risk poor quality – or even dangerous – products than the more immediate loss of competitive advantage they could suffer by cracking down on suppliers. “”The chance of a product failure is usually remote, but the penalty for late delivery is an almost certain loss of business,”" writes the author.

In an effort to keep the best suppliers to themselves, customers don’t share details about their experiences – good or bad – with other customers, which makes it fairly easy for unscrupulous suppliers to evade detection.

Fearing intervention from the Communist government and/or outside groups like the World Trade Organization, Chinese suppliers are eager to profit before the boom goes bust – even if that means scamming customers.

China has a long record of looking the other way, although that may be changing. The government is adopting a tough stance on enforcing product quality guidelines, dramatically illustrated by its recent execution of the head of its food and drug safety agency.

And Western companies are pushing reform to help protect their business interests in China, the EVP of IT services firm DarwinSuzsoft told IT Business Edge in a May interview, Western Influence Boosts Outsourcing Opportunities in China.

Though his remarks specifically address the issue of intellectual property in software development, it seems to us they could also apply to other ethical concerns:

The multi-nationals have come in and really cracked down on the government in terms of protecting their investments in China. And the WTO and other spotlights on China have helped guide China’s position. Last year, they had the highest judicial claims on record for infringement. So that means they are now actually prosecuting cases.

When your name is mentioned, what is said about you? Do people say you’re lazy or a hard worker? Do they say you’re nice or a name I can’t mention? Do they say you’re always late, or always on time? Do they say you’re reliable or not, trustworthy or the opposite and so on? Good word of mouth travels fast, but bad word of mouth travel ten times as fast.

When I was in construction, a fellow contractor told me that one good word of mouth will get you ten jobs, and one bad word of mouth will lose you one hundred. That’s pretty heavy. The moral of the story…make sure there is nothing but good word of mouth going around about you. Here is how you give ‘em somethin’ to talk about.

Whether you are a business owner, a manager or an employee, you need to be a person of your word. If you say you are going to do something, do it. This includes many different topics including punctuality.

Always tell the truth. It’s been said, “honesty is the best policy.” You know why? Because it is! You do not want to be known as a liar. Moreover, don’t gossip.

Here is another way to gain a good name, put others before yourself. The word “selfish” came up at our staff meeting this week. We live in a society that stresses, “take care of you.” I’m stressing, take care of others. You remember the golden rule? How about dusting it off and putting it back into practice. By the way, I’m preaching to myself on all these points too.

Be a person with good morals and ethics. You should give your business or the company you work for your absolute best effort. Make sure you don’t steal anything and don’t cheat anyone. You should not only be morally and ethically correct at work, but at home as well, especially when no one is watching. That is the true measure of character.

Mike Bova is the Madison County Advertising Director & Business Columnist for Eagle Newspapers in Syracuse, NY. Mike owns several websites including , The Upstate New York Shopping And Business Directory. Mike has spoken in front of many business groups, shattered a lot of sales records, conducted several sales training seminars and trains corporate sales staffs how to sell more. Mike is launching his own site soon.

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Tags: article, business, cases, ethic, issues

Bad press and lawsuits are things that every business owner fears. Bad press can ruin your reputation, as well as your business, and lawsuits can bankrupt you. The easiest way to avoid both of these situations is to avoid unethical business practices. There are very easy ways to avoid unethical business practices.

First, adhere to the old standby that honesty is the best policy. Be honest in all of your business dealings, whether it concerns vendors, customers, or employees. This also means that you need to use honesty when reporting earnings and expenses, when paying employees and vendors, and when disclosing information to customers.

When you are faced with a complaint, whether that complaint comes from a customer, a vendor, an employee, or the community, the complaint needs to be dealt with head on. Burying your head in the sand, and hoping that the problem will go away will only serve to make the situation worse, and because you are responsible, this isn’t the ethical way to handle problems. Never try to spin your own version of the truth to make the problem not look as bad as it really is. This will only damage your reputation in the long run.

When many companies are using unethical business practices, instead of trying to correct the problem, they try to cover it up. They will even go as far as paying loads of money on advertising and public relations to try to hide the problems at hand. Again, this is an unethical business practice, and it should be avoided. When mistakes are made, address them clearly, apologize, do better, and move on. The community as a whole will respect you a great deal more for this than they will if you do nothing, or try to hide a problem, only to be found out later.

Ethical business issues often arise that have little to do with the workplace, but a great deal to do with the product that is being sold. It could be that there are dangers with the product that were only recently discovered. If you are practicing ethical business, you will notify the public about these dangers, and depending on the extent of the danger, you may need to recall the product – even if it means losing some money, and losing some business in the future. Recall the product and fix the problem, and you will avoid a loss of your reputation, as well as lawsuits. When you recall a product, you get press, but because you took the appropriate ethical action, it isn’t considered to be bad press.

Placing blame is another issue. When problems occur, it seems that a businesses first instinct is to look for someone to blame, instead of taking responsibility for the problem themselves. Not only is this unethical, it is almost childish in nature, and it does little to instill trust in the public, in employees, or in vendors. If the issue arose because of a mistake that an employee made, depending on the seriousness of the problem, the employee may be fired, but it is unethical for the business to name that employee. In the public’s eyes, it is the company that made a mistake, and not an employee.

Again, there are many unethical business practices that crop up in the business world on a day-to-day basis. For your particular business, it is important to constantly monitor yourself and your employees to ensure that you are operating above board, and that unethical business practices are dealt with immediately, in the best possible way.

This and other topics that deal with corporate communications, business to customer relationships, and sales training through Collective Vision are just some of the topics discuss.

And now I would like to offer you one of my book chapters absolutely free. You can get instant access here

From Jed A. Reay – The Communicator/Connector and Visionary Master Sales Trainer.

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Tags: business, ethic, legal, scam, unethical

“This morning I woke to the noise of a lawn mower near my window. I rolled over to view the clock and saw that I had 3 more hours to sleep before time to hop out of bed. “Is someone mowing my lawn?” my sleepy brain questioned. Then I reasoned “Eh… probably the neighbors having theirs mowed with one of those loud commercial mowers.” Part of me knew better— that part of me was still mostly asleep.

I rested my head once again and fell into a rather shallow sleep for about half an hour only to be woken up by a loud knock on the door. The man at the door was dripping wet, red faced, and sprinkled with grass clippings. He had taken it upon himself to mow my lawn and was now looking for payment.

This had all the sales and marketing thought of the guy who jumps in front of your car at the red light and washes your windows before you can even say “Stop! I just came from the carwash! No more washie! No washie!”

This can even be compared to the sales associate who says “And you’ll want the insurance plan… great value…” and selects it for you before you can consider if you actually do want it.

Or when you are handed a contract to sign with boxes checked and options selected that you were never even notified were possible. How are you expected to sign off on something without knowing what you are agreeing to?!

Shoot first and ask for the sale later? It may work for some of the people some of the time, but it will not earn you a customer. If it earns you a sale, you lucked out. The sale happens because the customer felt uneasy about speaking up, felt sorry for you, trusted your opinion, or decided they wanted the sale anyway. More than likely, it will be one of the first two and you are likely to lose the customer’s trust while annoying them. There are many customer out there who would be so appalled at the tactic that they would cancel the sale all together or say “I didn’t agree to this!” making the completion of the sale nearly impossible.

Anyone willing to perform such thoughtless service isn’t very business minded. Why? Because getting a sale is temporary. You have to constantly sale in order to maintain your job and finances. What you should try to get is a customer. If a customer feels pressured, annoyed, or cheated they won’t be your customer for much longer. What you gain in the moment, you lost for the future.

You must, and I cannot stress this enough, include the customer in your sale. After all, without them there would be no sale at all. If you explain the options, offer a service, and value their opinion they may turn down the extras but they won’t turn down you.

When the man mowing lawns showed up to collect his payment, he received his asking price but I let him know that we have other means of lawn care. While we appreciate his efforts, his services are not needed. Sad thing, too, since just a few days before my roommates and I were discussing hiring someone to cut the lawn on a regular basis and maybe do some landscaping. He proved to us that he would choose to mow the lawn without our consent; I can’t imagine the horrible decisions that would be made if he had the job of planting, pruning, trimming, or designing my pretty little lawn!

Make customers, not sales— and include them in the process or risk losing everything.

~:Taking care of business really means understanding people. Lola has worked in areas of Customer Service for nearly a decade, including CSR Training Coordinator at a major dot com. Her articles will show how every moment can be an opportunity to provide better service to the people around you:~

When he was just starting out, his unwillingness to compromise his beliefs cost him his job. But rather than end his career, that incident was only the beginning of something far greater than he had ever dreamed….

Hal Takes a Stand

In the mid-1980s, cellular phone service was just taking off, and Hal’s career appeared poised to soar along with it. Having been recruited by Southwestern Bell shortly after college, Hal was being groomed to play an active role in the founding of this new technology. But when something went wrong with one of their accounts, Hal was asked to randomly terminate five of his employees as a disciplinary measure. After mulling it over, Hal delivered his answer: “I told them that not only could I not do the task they had asked me to do, but if that’s the type of organization they were, that I could not associate with them at all.”

Help, God! What Next?

Suddenly jobless, Hal and his wife Julie moved back from LA to Dallas, where he spent the next six weeks trying to figure out what to do next. The best idea he could come up with was to become a telecommunications consultant. This proved to be a good choice, and he eventually linked up with several other people who were in the same boat. Eventually, Hal decided to join up with two of these people and form their own company, COM2000+. At the time, the cell phone industry was expanding rapidly, and there was a lot of pressure to broaden the coverage area as quickly as possible. COM2000+ specialized in finding and assessing sites for new cell phone towers. The company expanded rapidly over the next three years, with revenues in the millions of dollars. “This was very exciting for us, to see the success God had brought our way through our commitment to grow the business by trying to honor him.”

An Offering to God

Shortly afterwards, Hal and his partner David Kaltenbach had a falling out with the other principle of the company, who was not willing to submit the business to God. COM 2000+ soon dissolved. But Hal and David decided to reform the company and see if they couldn’t make a go of it again. Within ten months, not only had they reacquired their old customers, employees, and earnings, all of these things began to multiply exponentially. After earning over $1 million in revenue during their first year, COM2000+ quickly acquired ten other companies, with no signs of slowing down.

Thinking it was time to rename this rapidly growing entity, Hal sat down with a Bible dictionary one Sunday looking for ideas. When he hit upon the word, “Corban,” he knew he had it. The word meant “an offering to God,” which is exactly what Hal and David wanted the company to become.

Today, Corban Communications operates 68 offices across the United States with a staff of 375 people. Their revenues are now in the range of $10 million per month and growing. Not bad for a company that didn’t even exist three years ago!
Secret to Success?
What’s their secret? “We owe all success to God’s grace,” says Hal. “The Bible tells us that God’s eyes are looking to and fro throughout the earth for those whose hearts are wholly committed to him. Every day, I pray that God would give us wisdom and that he would find us usable so that we can continue our mission to help others and to show God how much we love him.”

Have you ever felt pressured to compromise your values in order to succeed? If so, perhaps it’s time you asked Jesus to help you stand up for truth and justice. If you don’t know Jesus, we encourage you to pray.

visit this website

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Not a day goes by that you don’t see one industry authority or another remarking on the ugly state the residential real estate mortgage lending industry is in. We see the reason(s) for this are the exotic loans, fraud, reckless underwriting, thinly capitalized lenders, wholesale funding sources consolidating or simply closing their doors, Congressional hearings being scheduled … it truly is a mess … and like the old saying goes, industry wide everybody has an opinion on WHY? Here’s mine:

Today’s LO’s & AE’s are commission salesmen at heart and that is the core problem. Back when I was a young broker, we were institutionally trained to help the public and do the right thing for them. Today, an originator is focused on making the almighty commission check. It puts their interests above that of the client. Most people don’t understand that commissions are actually a new payroll structure for LO’s and AE’s that first came into being nine years ago. Before that, these mortgage professionals were paid salary with small bonuses for achieving their production goals. Some industries focus on “closing sales,” but our business should focus on fixing the lives of customers; as a by product, we earn a living wage and maybe sometimes a handsome one – the pay is a by-product of the activity. After the subprime industry nearly collapsed in the Fall of 1998 and there were thousand of people unemployed, those weaken but still standing organizations (frightened to offer bigger salaries yet eager to pick up some good people, began this “commission” concept); once property values soared and rates plunged for several years following, those commissioned people had the surprising opportunity to earn big dollars – it was ‘easy money’ for many. This new business paradigm (commissions) went full force and has been at the core of the subsequently developing problems.

Once the hearings and etc. have all been completed, the Loan Officer & Broker force decreases significantly, and the lending consolidation and failures slow and all the blame’s been handed out – it will be time for industry leaders to determine how to fix this mess so it doesn’t happen again.

The remedy is to get back to what worked for decades before – remove the big gagging commissions from the ranks of the LO’s and AE’s. Paying the origination side of this business big commissions cannot help but attract the wrong type of individuals, and corrupt even the most honorable people. The commission approach tends to suggest that the origination force is, or should be, a SALES function, which is absolutely incorrect. The job description of AE’s and LO’s are actually a customer service type of position, not a sales/closer type of job for as far back as I can remember prior to the beginning of this last industry cycle. With this adjustment, the money saved by the owner operators will help to suitably capitalize their diluted ranks again.

The payroll structure I talk about here, is what my first employer did for the 45+ years before I started with them, and the way I did it in my own company for the next four decades. Since I was there as an employer for a long while, and have seen the effect, both before and after, this change to commissions, I have a perspective different than many.

As more owner operators revert back to this business model, there are any number of significant positive improvements which flow from it. The biggest one, is a more confident healthier attitude of the employer. And, since they already know getting a mortgage is the largest single financial transaction most Americans make in their entire life, they come to realize leaving such an important life changing event up to a “salesmen” LO who, just last week was selling used cars, etc. has been a momentous mistake. Actually showing up to a commercial office to work, will produce a better appearance/image both for their employees and the industry as a whole; no more mortgage ‘professionals’ working at home in their Jammies with the Bunny feet. One thing of course, is that since a ‘salary’ will be offered to new hires, employers are more sensible about who they hire/invest in, and the degree and intensity to which they’ll train them; consequently personnel quality becomes far superior and more productive then previously. This also results in no more ‘work at home loan officers’ because now they’re W-2ed employees who will work in the employer’s premise where their activities can be properly supervised and monitored. Formerly, being at home, they surely violated The GLB Act daily in many ways as well.

This change back to pre 1998 thinking will tend to create true mortgage professionals, like the public deserves, not some ‘closer’ looking for a STATED Eager Earner 100% Option Arm with a 4 point YSP with every applicant.

Article by Peter Samuel Cugno, Chairman & CEO of Secret! University, the educational division of Americas Money Center, Inc. with 40 years experience in the subprime industry niche. For more information, click here

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Everywhere you look there is information on how individuals can protect themselves from credit card fraud. This information can be found at banking institutions, libraries, on TV, on the Internet, its everywhere. However, that isn’t the case for businesses. How can your business protect itself from these fraudulent individuals who make purchases for products or service online or over the phone? Like most business, you may ship the products before discovering that the credit card is stolen. In this case, your company suffers the bill and the true owner of the credit card cannot be held reliable.

Nevertheless, these are the steps to protect your business from fraudulent individuals and avoid this terrifying situation.

1. It is important that you gather all the information associated with the credit card. This can be done by requesting all of the information exactly as it is shown on the card. This information includes: The cardholder’s name (Exactly as shown on the card, including middle name or middle name initial). Request all 16 digits on the credit card. Request the credit card verification number. This number is the last 3 or digits located on the back of the card after the account number. Request the expiration date on the card. Request the billing address for the card which in most cases should not be a P.O. Box. Requesting this information is very important. The fact is that most card thieves only have the card number. They will not have any other information associated with the card. By having all of this information you will be able to utilize address verification services. Address verification service compare the billing address given by the customer to the banks database and alerts the user if the addresses are different.

2. Pay particular attention to customers who list a different billing address and mailing address. In some cases, card thieves may also have the cardholders ID. In this case they will be able to supply the billing address; however, request for the product to be sent to a different address. You may opt to call the bank of the credit card and ask them to call the cardholder to verify the purchase.
It is definitely advised not to ship orders internationally with a different billing and mailing address.

3. In most fraudulent cases, the card thief will request a next day delivery. They want to get the product fast and without being caught. This is a red flag and should be carefully observed. If the order is larger than your typical orders, most definitely question it. Remember, the card thief is not concerned about how much he/she is spending; it is not their money. Most likely, he/she needs a large quantity for resale.

4.As a business owner, you want to do everything it takes to protect your business from fraudulent activity. It may be resourceful to have all the information collected validated by the customer. Since you are not meeting with the customer directly, it is wise to request that the customer fax you a copy of the credit card and photo id. This may seem extreme, but not as extreme as been taken for thousands of dollars in products. This precaution should most definitely be exercised for large orders involving heavy sums of money.

5.If you do find yourself a victim of this fraudulent activity, take immediate action to reduce loss.
a.Immediately inform your local police department. Make sure to answer all the questions the police may ask and give them all the information that you have.

b.Contact the bank of the credit card. Request that the issuing bank calls the customer to inform them of the situation. Make sure to give the issuing bank all the information that you have. Including, the billing and mailing address the card thief submitted. When the cardholder calls your company, explain the importance of the situation and why it is vital that he or she also reports the incident to the police.

By following these steps you are taking the necessary action to protect your business from credit card fraud.

William King is the director of Canada Wholesale, UK Wholesalers and Dropshippers Directory. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

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Tags: ethic, cases, business, issues, article

The phone card business is not what is was a few years ago. Every new telecommunications product that comes along, has a product life cycle of about four years at which time something new and better comes along, and so begins a downward trend. There are still millions of phone cards being purchased every day at this country in convenience stores, gas stations, online websites, news stands, and at various ethnic restaurants, ethnic grocery stores, and ethnic import stores. While many international phone cards represent excellent value when calling your home country, Why is it that almost every phone card advertises more minutes than it delivers?.

First, let’s understand the trend.

When phone cards first hit the market in the USA, calling cards were advertising and giving about 25 domestic minutes on a $10 phone card. This was a good deal, since long distance credit cards issued by the phone companies such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and others were assessing a surcharge of about $1.50 to make a call using a long distance calling card. Most of the early phone cards disclosed and assessed a connection fee on international calls of $1.00/minute.

As technology made it easier to get into the calling card business, competition for minutes began to heat up. While the actual cost of long distance minutes was coming down, phone card companies were struggling with the hidden costs of issuing phone cards. For example, the cost of making a phone call to Nigeria includes an inbound 800 number (or local access number) leg and an outbound international leg. The phone card issuer has to pay for the inbound 800 number leg, even if the call does not complete to Nigeria. Typically this might result in 20 “incomplete” calls billable to the phone card issuer, for every one billable phone call to Nigeria, especially if there is a poor quality service in the local Nigeria community. Phone card companies who did not adjust for these costs, ran up big debts and often went out of business. Soon the hidden surcharge was invented to deal with these costs.

Early calling card surcharges were disclosed. At the beginning (around 1985), phone cards were such a good deal, most phone card companies were run by honest techno – entrepreneurs, who disclosed their surcharges. For example, a typical surcharge was $1.00 for each international call; and the phone card delivered the advertised minutes after deducting $1.00 for the call. The poster adjusted for the connection fee, so that a $10 phone card with a connection fee of $1.00 and $.10 per minute, would announce and deliver 90 minutes on one call, 80 minutes over two calls, etc. The surcharge was only deducted for completed calls. This covered the cost incurred by the phone card company for all the uncompleted calls. But as competition heated up, phone card companies began to find that the consumer would prefer to buy a phone card with smaller connection fees. So advertised connection fees began to come down, but phone card issuers applied other surcharges and named them “communication taxes”.

This resulted in the birth of the hidden fee. Phone card industry soon came up with all sorts of ways to increase the advertised minutes on a calling card, while delivering fewer minutes than advertised. This practice has continued to this day, to the point where virtually no phone cards delivery advertised minutes on multiple calls over a period of weeks. Most if not all all phone card companies charge some combination of call connection fees, long call surcharges, activation fee after the first completed call, daily or weekly maintenance fees. More often than not, these fees are not accurately disclosed. Moreover, it is common for card issues to juice up the fees to certain countries on a temporary basis if they find that consumers are actually using the card to call the countries with the most advertised minutes. The president of a well know Florida based phone card company claims these temporary fees are justified when consumers “bastardize” his phone cards, by making calls only to the advertised countries.

What is the best way to compare phone cards?

First, know that all phone card companies cheat on their minutes. All of them, including AT&T, MCI, Sprint, as well as the thousands of smaller phone card companies advertise more minutes to a certain country than they deliver over multiple calls.

Bait and switch

Keep in mind that almost all phone card companies reduce or eliminate their fees altogether during the first 30 to 90 days of a new card release. Once the card is popular with consumers, stores and distributors; the fees begin piling up. It is reasonable to assume that phone card companies who issue one or more phone cards every month for calling to the same region of the world, are doing so specifically with the intention of jacking up the fees after a few months on the older phone cards. The big phone card companies have actually turned this into a science. They know exactly how much money they are willing to loose at the beginning on a new phone card, so they can make it up later on with hacking fees. Consumers will generally do good to jump on the new phone cards issued by companies who have issued good phone cards in the past.

How to test a phone card:

Try this if you wish to test any phone card to any specific country (if you find one to be good, we certainly want to know about it)

1. First buy a phone card based upon the minutes listed on the point of sale phone card poster displayed in the convenience store, gas station, restaurant, or ethnic store.

2. Write down the number of minutes advertised on the back of the phone card, while you are in the store.

3. When you get home get some paper and write down the name of the phone card, the date, the country you plan to call, the city you plan to call, and the destination phone number you plan to call, and the minutes advertised on the phone card poster to that country.

4. Get a good timepiece. Preferably one with a second hand, or a stop watch.

TEST CALL #1

5. Now make a test call. On your paper write test call #1. Write down the date and time of the test call. (Remember to write down the country, city and dialed number)

6. Usually, you will get an announcement telling you how many minutes you have remaining for this phone call. Write down the announced minutes and hang up immediately. Were the announced minutes the same as the minutes advertised on the poster?

(now in theory, you have not completed a phone call, so your phone card should not be debited.)

TEST CALL #2

7. Now write down on your paper Test call #2, then repeat the exact same process once again. Remember to write down the date and time of the test. Write down the the announced minutes.

8. THEN HANG UP immediately after the announcement..

Note: Did the announced minutes change from the first call to the second call?

TEST CALL #3

9. Now if you are patient, put the phone card away, and wait until tomorrow. This will tell you if the phone card company charges an activation fee even if you do not complete a phone call. Some cards charge an activation fee immediately after the first call while some charge the activation fee at midnight after the first call. Most will not charge anything if the call is not connected. But some large big name companies charge an activation fee as soon as you enter the pin number!

10. Now we are ready to see what happens with a completed call. Write down the date, and time, and make a call to the same destination. Write down Test Call #3 on the paper. This time let the party at the other end answer, but tell them quickly that you are making a test call, and that you will call them back in a few minutes. Make sure you are on the phone call for less than one minute.

a. This time, write down the exact time you finish dialing the 800 number or the local access number.

b. Then enter the pin, and write down the exact time you finish entering the pin.

c. Next enter the destination number, and write down the exact time you finish entering the destination number. Make a note of the announced minutes.

d. Then write down the time when the dialed party answers the phone

e. Finally write down the time when you hang up after about 30 seconds.

f. Calculate the actual minutes and seconds of elapsed time from when the dialed party answers until you hang up. This is the call duration.

Now the fun starts.

TEST CALL #4

11. Make another call marked as TEST CALL #4 to the same phone number.

a. note announced minutes.

b. record start time (as soon as party answers) and end time (as soon as you hang up)

Note the difference between the advertised minutes and the announced minute after you only one completed 30 second phone call. Is there a significant difference?

TEST CALL #5

12. Now make another call TEST CALL#5 using approximately 25% of the remaining minutes.

a. once again write down the date, start time of call, end time of call, announced minutes

B. Write down the actual minutes talked (minutes and seconds)

By now you have a good idea if the phone card company is assessing hidden surcharges. But watch what happens next.

13. Once again put the card away until tomorrow.

TEST CALL #6

14. Make one more additional calls to the same number and mark the call as TEST CALL #6.

a Remember to record the announced minutes for each additional call, the date, the time, and the actual used minutes.

The variance between advertised minutes and delivered minutes will be more dramatic if you wait one week before making subsequent calls after #6.

TEST CALL #7

15. If there is additional time remaining on your phone card, go ahead and use it up over one or more calls, recording the date, time, duration, and announced minutes before each call.

One final test in order to see how your phone card performs “advertised” world is get a second phone card (same brand and denomination), and use it to make one long phone call. Record the date and time, the announced time, and the actual time from answer until the card is consumed, or until the phone card company disconnects or drops the call.

Now once all of this testing is done, if you feel you are not happy with the results, you can contact customer service at the customer service number on the back of the phone card and explain to them that you conducted a test, and let them know what you found. If you did not get the announced minutes, you might ask the customer service representative to reinstate the entire value of your card; so that you can try again and make just one long phone call.

I do not recommend that you get nasty with customer service, or they will just hang up. Likewise, if you are not happy, I would not recommend you take it out on the store owner where you purchased the phone card, because they do not make the phone cards. However it might be a good idea to give your store owner a copy of your notes. Convenience store owners, gas stations, and ethnic stores value your business. They would much rather sell quality phone cards. I suggest you give the store owner a copy of your test notes.

(There is little point in suggesting that you are going to go to the FBI, or FCC, or the Public Utility Commission. These agencies know what’s going on, and if they wanted to prevent this sort of thing, they would have cleaned it up years ago… however if you are really upset, you might complain to the State’s Attorney General. Unless the actual carrier and phone card issuer are located in your state, you will only be causing problems for some store owner or phone card distributor who has no control of the surcharges.) It might also be fun to take your notes to your local newspaper. The guy who prints the phone card is often also a victim of the guy hacking the minutes. The biggest companies are generally the biggest offenders. They have lots of fine print disclosures on their phone cards that nobody reads.

What to do with your test notes
Finally, if you put your notes in a spreadsheet or email, and send them to bob@phonecardhotline.com, we will publish the results or a summary of the results. Or you can mail a copy of your results, together with the used phone card to: Phone Card Hotline, 7324 Valleyview Drive, Independence, OH 44131.

More testing fun
If you contact our online retail business unit and tell them you wish to test a phone card to any of their popular calling destinations, they will generally give you one free calling card (if you purchase 3). For sure, if you find any phone card that stands up to this testing process and has no fees, we will most certainly want to know about it!

For more information you can check these 3 sites :
calling-card-review, phonecardhotline, hellocallingcards.

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Tags: ethic, ethics, business, phone, card

As a former CEO of a publicly-traded company, I have watched the emerging revelations of corporate wrongdoing with more than a passing interest. While filled with the same revulsion shared by many to the immoral, illegal and greedy actions of some companies and their leaders, I am also concerned that we not overreact and undercut an economic system that is clearly the best in the world. The fault, my dear readers, is not with the system, but with an abuse of the system. We should also be careful to differentiate between the greedy abuse of the system and the criminal act of looting a company.

As I read attacks on stock options and other forms of incentive compensation, my thoughts parallel the arguments of gun advocates who say, “Guns don’t kill. People kill.” Stock options don’t harm shareholders, greedy people do. Inhibiting or eliminating stock options and other forms of incentive compensation plans will make it more difficult for the greedy to gain, but such action will also reduce the incentive for employees to add to shareholder value. There is nothing wrong with trying to maximize corporate profits, the problem lies in doing it with lies.

From my experience, all of these issues boil down to two causes; and they are greed and the system under which stocks are valued and marketed. Both of these are interwoven and feed of each other.

With the CEO and other top management there is a phenomenon of “entitlement” that can cloud the thinking. Charles Shepard in his book “”Forgiven – The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry,” identified this feeling as the driving cause of Bakker’s downfall. Shepard pointed out that if PTL brought in $5 million a month and Bakker diverted $2 million to his personal use, the rationale was, “If it were not for me, PTL would not have the $3 million that remained.”

This is a logic that can tempt many a CEO and, as we have seen, some can fall prey to this faulty logic. A number of CEOs and their management groups seemed to have adopted a philosophy that says, “Through my actions $1 billion has been added to shareholder value, so it’s ok for me to take $100 million. After all, If it were not for me, the shareholders would not have that $1 billion, so I am ‘entitled’ to this reward.” Of course, allowing those who add value to an organization to share in the value added is a good incentive to add value, but what we have seen is a corruption of that concept.
The inclusion of other members of senior management in these schemes is an insidious form of control. And a reverse of the “share value for value added” concept. It’s difficult to stop corruption if you benefit from the corruption.

The current system of valuing and marketing stock also contributes to the temptation to cut corners. I often felt the pressure from stock analysts and market makers of our stock to report consistent, increased quarterly earnings. To do so offered promises of increased stock value, and deviation led to swift punishment in the form of depressed stock value.

In and off itself, this is not a bad system. Companies with increasing earnings should have increasing stock value and visa versa. The problem is the extent to which the system is so volatile. In an effort to report consistent earnings, there is encouragement to “manage” the earnings. “Squirreling” away earnings in good times and “stretching” for earnings in bad times. Either way, the shareholder does not receive a clear and accurate picture of the performance of the company, but the analyst and the market gets what it wants. Taken to the extreme causes the revelations we’ve seen in recent years.

There’s a moral to this story for business owners of all sizes and their employees that make them successful and it is this: Pride, arrogance and secrets have a way of undoing even those with the best intentions. While most people will never face temptations on the same scale as Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker, or the multititude of other CEOs who fall from grace, the ingredients are often the same in small businesses and personal households. Whether large or small, they suggest there but for the grace of God, go any of us.

Bob MacDonald is a business maverick and 40-year veteran of the insurance industry. He’s the retired CEO of Allianz Life of North America and presently CEO of Allianz Income Management who brings a unique and sometimes controversial perspective to business ethics, entrepreneurial management and personal success on his well-trafficked blog here

MacDonald began his highly visible and remarkable career in the financial services industry in 1965 as a “”knock-on-the-door”" life insurance agent for New England Mutual Life. MacDonald, 64, quickly rose through the corporate ranks to become CEO of Minneapolis-based ITT Life. After seven years as chief executive, MacDonald struck out on his own in 1987 to form a new life insurance company, LifeUSA.

As chairman and CEO, MacDonald led LifeUSA to become one of the fastest growing and most successful insurance companies in the nation. Financial giant Allianz AG acquired LifeUSA in 1999 for $540 million and merged it with the larger Allianz Life of North America. MacDonald then became CEO of the merged companies.

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Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines just rules and principles within a commercial context; the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting; and any special duties or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce. Generally speaking, business ethics is a normative discipline, whereby particular ethical standards are advocated and then applied.

It makes specific judgments about what is right or wrong, which is to say, it makes claims about what ought to be done or what ought not to be done. While there are some exceptions, business ethicists are usually less concerned with the foundations of ethics (meta-ethics), or with justifying the most basic ethical principles, and are more concerned with practical problems and applications, and any specific duties that might apply to business relationships.

Business ethics can be examined from various perspectives, including the perspective of the employee, the commercial enterprise, and society as a whole. Very often, situations arise in which there is conflict between one and more of the parties, such that serving the interest of one party is a detriment to the other(s). For example, a particular outcome might be good for the employee, whereas, it would be bad for the company, society, or vice versa. Some ethicists see the principal role of ethics as the harmonization and reconciliation of conflicting interests.

Ethical issues can arise when companies must comply with multiple and sometimes conflicting legal or cultural standards, as in the case of multinational companies that operate in countries with varying practices. The question arises, for example, ought a company obey the laws of its home country, or should it follow the less stringent laws of the developing country in which it does business?

To illustrate, United States law forbids companies from paying bribes either domestically or overseas; however, in other parts of the world, bribery is a customary, “accepted” way of doing business. Similar problems can occur with regard to child labor, employee safety, work hours, wages, discrimination, and environmental protection laws.

Business ethics should be distinguished from the philosophy of business, the branch of philosophy that deals with the philosophical, political, and ethical underpinnings of business and economics. Business ethics operates on the premise, for example, that the ethical operation of a private business is possible — those who dispute that premise, such as libertarian socialists, (who contend that “”business ethics”" is an oxymoron) do so by definition outside of the domain of business ethics proper.

The philosophy of business also deals with questions such as what, if any, are the social responsibilities of a business; business management theory; theories of individualism vs. collectivism; free will among participants in the marketplace; the role of self interest; invisible hand theories; the requirements of social justice; and natural rights, especially property rights, in relation to the business enterprise.

Business ethics is also related to political economy, which is economic analysis from political and historical perspectives. Political economy deals with the distributive consequences of economic actions. It asks who gains and who loses from economic activity, and is the resultant distribution fair or just, which are central ethical issues.

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Tags: value, ethic, business, corporate, training

From Monday the 21st of August 2006, Royal Mail changed the rates for the postage of letters.

Previously, the cost of postage depended purely on the weight of the letter. But now it has been decided that the price should depend on the size of the letter as well as the weight of the letter.

This means that a single sheet of paper sent in a small envelope would cost just 30p for first class postage. Whilst the same sheet of paper sent in an A4 envelope would cost 42p.

I’ve always believed that the business should make a profit. And also that businesses should have the right to determine their own pricing. But I really can’t believe that this one has been thought through properly.

Our first concern in the office on the morning of Monday 21st August was trying to understand the new system and making certain that our letters were going out with the correct rate of postage. The new system is undoubtedly more complex and has caused us plenty of confusion.

But what really baffles me is that the new system is so easy to manipulate. Instead of sending out documents in an A4 envelope, they can simply be folded in half and put into a smaller envelope which qualifies for the lower rate of postage. A saving of 12p per letter! You have to make certain that the letter does not exceed a certain thickness but most business post would quite easily meet this criteria.

Even more bizarre, you could put your letter into the same large envelope and then simply fold the envelope in half in order to qualify for the lower rate of Is Royal Mail Another Business That Is Making It Difficult For Customers To Buy From Them
By Derek Williams Platinum Quality Author

From Monday the 21st of August 2006, Royal Mail changed the rates for the postage of letters.

Previously, the cost of postage depended purely on the weight of the letter. But now it has been decided that the price should depend on the size of the letter as well as the weight of the letter.

This means that a single sheet of paper sent in a small envelope would cost just 30p for first class postage. Whilst the same sheet of paper sent in an A4 envelope would cost 42p.

I’ve always believed that the business should make a profit. And also that businesses should have the right to determine their own pricing. But I really can’t believe that this one has been thought through properly.

Our first concern in the office on the morning of Monday 21st August was trying to understand the new system and making certain that our letters were going out with the correct rate of postage. The new system is undoubtedly more complex and has caused us plenty of confusion.

But what really baffles me is that the new system is so easy to manipulate. Instead of sending out documents in an A4 envelope, they can simply be folded in half and put into a smaller envelope which qualifies for the lower rate of postage. A saving of 12p per letter! You have to make certain that the letter does not exceed a certain thickness but most business post would quite easily meet this criteria.

Even more bizarre, you could put your letter into the same large envelope and then simply fold the envelope in half in order to qualify for the lower rate of postage! How nuts is that? And even more bizarre (as if that is possible!) this is exactly the advice being given across the counter at the post office!

When you add to all of this confusion to the cost that must’ve been incurred by notifying every single address within the United Kingdom of the new system (including templates to help users gauge the size of a letter) and the new charge rates, has this really been a successful initiative?

I very rarely criticise a business by name. And I hope that my comments will be taken constructively. But I really do feel that Royal Mail have shot themselves in the foot and have lost a huge amount of consumer confidence. Maybe I will be proved wrong. I hope so.

What do you think?

And I beg you, please take a look at your own systems and make certain that it is easy for customers to buy from you. This is one area in which we cannot afford to make mistakes.

If customers are put off buying from us at the first hurdle we will very rarely get a second opportunity. You may have lost the customer without even knowing that you had them in the first place!

Derek Williams is creator of The WOW! Awards™ an International Professional Speaker and Chief Executive for the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Europe.

For more information about Derek Williams, visit this site

For The WOW! Awards (including access to a FREE customer service newsletter) visit this site

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Tags: value, ethic, business, corporate, training

All businesses are grey. A loaded statement but one which befits today’s business milieu. The debate is on the shades of the color and not the color itself. Wealth creation precedes wealth distribution, an unalterable sequence. There is a growing realization that former belongs to the exclusive domain of business and the latter to a shared domain. Businesses demand autonomy from others to create wealth and others demand accountability from businesses for the wealth created. Both, autonomy and accountability are worthless in isolation. Accountable autonomy is the panacea. Current business landscape is unprecedented. It is a world where the ends and not the means are brought in to question leading to business ethics boiling down to a personal and not an organizational call, taken everyday by millions, closer to the ground to succeed and more importantly survive.

All the stakeholders-management, employees, board, investors and society are asserting their influence simultaneously. A historical perspective on corporate governance suggests different approaches- (organization+stakeholder)-control approach and capital-market control approach dominating at different times and in different geographies. Both approaches have come alive globally and are trying to pip each other.

India Inc. has moved away from regulation toward latitude since early 1990′s and with the markets coming into their own, the governance style seems to be headed the capital-market control way.

Board of Directors, the venerable interface has to ensure accountable autonomy by fostering its own culture which includes promoting constructive dissatisfaction, actively monitoring the firm’s risk policies and practices, not contingent on having considerable expertise in the areas concerned and avoiding soft conflicts.

Enron and other scandals happened at the best of times and at the worst of times. The aftermath ensured till then increasingly becoming adventurous management’s retreat, activism in boards, dispelled smugness of investors and an acknowledgment of fast becoming oblivious society’s rights and responsibilities. Business initiatives with social spin-offs and not the other way around initiatives are welcome as the need is of responsible corporates and not of over-hyped corporate social responsibility.

A culture, undoubtedly percolating from the top echelons fostering openness and adherence to laws is required.

It has to be appreciated by everyone involved but its adoption has to be voluntary and customizable. The organizations should disseminate the information like practices, policies and risk appetite needed to take a fair call and not accord the right to itself of other stakeholders primarily markets to judge the firm. A culture of transparency starts where regulation ends in achieving accountable autonomy. Every stakeholder must understand that she has a role to play and has certain rights and responsibilities. Separations of powers are difficult to achieve but are crucial for the organization to do the right business and for others to ensure that the former does it the right way as the eternal bottom-line is- the business has and will always be managed by executives, investors have and will always be the ultimate decision making authority on investing and society has and will always be affected by the businesses.

Introduction

The world operates like a simple pendulum. Its microcosm, the business world is no exception. One extreme is autonomy and the other is accountability. It is hard to strike a balance between the two. Both are benign in their own space but too much of a good thing is also detrimental. Business environment has and will keep on testing both extremes. When one extreme is about to be reached, then its dire consequences are realized and businesses move back from the brink. The force which pulls them back from the disaster is so potent that it adds tremendous momentum till the other extreme is tested. This process is eternal and gives businesses a grey shade, blurring the line between right and wrong. After the corporate scandals that rocked the world in 2001-02, the pendulum has swung in the favor of accountability. This shift has happened at a time when the businesses around the world are about to peak. Hitherto unexplored markets are being forayed by organizations worldwide. Issues of business ethics, right and wrong, and corporate governance are hot debating points across the business landscape. All parties- management, board, employees, shareholders, regulators and community are asserting their presence. All of them have to collectively make a decisive move as both regulation and latitude are looking equally enticing and as doing the right things is mulling on the imperative of doing things the right way. The world is waiting!

Business Ethics- Individual’s or Organization’s

Dis-connect between an employee and the ground realities widen as she moves up the ladder. Today, businesses are very target driven. At each level, targets are set and are interlinked. The performance of one’s superior is determined by one’s own performance and this process goes on till the very top echelons. Till such time one meets or surpasses the targets no questions are asked on the way of achieving those and disconnect mentioned earlier plays a huge role. It is only when the shortfall occurs, explanations are demanded and then also words like ethics are given a short shrift. In nutshell, only the end and not the means is what matters. In such an environment, where targets are means to not only success but more importantly survival, ethics boil down to a personal call. These calls have to be taken everyday by millions of people in real time with targets and survival at top of the mind.

The line between right and wrong gets blurred. Can one put a number on the price, less than which a gift is considered a culture token and above which it is considered a bribe? Doubt whether any corporate dossier conceptualized at the very top on ethics can address this issue on the ground.

Approaches to Corporate Governance

Over the years, two very distinct approaches to corporate governance have emerged. One is the mix of organization-control perspective and stakeholder-control perspective and other is based on capital market control.

The former approach sacrifices short-term focus at the altar of long-term sustainability. It is based on 1 person 1 vote dictum. The agreed upon goal for the management is to achieve stability and perpetuity of business. Board has representation of employees and society. Major chunk of equity comes from financial and non financial companies, which are ready to wait for longer periods for their investments to fructify. Firms are not too keen on going public thereby not lending themselves to the whims and fancies of markets. Employee welfare, obligation to local community, size and market share make up the essence of this approach. Myopic Market model by Marris is the fundamental pillar of this approach. According to this model, heeding the markets too much has a detrimental effect on the organization.

Excesses in this approach are created by managerial capitalism as executives are given a free hand in managing the show. At times, a host of objectives other than wealth creation are followed.

As the firm expands, it requires additional capital. If this capital is not forthcoming from stable sources like banks then the company has no other choice but to go public. This gives rise to capital market-control system. It is based on 1 share 1 vote dictum. The more the equity held by an investor, the more the firm is at her mercy. Investors are interested in the ends- dividends and capital gains. Hence, companies have to jostle for the mind space of these players. This brings in the short-termism of this approach. This perspective is based on Principal Agent model. Line is crossed in this approach when investor capitalism sets in. All other obligations of the firm are relegated to keeping the share price up and there is intense pressure on executives to perform consistently in the short-run leading at times to violation of norms.

Both the approaches are similar to the extent that they both give minority shareholders a short shrift. They have been taken for granted and most of their rights have remained on paper.

Lost Ground

Recently the stakeholder inclusive approach has lost considerable ground to shareholder savvy approach. The reason is capital becoming mobile. The global investors like private equity funds and pension funds are deluged with choices. But they lack one crucial element which the local investors have which is the closeness to the business which in turn lends stability to the equity provided. This means the firms have to attract these global investors by way of the globally acceptable parameters, toplines and bottomlines or their manifestation- the share price.

Catching up in the offing

What goes round comes back. Human capital is already the most valuable resource of organizations especially the ones operating in the technology sectors. With the focus shifting from attracting capital to retaining talent, the stakeholder inclusive approach with a sharp focus on employees might make up the ground lost in the last two decades or so to the capital-market control approach.

India Inc.’s Governance Evolution

Corporate entities in India stand out in terms of complexities in the ownership structure. The direct ownership of promoters is quite substantial and if that is not enough, the promoters indirectly have tremendous equity in and control of the firm through the rogue holding companies. It was believed that with the capital market reforms initiated in 1991, the dominance of promoters in the firms will pare. But unfortunately the last decade of the 20th century was marred by scams. The corporate entities went in for private placements making use of the relaxed regulations. These developments made the public spooky. In the last few years SEBI has put its foot down to crack down on the perpetrators and raised the disclosure standards leading to a renewed interest in the markets. The corporates are going global, a sign of their enhanced credibility.

Giants like TCS and Infosys have set global benchmarks in reporting standards and have implemented CSR in the fabric of their organizations.

With capital markets becoming dominant as the time passes and as organizations increasingly care to heed the market and keep the investors happy, it is safe to assume that the Indian corporate entities are veering away from organization-control to market-control approach toward corporate governance.

Right Directors mean Right Business

Board of directors is the highest internal governance mechanism in the organization. The board is the interface between external environment and management. The composition of the board reflects this. It has to straddle between providing necessary freedom to the management for wealth creation and protecting the interests of those who help create and of those who share this wealth. Just like an organization has a culture, it is critical for the board given the role it plays to have its own way of getting a handle on issues. No regulation can substitute for this. The non-executive members should meet separately to thrash out issues among themselves to promote ‘constructive dissatisfaction’. As far as the skills of the board members are concerned, they do not need to have finance or risk expertise to play an effective governance role. The task for the board is rather to understand and approve both the risk appetite of the company at any particular stage in its evolution and the processes for monitoring risk.

If the management proposes changing these radically-for example, by switching the portfolio of assets from low to high risk, or by engaging in off-balance-sheet financial transactions that inherently alter the volatility of the business and its exposure to uncertainties-the board should be quite willing to exercise a veto. Also, the management should be sensitive to the tricky context the board operates in and must grasp that directors’ independence can be compromised by ‘soft conflicts’ such as significant charitable contributions to a favorite institution or the employment of board members’ children.

Enron coterie Debacle – The positive fallout

There is a silver lining even in the darkest cloud that burst over the corporate world post-millennium. In the run up to the uncovering of some of the biggest frauds almost all in America, ironically a country which has always consecrated regulations, the markets were increasingly being viewed as infallible. Whatever information emanated from the organizations to the markets was taken as the last word. There was a reason behind this. The rules were set by the market and organizations were just playing by them leading to smugness all around. The disasters were eye openers for the gullible investors. Markets were vulnerable after all. Stricter rules followed. The corporate boards world over became more agile. The managements retreated. To a certain extent a long-term inclusive focus was restored in the firms having benign effects for every stakeholder.

The Undesirable side effect

Innovation is the mantra for success. But for corporates it has become a survival factor. The frauds have happened at the worst time. The organizations need to be more creative. Risk appetite should be high to capture the unexplored high potential markets. This calls for ingenuity on the executives’ part. But the atmosphere has become very restrictive. Regulations like SOX go overboard.

Boards would much rather have a conservative rather than an adventurous management. This does not bode well for the society as a whole as cagey entrepreneurs will not be able to fulfill their outstanding objective-wealth creation.

Business Initiatives with social spin-offs and not vice versa

Prima facie, ITC’s e-choupal venture seems an effort in the direction of social responsibility. But intrinsically the effort makes eminent economic sense.

It is not a subsidy but an effort which is mutually beneficial. Corporate social responsibility enthusiasts might label such efforts as social initiatives. But the bottom-line is that such efforts generate returns, which guarantees shareholder support. Till such time the business gains precede societal benefits and the society appreciates this reality, the long-run sustenance of these initiatives is guaranteed. Responsible corporates and not corporate social responsibility is the order of the day.

Crucial Culture

Culture is the way people behave when they are not being watched. It is very organization specific and very unlike regulation which is procrustean. The magnitude of damage that can be caused by an individual to the stakeholders of the firm increases as he/she moves up the corporate ladder. The power to influence attitudes also increases on the way up. Hence self evidently the top brass of the firm has a big hand in shaping the culture of the firm. If the honcho crosses the line, it sends out an implicit signal to the people lower down to knowingly or unknowingly to act in a similar manner as the stakes are not that high as they are for the men at the top. The trickling down of an open culture might take time but one can be rest assured that the only way in which it is going to impact the firm is positively. But where organizations go wrong is where they expect the same things from culture as the regulators do from regulation. It is never going to be a one size fits all story. This is where the earlier talked about concept of ethics being very individual specific and not organization one comes into picture. Do not impose culture. Let people understand and appreciate it and find their own way of incorporating it into their work life.

The information imperative

A fair judgment is based on fair information. Often, the best appraisal is done by those who are at a certain distance from the subject matter and at the same time affected by it. Organizations err when they try to preemptively guess others’ reactions. This leads to distortion of information. Doing business is the primary task of business; it is not in the best position to evaluate it from different angles. Hence, organizations should pass on information about its policies, practices and risk appetite. Let the other stakeholders primarily the markets assign an appropriate risk premium and cost of capital. Part of this information dissemination has been achieved by regulation manifested in balance sheet et al. The other part has become more crucial as the businesses have grown complex and can only be achieved with the will of the management and the board. A culture of transparency goes a long way in achieving the latter. Of course transparency has its limits.

But voluntary initiatives like Triple Bottom Line reporting which not only cover the financial but also the social and environmental impacts of the company signal a start. All kinds of companies from the ones with most to hide like chemical to the fairly innocuous ones with the least to hide have adopted this practice. Why? It does make social and environmental sense, but more importantly, thanks to competition in and integration of the world economy, it makes eminent business sense.

Conclusion

Wealth has to be created before it can be distributed. The responsibility to create wealth is of business. And responsibilities and rights must go together. Hence, the society cannot disarm business of its rights which are essential for creating value. The spookiness comes in when business accords certain rights to itself by itself. The importance of wealth creation and difficulty in achieving it blurs the fine line.

As we have seen there is no silver bullet for settling issues like business ethics and corporate governance. Separations of powers just like between executive, judiciary and legislature is imperative. No one stakeholder is an apex authority. Everyone has a role to play.

Regulation defines these roles to a certain extent. But it can only do so much. A culture epitomized by the top management and communication of the right information do much more than regulation. At the end of the day we are all human. We think differently and have different takes on different issues. Till such time this fact is appreciated and co-opted by every stakeholder and a healthy debate continues on the rightness of business, we are certain that businesses will keep on doing what they are good at and others will keep making sure that businesses do it the good way.

Sudeep Sanwal

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Tags: business, ethic, code, articles, policy

Believing in what one does is important to make the work successful. If the person involved in a work does not have enough faith & confidence on the work then the probability of that work not being successful is more. Any system no matter how big the system is & how flawless it is if it does not have people involved in it who have faith on the system.

A set of people not so confident about the system is a force good enough to make the system totally inefficient & imperfect & eventually fail it. Now this is an important issue because every one of them who are designing a system must consider this.

A system & it’s success depends on the acceptance that it receives from the people involved in the system. If a company is willing to establish a new project then it should involve the people in the system, who are eventually going to be the user of the project. This will allow the company to asses their project & estimate the errors & thereby make it a success.

If people like these are involved in the formation of the system then they can suggest the modification that the system requires. These modifications will increase the chances of their acceptance of the system.
The fact that human being though pretend to like changes but really does not prevent them from accepting a new system replacing an age old one even if the new system is far better than the existing one.

This issue of human acceptance has been a very under rated one but eventually it’s the people that a system is made for. So if it does not convince them then there is no point in even thinking about a new system. So if you are planning to introduce a new system you better consider the issue seriously.

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Tags: ethic, cases, business, issues, article

There are many circumstances in which it would be easy to enlist the aid of ‘white lies’ in the era we live in today. ‘The check is in the mail’ when in actuality it won’t be mailed until tomorrow. ‘She/he is in a meeting – out to lunch – gone for the day’ instead of stating that she/he is unavailable and take a message. ‘No we didn’t get your fax’ when it has actually come through hours before but gone unnoticed and unattended by the staff. A majority of humanity reacts favorably to honesty and integrity.

Often when the word ‘integrity’ is spoken it brings to mind a picture of trustworthiness and truthfulness.

Definitions for the word ‘integrity’ are: 1. Wholeness, Completeness 2. unimpaired condition, soundness 3. honesty, sincerity. A more current definition indicates that integrity is ‘comprised of the personal inner sense of wholeness – an honesty and consistency of uprightness of character’. Thus a relationship with an individual or business that promotes integrity would suggest an ethical relationship. One in which honesty and trustworthiness would be understood.

Is it possible that a definition of excellent Customer Service could include white lies? First and foremost, the definition of white lies has changed dramatically in the past 25 to 30 years. Webster’s New World Dictionary – published in 1974 – indicates that a “”white lie”" is ‘a lie about a trivial matter often told to spare someone’ s feelings.”"‘ Yet a current definition suggests: “”….is a lie which is believed harmless or innocuous, or is in accordance with the conventions of the culture”". Does this imply that we have become more complacent about accepting and indulging in “”white lies”". A “”lie”" – from current AND older resources – is an intentionally false statement. Albeit a “”white lie”", “”lying by omission”" or “”just a lie”" – it is still lying.

It is human nature to want to believe and trust. It is when a trust is broken that the problems begin – in all relationships. After we have been lied to,it is natural to disbelieve thereafter.

The success or failure of a service business is based on its customers. Satisfied, happy, trusting customers are
essential to success. A business that has a solid foundation and where the essence of excellent customer service
is an innate practice of every day’s operation has no need for “”white lies”".

So the business owner must decide if the ‘white lie’ is worth the risk of breaking the trust of your customers.

Assistant to the President – Visit the The Tab Store here. Honesty, Integrity, Values, Unparalleled Customer Service

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Tags: value, ethic, business, corporate, training

Our business ancestors believed they had to hurt people to get ahead. To them, kindness was a luxury.

All the while, others who observed this behavior taught kindness. When I was a kid in Baptist Sunday School, I learned that Jesus was “harmless as a dove.” I didn’t know why this was important. It was only later, after observing people and doing some living, harming and being harmed, that I understood the significance of being harmless.

The ones who stayed poor said that money, or the love of money, was the root of all evil. Yet I know plenty of ethical people who have money and like money. Even in the past, it was surely the honest businessman who lasted and who bequeathed a sustainable prosperity to his heirs. The ruthless ones were just making trouble that would kick back on themselves. Many a business venture would have succeeded even better with higher ethics.

For example, suppose the early manufacturers of automobiles and trucks had recognized that there was a place in transportation for railway services. Suppose they had not seen trains as a threat and taken steps to undermine these older businesses. We could still move freight, even to small stations, by train. I would love to be able to buy food and furniture at my local stores without having to drive my pipsqueak of a car among huge trucks on roads better suited to cars. I don’t believe car sales would have suffer one bit. With a little cooperation, Ford and General Motors and the trains could have worked out a win-win solution. When you force someone to lose so you can win, you create losses around you that will cost you.

Ethics are not laws or rules so much as those principles we all know in our hearts, especially the principle of not doing harm. You don’t have to carry this to extremes and walk on raised shoes, which some have done to avoid harming bugs. You only need to ensure you are doing more good than harm in your life and business.

In my contacts with internet business, I’ve seen a consistent feature: the integration of business with life and spirit and, with that, a very high ethical standard. Sure, there are scoundrels anywhere, but you don’t have to get involved with them. It’s a new world in cyber space, one where people are free of the weeds our ancestors sowed. Anyone can join in the game and experience the freedom to be kind AND make money.

Article by Patricia Lapidus, author of the memoir SWEET POTATO SUPPERS: A Yankee Woman Finds Salvation in a Hippie Village. Patricia is a writer, editor, teacher, and an encourager. Up coming books include SWAMP WALKING WOMAN, a mythic fairy tale about women’s strength, and GIDEON’S RIVER, a novel dedicated to all who live with a temper, their own or someone else’s. Note: SWEET POTATO SUPPERS is due out soon in a second edition. This memoir is for those interested in communities, in spiritual hippies, and in the personal journey of discovery.

Patricia has read widely in social theory and lived several models personally.

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Tags: business, ethic, cases, global, china

We always seem to be hearing in the news that a government contract has been awarded to a company, which has not fulfilled its responsibilities. As a matter of fact this is so commonplace that one should be asking why does this keep occurring? Well, there are a number of reasons why this is the case.

Sometimes politicians persuade bureaucratic agencies to lean towards a certain government contractor and the bureaucrats know that they must comply otherwise they could lose their job and or their agency will not receive the funding it needs for next year’s budget. Those companies, which pander to podium pushing politicians through lobbying and fund raising for their campaigns tend to get the best contracts. We all know this is true.

Another common reason is that the government is known to be after the lowest price. Therefore many companies underbid the contracts just to get the work and then cannot afford to do the job correctly. Likewise many companies refuse to bid on government contracts because the government is so slow to pay and if you are a smaller company the cash flow could kill your business.

It is interesting that the government at all levels promotes small businesses and yet at the same time strings them out on accounts receivable sometimes for as much as 120 days or more. This seems quite un-reputable and unfortunate, but it is the truth. Some might say the government does not deserve the very best companies in the marketplace and that is upsetting considering the taxpayer is footing the bill. Please consider all this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; WorldThinkTank. Lance is an online writer in retirement.

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Tags:ethical, dilemas, ethic, issues, training

Each day more and more people decide to enter the business coaching field. Spend a little time on the Internet and you’ll find articles, courses, and ebooks on how to be a business coach in a short time period.

I can’t be the only person that finds that ridiculous. I don’t understand how someone with no business experience can be a business coach.

I believe that you can learn a lot about business by reading and doing your own research- but just because you do that, it doesn’t make you qualified to teach. After all, how can you teach methods that you’ve never tried yourself?

If I read a book on space shuttles that doesn’t mean I can be an astronaut. Likewise,I can’t imagine a person who has never performed surgery giving lessons on how to perform heart transplants.

I recently interviewed coach Laurie Hayes (see here) who offered some valuable advice for anyone who wants to obtain the services of a business coach.

“You always want to verify a coaches credentials. You want to ask for references and actually follow up on them and make sure that there is risk reversal in place when you enter into an agreement. When I say risk reversal, I mean make sure that there is a guarantee that if you don’t receive the agreed upon results even though you fulfill your obligations of the partnership that you’ll get your money back or maybe even just a prorated amount back for unused services if you decided to terminate the relationship midstream.”

Money chasers who read an article or a book and two days later decide that they are going to become a business coach compromise the integrity of the business coaching field.

If you want to be a business coach, go for it, but before you do make sure you have the necessary qualifications.

Donyell Nelson is an Internet entrepreneur and the author of “Jump Start Your Success: 9 Insider Secrets to Running an Online Business. If you are clueless about online business, out hundreds of dollars, you aren’t making a profit, and you are just about to throw in the towel visit this site.

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Tags: ethic, questions, review, business, law

Do you know your organization’s mission statement? Can you recite it word for word? Most would answer no to this question. But can you even summarize the general idea behind the mission statement? If the answer to this question is no, then what is the point of having a mission statement?

A mission statement is a call to order within the corporate proving ground. It is a statement that initiates action, formulates direction, and maintains key core values for all within the organization to follow. This serves as a template and defines the action and purpose of the corporate structure. At the corporate inception, key personnel toil and labor to focus in on a single unifying statement that will inspire and guide all workers at all levels consistently. Because it is challenging to summarize within one statement, it usually ends up being several statements with bullet points and unending commas throughout. Customarily the mission statement is posted throughout the building and emphasized in new employee orientations. Why is it so important to have a mission statement if no one within the organization can tell you what it is or what it means? Since most agree that the mission statement is a “must have” for all organizations, shouldn’t every employee be able to at least know the basic gist behind their organization’s mission statement? Is it just ink on paper or is there more to it?

Increasingly, mission statements have been viewed as a strong management tool that motivates employees and keeps them focused on the purpose of the organization. In a recent research effort by William Brown, he investigated employee attitudes toward the mission at a service organization. Specifically, this study examined how employee attitudes toward the mission were related to employee satisfaction and to what extent these attitudes toward the mission accounted for expressed intentions to stay with the organization. He found that employees expressing positive attitudes towards the mission of the organization also had attitudes relating to employee satisfaction and intentions to remain with the organization. He points out that it is important for management to be clear about the mission and not only talk about it to employees but also live and breathe it themselves and be an example to everyone.

So, we all agree that mission statements are important as the foundation of an organization. But how many of you can recite a mission statement for any organization you have ever worked for? Bob Lewis, President of an IT company, recently wrote an article about the perfect mission statement. He promotes that it needs to be five words or less. If you are like me, that sounds impossible. Most have adopted the view that mission statements need to be detailed descriptions of a company’s purpose which is hard to summarize in five words or less! However, Lewis considers a company’s mission to also be their brand. “When a business builds a brand, it’s establishing the expectations it wants customers to have when doing business with it.” Employees and customers alike get lost in lengthy, dull mission statements ultimately leading to no retention of what exactly the point or purpose is. Think of how effective it would be to post up a sign all over your building saying “Lower costs, better technology” (assuming that fits what your company is trying to accomplish). Think about the purpose of a mission statement. Is it to summarize every possible goal you have for your business in one page or less? Or is it something you would like for every employee and customer to remember and think of when your business name is mentioned? If it is in fact something you want everyone to remember, Lewis’ idea of five words or less may not be a bad place to start. We have all heard that our short term memory has a capacity of seven words plus or minus two. And more modern estimates are even lower stating a capacity of four to five words maximum. Therefore, as employees and customers enter your organization, having a short phrase summarizing your mission as a company seems like it would be more effective than a whole page of bullet points and big words stating your purpose.

As we learned from William Brown’s research earlier, if your employees know and understand your mission, it could lead to increased job satisfaction and retention. In fact, National Business Research Institute (NBRI) was recently asked to conduct employee satisfaction surveys for a U.S. company that provides solutions for the telecommunications industry to assess job satisfaction and retention among other issues. NBRI deployed 13,700 surveys and received 12,600 completed surveys yielding a 92% response rate. The results reached a 99.999% confidence interval with a 1% sampling error giving the business confidence that the results of the survey were valid and representative of the employee population. Using benchmarking data, a Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Threats (SWOT) analysis was conducted. This enables management to get an immediate grasp of the overall results of the study. Items with benchmarking scores between the 75th and 100th percentiles are regarded as “Strengths”. “Opportunities for Improvement” are items with benchmarking scores between the 50th and 74th percentiles. Items with benchmarking scores between the 25th and 49th percentile are “Weaknesses” and those items between the 1st and 24th percentiles are classified as “Threats”. In this study, the industry’s average is represented by the 50th percentile because the benchmarking database is very large including over 250,000 individual opinions per survey question.

Now, think about your employees. How many do you think would say they know your company’s mission statement? Unfortunately for this particular company, only 21% said they knew the mission statement. Because this score was between 1st and 24th percentiles, it was in the Threat category. Thirty-five out of sixty survey questions landed in the Weakness category (58% of the items). Among these items were “I plan to be working here five years from now” (41%), “Top management has a vision for the future” (35%), “I know top management’s vision for the future” (31%), “I know the Values Statement” (29%) and ” I know the Vision Statement” (28%). Given these results, management can clearly see that their employees do not feel connected to the organization as a whole and as a result, retention and job satisfaction may be an issue. Further, the majority of their employees do not think that top management has a vision for the future. It appears that employees are not seeing the big picture and more importantly, they are not seeing management walk the talk. These results can speak volumes to management and aid in resolving the underlying issues before they become a huge problem.

It is important for employees at all levels of an organization to know and understand the purpose of the organization, its mission. Employees that know their greater purpose within an organization and how they fit into the big picture are more likely to be satisfied with their job and stick with it. Now I bet you are wondering if your mission is clear to all of your employees. Could that be why your retention rate is falling? Are your employees satisfied? A great way to find out if they do know the mission as well as their level of job satisfaction and other key issues facing organizations today is through employee satisfaction surveys. The results of the survey will give you detailed, unbiased, and reliable information that can aid in making key decisions regarding the success of your organization. Among numerous other factors, this information will clearly tell you whether your mission statement is just ink on paper and whether your employees are satisfied and planning on staying with the organization. Once you have this information, you can assess what is going on in your organization and be proactive regarding changes that need to be made.

Jamye Henry, is an Research Associate at the National Business Research Institute which creates, deploys, and analyzes superior customer surveys and employee surveys.

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Tags: leadership, ethic, value, moral, business

“The ethics of a business are whatever the top-dog says they are.”

- Bryce’s Law

INTRODUCTION

We hear a lot these days about the deterioration of ethics in business, e.g., graft, corruption, cheating, favoritism, skimming money, etc. This has resulted in a public relations nightmare for business. If consumers do not trust a company, its a matter of time before it goes out of business. This is supported by recent studies that give evidence there is a correlation between business performance and ethical practices (see the Institute of Business Ethics). Basically, the Institute’s study suggests there are long-term benefits associated with enacting an ethics programs. Such studies and recent corporate snafus (e.g., Enron) are impetus for companies coming to grips with ethics in the workplace.

There are essentially two considerations for devising an ethics program in business; first, knowing what your ethics are, and, second; implementing them in a consistent manner.

INTERPRETING ETHICS

There is little point in my telling you what is ethically right or wrong. You already have an interpretation of this. But let us understand what influences our interpretation of ethics; our interpersonal relations with others, such as our family, friends, neighbors, fellow workers, as well as the media. Ethics is learned more than it is taught. It is based on observations of the conduct of others, people we like and respect as opposed to those we do not. It is then up to each of us to interpret these perceptions from which we will base our conduct and behavior. The point is, we act on our perceptions, however accurate or inaccurate they may be. Another influential factor are our own human frailties of competitiveness, love, greed and ambition. But then again, this goes back to interpersonal relations.

Let us recognize that ethical behavior is interpreted differently from person to person. What one person may consider right or wrong may be different for the next person. The objective in business is to implement a uniform form of behavior thereby instilling consumer confidence in a company overall.

IMPLEMENTATION

Writing a corporate code of conduct is in vogue today as a means of articulating the ethics of a business. Such codes are proudly displayed on web sites and in corporate brochures more for public relations than anything else. True, they are useful for disciplining an employee for an infraction of the rules, but I do not see them as an effective way of implementing an ethics program. Understand this, regardless of what the code of conduct states, the ethics of a business are whatever the top-dog says they are. Too often I have seen companies say one thing, then act another, e.g., Enron.

Printed codes of conduct are nice, but we have to recognize that it is one thing to enact legislation, quite another to enforce it. As stated earlier, ethical behavior is based on observations. Regardless of what a code of conduct says in print, ethical behavior is based on the relationship of superior and subordinate worker relationships. If a subordinate observes an indiscretion by his superior, in all likelihood it will be emulated by the subordinate. This phenomenon occurs top-down in the whole corporate chain of command. If it breaks down anywhere in the corporate hierarchy, it will become visible to the subordinate layers and
potentially create a “trickle-down” effect. This means the boss has to be a role model for ethical behavior; they must “walk-the-walk” as well as “talk-the-talk.” If they do not, it will not go unobserved by their subordinates. Managers, therefore, should avoid the “do as I say, not do as I do” phenomenon. They must lead by example. Anything less is sheer hypocrisy and will inevitably lead to changes in behavior.

It is simply not sufficient to issue platitudes as to what is and what isn’t ethical behavior. The manager must follow-up and assure ethical behavior is implemented accordingly. In other words, we shouldn’t just “desire” truth and honesty, we must “demand” it. If one person gets away with an indiscretion, others will surely follow. As such, when writing out a code of conduct, be sure to stipulate the penalties for its violation.

The success of a business ethics program is ultimately measured by how well it becomes ingrained in the corporate culture. As we have discussed in the past, corporate culture pertains to the identity and personality of the enterprise. All companies have a culture; a way they behave and operate. They may be organized and disciplined or chaotic and unstructured. Either way, this is the culture which the enterprise has elected to adopt. What is important is that in order for an employee to function and succeed, they must be able to recognize, accept and adapt to the culture. If they do not, they will be rejected (people will not work with them).

The intuitive manager understands the corporate culture and how to manipulate it. Changing the Corporate Culture involves influencing the three elements of the culture: its Customs, Philosophy and Society. This is not a simple task. It must be remembered that culture is learned. As such, it can be taught and enforced. For example, a code of conduct is useful for teaching, as is a system of rewards and penalties. Designating people to act as watchdogs of the culture can also be useful, but be careful not to create a climate of paranoia. Ultimately, as a manager, you want to create a culture that promotes the ethical behavior you desire.

For more information on “Corporate Culture”

CONCLUSION

We now live in strange socioeconomic times. 40-50 years ago we normally had one parent staying home to raise the kids. Now it is commonplace to find families where both the husband and wife are working and paying less attention to their children, thereby relegating their parenting duties to teachers and coaches. In other words, the family unit, which is the basic building block for learning ethical behavior, is becoming severely hampered.

In business today we have a “fast-track” competitive mentality which does not encourage a spirit of teamwork but, rather, more rugged individualism. Nor does it promote employee loyalty. Further, we now live in a society that encourages people to go into debt, thereby causing financial tensions. Bottom-line, ethics is about people and trust. Consequently, we should be sharpening our people skills as opposed to avoiding it. We don’t need more maxims of how we should conduct our lives; we need to lead by example. As such, we need more role-models and heroes than we do paperwork.

Let me close with one last thought on how ethics impacts business; there is probably nothing worse in business than being caught in a lie, particularly by a customer. Any trust that there may have been before disintegrates immediately and business is lost. In this day and age, there is something refreshingly honorable about a person where their word is their bond. Ethics just makes good business sense.

Tim Bryce is the Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates (MBA) of Palm Harbor, Florida and has 30 years of experience in the field. He is available for training and consulting on an international basis. He can be contacted at: timb001@phmainstreet.com

Copyright © 2006 MBA. All rights reserved.

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On one end of the dress-code dimension we find the Iranian measure in which women are fined if they do not use their veil. A measure that got introduced only recently. The other end of the dress-code discussion is the complete freedom that some tourists exhibit when visiting a sacred building. In business you need to choose a side; somewhere on the wing of total freedom or just on the other side of the center imposing a simple code.

Some schools in Spain and other countries prescribe a uniform. Such a measure brings many advantages; all pupils are treated equally, it is cheaper as you need only a few sets of uniforms and it supports the child in accepting the education. To see this just imagine that you are going for a ride on the bike. In the first case you just wear normal clothes, in the other you put on a professional bicycle gear. In the second case the uniform reminds you every minute that it is serious. Imagine a Tour-the-France where everyone puts on the clothes he or she pleases.
Many other professions require an official uniform. Have you ever witnessed a pilot in shorts? Or a police officer in jeans, a medical specialist — other than Doctor House — dressed casual? Alright… there are exceptions, as always.

But the main point is that a simple dress code should help you perform. The suit at the office reminds you that you are a professional like the football player ready to start the match.

There are disadvantages or limitations of the success of a dress code. If you do not feel a professional a proper suit will not change your attitude. There is no guarantee.
Also you can’t push things in a call-center. A call center is already a very demanding environment and some freedom would lower the barrier to accept the job. The client or prospect on the phone cannot see you. So in fact you are free to wear as you please as long as you are able to express respect. Are you when wearing toe slippers, like the tourist visiting a church?

© 2007 Hans Bool

Hans Bool writes articles about management, culture and change.

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In order to examine ethical issues, it is first necessary to define ethics. Today, we regard ethics as a “”rational process founded on certain principles.”" However, I believe a definition that is more applicable to this project is the ethical theory that existed in ancient Greece. There, ethics was the study of what was good for both the individual and society. We will look at some online issues and how they may be good and/or bad for society. Cyberethics is quite simply the study of ethics on the Internet.

“Ethics begins when elements within a moral system conflict.”
Cyberethics is often called as Information System Ethics. Information System ethics can be defined as “The study of moral, legal, ethical issues involving the use of information and communication technologies“
There are many unique challenges we face in this age of information. They stem from the nature of information itself. Information is the means through which the mind expands and increases its capacity to achieve its goals, often as the result of an input from another mind. Thus, information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings craft their lives and secure dignity.

However, the building of intellectual capital is vulnerable in many ways. For example, people’s intellectual capital is impaired whenever they lose their personal information without being compensated for it, when they are precluded access to information which is of value to them, when they have revealed information they hold intimate, or when they find out that the information upon which their living depends is in error. The social contract among people in the information age must deal with these threats to human dignity. The ethical issues involved are many and varied in Information System Ethics.

Ethics is required in information Systems to overcome the following ethical issues.

Privacy: What information about one’s self or one’s associations must a person reveal to others, under what conditions and with what safeguards? What things can people keep to themselves and not be forced to reveal to others?

Accuracy: Who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity and accuracy of information? Similarly, who is to be held accountable for errors in information and how is the injured party to be made whole?

Property: Who owns information? What are the just and fair prices for its exchange? Who owns the channels, especially the airways, through which information is transmitted? How should access to this scarce resource be allocated?

Accessibility: What information does a person or an organization have a right or a privilege to obtain, under what conditions and with what safeguards?

Information System ethics explores and evaluates:

• the development of moral values in the information field,

• the creation of new power structures in the information field, information myths,

• hidden contradictions and intentionality’s in information theories and practices,

• the development of ethical conflicts in the information field. etc

Now let us take a look at privacy by the following examples. A few years ago, Florida lawmakers gave the go ahead to have monitors stationed in bathrooms at Tallahassee Community College to determine if the facilities were being underutilized. Students and faculty vehemently protested that the monitors violated their privacy. State officials said that the value of the information gained through the study was more important than the threat to privacy. Other issues like collection of private data of the users using internet by monitoring the traffic is strongly related to one’s policy as that information can be further used for illegal purposes. These types of privacy issues are needed to be addressed properly so that they should not exploit one’s freedom. One issue that I kept thinking about when I was constructing my Web page was whether it was ethical to lift an image from someone’s home page and use it on my Web page without crediting the source. Such ethical issues come under property.

One reason that topics such as online gambling and pornography have become such firestorms of controversy in cyberspace is the simple fact that so many people have access to the Web sites. Simply put, if no one had access to online pornography no one would care. With this another issue “Censorship” comes which should be deal in efficient way as it is not easy to implement. Ethical issues can also be religious, moral or any other.These type of issues are not easy to deal with.

Similarly, let us take China into consideration on the issue of “Censorship”. China has implemented the methods of censoring the internet that are somewhat harder to bypass for people generally unfamiliar with the way internet works. There is ,for example internet censorship as implemented in China—using a list of banned words that are censored on the fly. As users in china request a webpage , the incoming page is first inspected by government servers n blocked if a banned term such as “Democracy” is present. Human censors are also actively looking at what people browse on the internet, and block websites as they see fit.

Crimes on internet are also increasing in a continuous manner.Computer crime is a general term that embraces such crimes as phishing, credit card frauds, bank robbery, Industrial espionage, child porn, kidnapping children via chat rooms, scams, cyber terrorism, viruses, spam and so on. All such crimes are computer related and facilitated crimes. Many recent cases seen like Microsoft’s website was brought down for a little time resulting in a huge loss to Microsoft. Similarly, NUST, one of the best considered university in Pakistan got Hacked and redirected to another domain. Credit card fraud have grown in an increasingly manner. Leakage of Military information from internet is another internet crime. Software known as google earth, which shows information about different places including military land or can lead to robbery planning, is becoming an ethical issue around the world. Many people protest against this leakage of information but still one can’t deny that it is one of the major enhancements in Information Technology.

The question about how to police these crimes has already been constructed, but this task is turning out to be an uphill battle. Since the first computer crime law, the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984, the governments have been trying to track down and stop online criminals. The FBI of different countries have tried many programs and investigations in order to deter Internet crime, like creating an online crime registry for employers .The reality is that Internet criminals are rarely caught. One reason is that hackers will use one computer in one country to hack another computer in another country. And that criminal isn’t working alone. Loosely organized groups–which security experts call “”Web gangs”"–conduct much of the illegal activity online. The structure of Web gangs may be patterned on that of traditional organized crime, in which the members of the group may never come into contact with one another and may never be aware of who they are working for.

Conclusion:

We live in an exciting time in history. The widespread availability of computers and Internet connections provides unprecedented opportunities to communicate and learn. Unfortunately, although most people use the Internet as a powerful and beneficial tool for communication and education, some individuals exploit the power of the Internet for criminal or terrorist purposes.

We can minimize the harm that such individuals do by learning ourselves, and teaching young people, how to use the Internet safely and responsibly. The term “cyberethics” refers to a code of safe and responsible behavior for the Internet community. Practicing good cyberethics involves understanding the risks of harmful and illegal behavior online and learning how to protect ourselves, and other Internet users, from such behavior. It also involves teaching young people, who may not realize the potential for harm to themselves and others, how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.

Muhammad Bilal Azmat,
Operations Manager.

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Tags: it, ethic, morality, code, handbook

Why is it important to establish the moral status of entrepreneurship? Unless it can be shown that the entrepreneur does what is morally worthwhile as an entrepreneur, that his role is ethically praiseworthy, not only his or her status in the market but the market itself becomes vulnerable to serious moral criticism. This is because it is well recognised that ethics are the free market’s life line. Many economists are beginning to realise this. Indeed, it is entrepreneurial activity that makes the best sense of profit – another vital part of capitalism.

However, without also demonstrating that entrepreneurship is ethical, the market would at most be hospitable to morally indifferent kinds of behavior; at worst it would encourage moral callousness and discourage the pursuit of presumably morally more significant objectives, such as order, self-restraint, artistic excellence, family values.

When a system is vulnerable in one of its essential ingredients, competing systems that lack this weakness become very powerful if not immediately successful alternatives. Their images improve, even if their actual performance leaves a lot to be desired.

Some argue that all we need is the hospitable environment, but this is false. Even in the freest of societies many, many potential market agents can be lazy. Not that laziness is encouraged but that it is clearly not foreclosed. That is partly what freedom means. One has a genuine choice whether to be productive or not. It is not enough to show that under capitalism human beings are free, unless the kind of uses to which such a system puts human effort can themselves be
morally worthwhile. So the question needs to be addressed. Why should one be productive? Why should entrepreneurship be practiced? What is good about it?

It is not enough by a long shot to answer that entrepreneurship is the ticket to a decent chance for wealth. Certainly one can agree that between stealing and producing, the latter is more honorable. However what if quietism – the form of religious mysticism that involves complete extinction of the human will, drawing away from worldly things – is proposed as an alternative?

How about asceticism – the religious ideal that one can reach a higher spiritual state by self-discipline and self-denial? How will the system that is hospitable to entrepreneurship be defended in the light of such powerful challenges?

The most serious challenges to capitalism come from those who contend that by making entrepreneurial effort possible – by protecting the rights to private property and the pursuit of happiness here on earth – this system corrupts human life. It tends to permit the commercialisation of human relationships, making us self-interested economic agents instead of what we really ought be, altruistic members of our community.

It is insufficient to reply that the capitalist system makes it possible for people to attain a better life here on earth. That is just what is in need of defense. Why should we strive for such a life in the first place?

In a society of just human relationships, there must be a consistent and constant hospitality to entrepreneurship because without this, an important moral dimension of human life would be suppressed or at least seriously distorted. Without such a welcome, public policy and law would yield to more widely accepted but sadly misguided moral sentiments, for example, the call for
greater and greater state power to regiment or re-engineer society instead of making it safe for natural human initiative.

Thanaseelan, click here to view his main blog. Don’t forget to check out the categories on his blog.

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