Questions submitted by 06 OCTOBER 561.1 SEMINAR PRESENTERS:
Managing for Organizational IntegrityDoes ethics have everything to do with management? Can you instill ethics in adults and shape their behavior in the long run. If you can instill ethical behavior, how is this done? Some unethical behavior is self-fulfilling or profitable. How does one counter the various lures toward unethical behaviors?
Organizational Theory
1. What responsibilities do businesses have--if any--to employees and future generations?
Are shareholder interests more important than other stakeholders?2. Is the traditional view of the corporation as the principal wrong, and should the corporation be considered the agent working for the community? In agency theory, what are the responsibilities of the principal and the agent?
Corporate Cases
1. Should a company (such as Canon) invest in the Middle East to improve living standards and reduce political tensions? Could this really benefit Canon and its stockholders in any way? Should multinationals influence countries? Should their executives be allowed to interfere with the "internal affairs" of independent nations?
2. In the movie, Wall Street, corporate raider Gordon Gecko extols the virtues of greed and greedy acts. Does the threat of "Gordon Geckos" increase the awareness in financial markets? Could this awareness help companies/industries change their path before it's too late?
Are corporate raiders such as Gordon Gecko necessarily bad for the economy as a whole? Certainly, the individual company might be split up and sold for its assets. However, its assets are appearently more valuable to the market (and society?) than the company. Is this similar to natural selection, weak companies get swallowed by predators, allowing for the growth of other and better companies? (Balance of prey and predators?) Is Gordon Gecko an agent of "Capitalist Darwinism's survival of the fittest"?
In the Hannahdowns case, a company implemented a profitable philosophy and provided generous benefits to its employees. The philosophy called for production of a sturdy product that gave the customer better value. Later, they implemented a less conventional approach by accepting the product back to give to the less fortunate and gave credits toward future purchase. If this wasn't a privately held company, would such a plan be sellable to an investor? How could an investor be convinced that such work would be profitable when it is traditionally handled by social service organizations? What are the problems a public company would have in implementing this policy?
The owners of Hanna Andersen lost track of `maintaining a profitable organization.' Doesn't this prove Milton Friedman's theory about the focus of a business in capitalism?
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