Business Integrity Leadership Initiative
- U of A
- Walton College
- Business Integrity
The initiative strives to foster a culture of integrity, and promote thought leadership and inquiry among scholars, students, and business leaders to address the ethical challenges inherent in our increasingly complex business world.
Recently Published
5 Practical Tips for the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence
By Cindy Moehring
Use Explainable Technology
In the age of technology and artificial intelligence, it’s more important than ever to ensure the algorithms are transparent, explainable, and understandable. Technology can’t work without humans, human programming, and human intervention. This episode gives practical tips on how algorithms can be used effectively and ethically. Your resource for practical business ethics tips, from the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, The Business Integrity School, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the Founder and Executive Chair of The Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:22 Matt Waller: Business principle number six is that algorithms need to be transparent, explainable, understandable.
00:28 Cindy Moehring: Yes, right.
00:29 Matt Waller: This is a new one...
00:30 Cindy Moehring: It is.
00:32 Matt Waller: And we can see why it's so important today because we've already seen problems with it.
00:38 Cindy Moehring: Yes, yes, we have seen problems, most recently, and I think most dramatically, we saw it in the loss of a human life in 2018 when an Uber self-driving car hit and killed a woman in Arizona, and they had to go back and figure out why, why in the world would a self-driving car that... Again, go back to the basic principle: Cars are supposed to be safe, like planes are supposed to be safe, like we talked about before. So somebody violated another business ethics principle by not making sure that they lived up to the terms of their contract, building a safe car, but in this case, it had to do with the way that the artificial intelligence was programmed.
01:18 Cindy Moehring: So when they went back to look at, why in the world would this car actually hit a human and why was it not safe, they ended up finding out it's because they had not programmed the algorithm in the car to recognize a human form on the road, unless the human was in a crosswalk. And in this case in Arizona, the woman that got hit was jaywalking, I've jaywalked. [laughter] I would hate to think that my life is in danger by some self-driving car on the road because I didn't stay within the four corners of the crosswalk, sorry, but...
01:47 Matt Waller: Well I have to say, if I knew there were a lot of self-driving cars around, I always jaywalk, I would be scared.
01:52 Cindy Moehring: I'd be very careful about it now, yeah.
01:55 Matt Waller: This has happened in other ways too. There's evidence that algorithmic-based credit extension, determining how much credit to give someone can be biased. And there's examples of where men were given a lot more credit than women, in some cases, of the same household, but many times of the same wealth and different variables like this.
02:21 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. And so the tech companies have got to be able, the companies that are behind those, that invention or the extension of credit or banks, they've gotta be able to explain in non-discriminatory way how the result ended up being obtained, and if they can't, then you've got a real problem.
02:39 Matt Waller: This is very interesting because a lot of the artificial intelligence, neural networks, pattern recognition technologies, they're taking all this data and they're finding patterns.
02:55 Cindy Moehring: Right.
02:56 Matt Waller: There's two issues with this. Sometimes they're finding randomness, and so not only could it hurt people, but it could hurt the company. In other words, it's not gonna be repeated in the future. What they've picked up is not logical. It's randomness.
03:17 Cindy Moehring: Right.
03:18 Matt Waller: But it looks logical for some reason.
03:20 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
03:21 Matt Waller: And if you find a pattern and then fit it, and then re-apply it to the old data, it might look like it fits real well, but that doesn't mean it will be a good predictor of the future.
03:34 Cindy Moehring: Perfect example of that is there was a software company that was reviewing resumes and had been programmed with one of those illogical situations where they recognized the name Jared and playing field hockey as two indicators for high performance. Makes no sense, right? So that had to have been an outlier for it... [laughter]
03:52 Matt Waller: I guess so.
03:53 Cindy Moehring: In a place that doesn't make any sense. Like, why would you want to apply that going forward...
03:56 Matt Waller: Yeah.
03:56 Cindy Moehring: And look for resumes with somebody who's named Jared and whether or not they played field hockey as a determination for high performance? That's one.
04:03 Matt Waller: So that's just taking data and trying to fit a model to it, and then using that model for the future.
04:10 Cindy Moehring: Right.
04:10 Matt Waller: But even in that case, if you ever use these models, you have to determine when the algorithm stops fitting the data. Because it takes a long time to fit the data, so they can use different methods for fitting the data. And so still human decisions are involved in this.
04:34 Cindy Moehring: Humans... Yes, definitely.
04:36 Matt Waller: But I think... I'll tell you what really surprises me about this. This explains why theory needs to be used. Again, theory describes, explains and predicts any kind of phenomenon. So when these companies are simply using a bunch of data fitting it, they might be fitting bias and then perpetuating bias in the future, they might be fitting randomness and putting that in the future, in either case, it's not better for people, and it's not better for the country right?
05:08 Cindy Moehring: No, no.
05:09 Matt Waller: So that's why theory... They need to be able to say, people with... We would expect that people with higher incomes and lower debt will have better credit because they have more money to pay it back with, etcetera, etcetera. You can create a theoretical framework to then develop the model.
05:28 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
05:28 Matt Waller: And I actually think that that is needed in this kind of a situation.
05:35 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, because otherwise, if you take, particularly if it's like HR information, personnel information, and you're feeding that data set in, you're gonna naturally have some bias, if you will, unless your employee base is 100% kind of perfect, if you will, from a diversity perspective, right? So it isn't necessarily bias that you are gonna want to maintain going forward, you wanna take that bias out. So you've gotta inject theory, take out human bias or data sets that aren't reflecting what you want to be reflected in the future in order to get it right. And the reason that's really important is because of the deep machine learning that goes on, which it makes the... So it learns from the data sets that it has, and then it can go a gajillion times faster than our brains can possibly work. And so the effects of potential discrimination or unsafe algorithm that's been programmed all of a sudden proliferates and become quite large.
06:32 Matt Waller: This is interesting in companies like Google, Amazon, and some others are hiring lots of economists with advanced degrees...
06:42 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
06:42 Matt Waller: To do their data analytics, because you could take someone that's just really good at computer programming and statistics, but they're not gonna necessarily have the theoretical framework to do the best job of creating a model. You do need models, but you need people to be able to figure the models out. And so I see... Even Walton College, this new Master's of Science degree that we've created, it's called a Master's of Science in Economic Analytics, part of the reason behind that is you do need strong data analytic skills but it's gotta be backed up with theory.
07:23 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, and it may even be that we see in the future, I've seen people refer to it as new careers, like algorithm bias auditors who are actually going in after the algorithm has been created. You gotta monitor it to make sure that it's operating the way that it's designed so you have to audit it to make sure that it is operating as designed, so there could be new jobs in the future like that.
07:48 Matt Waller: All models should be audited as they're applied.
07:53 Cindy Moehring: They should, they should.
07:54 Matt Waller: But, I think that a lot of times they're audited for things like forecast accuracy or something like this where there's. This is...
08:00 Cindy Moehring: Right, we're talking about ethics, auditing it to make sure that it isn't having discriminatory effect or that in fact it is actually safe. We talked earlier about the Edelman Trust Barometer report that came out in 2020 and there's a factor in that report that relates to this that I found quite interesting. I think people are a little afraid that machines are gonna take over the world and so over 80% of the folks that the Edelman companies talked to in their report this year, said they wanted to have their CEOs, they wanted to hear from their CEOs, on the topic of ethical AI. They really wanted to know that the technology that was being employed was being employed in an ethical way. So I think we owe it, business leaders owe it to their employee base to make sure that they're in tune with their employees and understand that they actually care about this issue and they want it explained to them just like the public wants the algorithm to be able to be explainable when it makes decisions.
09:03 Matt Waller: So, what are some practical tips for this particular business principle?
09:09 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, I think there's a couple of practical tips that makes sense here and one is, first of all, having a product design agile mindset when the algorithm is being created. So it would be wrong for companies to think about this as just an engineering project or just an information systems project. You actually need to pull together that scrum team and you need to have a project design agile mindset with people from all of the different departments that can really make sure that from an ethical perspective, the AI is being programmed the right way. And then the second step, the second practical tip, I would say is making sure that you actually set governance for the process, for who's gonna be involved and how you create it so that you test it before you roll it out so that you don't hit a pedestrian who happens to be jaywalking like Uber did. And so that you can monitor it afterwards and be very clear about what the governance is gonna be for that process. And then you set yourself up for success in the way it's actually built.
10:06 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, the Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us and you can find us by searching The BIS. That's one word. T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
Avoid Forced Labor
With the increase of supply chains that span the globe and involve multiple links in the chain, there is potential for forced labor. Who is in charge when this happens? Who bears the burden? This episode explains the business ethics principle of avoiding forced labor, and how to put it into practice. Your resource for practical business ethics tips, from the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, the Business Integrity School. Your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the Founder and Executive Chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:20 Dr. Matt Waller: Cindy, what is one thing that the tech giants, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, etcetera, have in common with the Congo?
[chuckle]
00:37 Cindy Moehring: That's an interesting question, but there is one thing they all have in common, and it's cobalt.
00:42 Dr. Matt Waller: Cobalt?
00:43 Cindy Moehring: Cobalt. Two-thirds of the world's supply of cobalt is found in the Congo, which is in Central Africa, and all of those tech giants that you mentioned, all need cobalt to go into their lithium-ion batteries for our phones and our computers and electric cars.
01:02 Dr. Matt Waller: And so this has to do with principle number...
01:05 Cindy Moehring: We are on principle number five.
01:07 Dr. Matt Waller: Five, alright.
01:08 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
01:08 Dr. Matt Waller: No forced labor.
01:10 Cindy Moehring: No forced labor, that's right. No forced labor. And so in the Congo, they actually have a minimum working age now, like 18. But what's happening is there's such a demand for this right now, for cobalt, that allegedly, children are being used as young as 10 to go mine the cobalt. So, they're in the condition where they're forced to go do it.
01:33 Dr. Matt Waller: And cobalt's been used in cell phones for a long time. So what's driving all of this increase in demand?
01:42 Cindy Moehring: What's driving the increase in the demand as the electrification of cars.
01:45 Dr. Matt Waller: Oh!
01:45 Cindy Moehring: Because the size of the battery in a car is a lot bigger than the size of a battery in our cell phones or in the computers. And so, that means the demand for the cobalt is greater because the batteries are bigger.
01:57 Dr. Matt Waller: And so the estimates are it's increasing quite rapidly.
02:00 Cindy Moehring: Yes, quite rapidly.
02:01 Dr. Matt Waller: Double-digits.
02:02 Cindy Moehring: Yes, double-digits. And here, just recently, because the automakers are really trying to ramp up on the electrification.
02:10 Dr. Matt Waller: So there's a lot of rare earth metals that are procured from all over the world.
02:16 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
02:18 Dr. Matt Waller: And many times, they're in places where we know there's slavery, there's modern-day slavery going on. I've heard estimates that there's more slaves today than there were even 200 years ago, possibly it's because of the size of the population.
02:34 Cindy Moehring: Sure.
02:35 Dr. Matt Waller: So with the size of this problem, if you're responsible for a supply chain, who is responsible for it? Is it the buyer, is it the supply chain manager, the purchasing people? Who's responsible for that?
02:53 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say at the end of the day, the company that has the most exposure, let's say, is the one that's got the big name on the door. So it's gonna be Apple, it's gonna be Tesla. So those companies have to figure out how to manage their reputation, right? And so, I would say it's actually something that is owned by many people in the company. Reputation of course, is gonna be managed in one area of the company, and the CEO has gotta be very focused on that. But the actual business relationship and who's gonna be responsible for it is gonna be whosever overseeing and responsible for those transactional supplier relationships, and then there's gonna be lots of people that are involved in it. And that's one of the ways you can get into trouble in situations like that, is because decision making can be somewhat dispersed, right? You've got so many different people involved at trying to pin it down on who exactly is responsible for this one decision can be difficult.
03:47 Dr. Matt Waller: It can be. You think about one example we've talked about before with North Korea, where North Korea as a country leases out or sells their population to companies to do work, it's slavery. And just recently, there was a company that does business in the US, but they're a Chinese company, and the US blacklisted them because they were using those laborers. And that meant that nobody can do business in the US with a blacklisted company.
04:25 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
04:26 Dr. Matt Waller: And their assets were frozen.
04:28 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
04:29 Dr. Matt Waller: So the cost of failure here is enormous.
04:34 Cindy Moehring: It is.
04:35 Dr. Matt Waller: But if you're doing business all over the world, it's so hard to know. You could actually go to China, visit a factory and not know this is a North Korean who's been purchased from the government.
04:48 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. So, that's where technology can really be your friend and actually making sure that you've got very detailed processes and procedures for making sure that you're not doing business with somebody who's been sanctioned by the US government or a company that's been sanctioned by the US government. So technology and actually walking through where, who are the parties in the contract, what are they selling to you, who are the beneficial parties, there's lots of detail involved in that. And procurement departments in particular, have to really manage that. But it's also where you could say a supply chain, blockchain, in terms of managing a supply chain, where technology can really help you because it can give you visibility all the way back. I think what some people don't understand at a very basic level is there may be 10 steps between a Tesla, or maybe 20, who knows? Lots of steps between that mineral, cobalt, and the end product. And it's just one component of how many go into a car, right? So when you talk about the supply chain that you're managing is actually quite complex, and I do think it is one of the areas where, for example, you can have clear policies and procedures. But without that, you really are gonna have to go further and have some technology to help you manage that, hopefully get visibility from not just one step back, your own supplier, but all of the different suppliers all the way back.
06:11 Dr. Matt Waller: I think this really might grab more demand for blockchain because one benefit of blockchain is it's immutable. So once a record is...
06:20 Cindy Moehring: That's exactly right.
06:21 Cindy Moehring: Created it never goes away. You can change that record, but there's been of record of what was changed.
06:26 Cindy Moehring: And who changed it.
06:27 Dr. Matt Waller: With and when.
06:27 Cindy Moehring: Exactly.
06:27 Dr. Matt Waller: And where.
06:28 Cindy Moehring: That's very transparent.
06:30 Dr. Matt Waller: And with the growth of sensors, because one of the problems with implementation of blockchain is being able to collect the information about when transactions occur. But the number of sensors that are coming on the market is growing exponentially. The costs are decreasing so the internet of things, which can enable blockchain. So it's actually, business integrity is a reason to be looking into blockchain.
06:58 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it can really help ensure the integrity of a number of different things all along the supply chain, which is really great because trying to do that on Excel spreadsheets is next to impossible and it's very labor-intensive. Company policies which you have to have and supplier code of conduct, that's like practical tip number one. You've gotta have your own company policies that would say, "We absolutely prohibit forced labor of any kind, dealing with our own suppliers, and we expect that responsibility and that obligation in that requirement to carry all the way back through all of the different suppliers." So it's an obligation that would carry forward, but you've gotta start that chain and you gotta have a supplier code of conduct. So it starts there, you've got to be able... Practical tip number two, I would say, is back that up with technology, so you can have visibility to it, operate effectively. And then finally, I'd say, you really do as a practical tip, third, when you can do unannounced audits and require that of your suppliers too, so that you can monitor what you think is really happening that you're seeing in the technology with some kind of boots on the ground, from time to time.
[music]
08:09 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, the Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us, and you can find us by searching "The BIS", that's one word, T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
Live Up to the Terms of Your Contract
Trust is a fundamental building block of developing and retaining customers. When it comes to the contracts, both express and implied, that have been agreed upon, trust is more important than ever. This video provides examples of companies that lost this trust and gives practical tips for living up to the terms of your contract. Your resource for practical business ethics tips, from the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, The Business Integrity School, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and executive chair of the Business Integrity leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:22 Matt Waller: Principle number four is to live up to the terms of your contract.
00:26 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, implied and expressed. All of them.
00:27 Matt Waller: Implied and expressed. Now, that seems like of course you would do that.
00:34 Cindy Moehring: Of course you would do that.
00:35 Matt Waller: Otherwise you wouldn't have agreed to the contract.
00:38 Cindy Moehring: Right, right.
00:38 Matt Waller: But we see failures all the time in this way.
00:41 Cindy Moehring: Big ones. Yeah. We see some really big ones. We're seeing that right now today with Boeing and it's still ongoing. And at its most basic level, they didn't live up to their term of their contract which was to make safe planes for their 737 Max. I'm not saying all their planes are unsafe, but their 737 Max was not a safe plane. And I think that's the situation. Nobody goes out intentionally and says, "We're gonna make the 737 Max an unsafe plane," but yet that's where we ended up. And so...
01:14 Matt Waller: It was a lot of little decisions...
01:16 Cindy Moehring: Little decisions along the way that...
01:18 Matt Waller: Compromises.
01:18 Cindy Moehring: Add up and compromises to a situation where we ended up with an unsafe plane.
01:21 Matt Waller: I wonder if today... For example when you download software or a new app, you get this huge agreement that you don't read and you click accept.
01:34 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
01:35 Matt Waller: So I wonder to what degree those kinds of things in society are training us to not pay attention to the terms of our agreements.
01:45 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. That's a very interesting way to think about it. But I do think that in some respects, it's the little things like that, the little just day-to-day aspects of your job that you go through that if you don't stop and reflect, sort of what we're doing here on these situations, you do miss it, and you miss it and once you've missed enough small steps, you're too far gone before you can actually step back and take a look at it. So for Boeing, 737 Max, the two crashes within a matter of a few months killed, what? 346 people, unfortunately. CEO's now gone. They've certainly replaced a number of people. CEO's still trying to work through the issue. Plane's not back in the air and it's been almost a year.
02:31 Matt Waller: And it's affecting our GDP.
02:33 Cindy Moehring: It's affecting our GDP. Some estimates are that in the first three months of 2020, it could affect it by half a percentage point. Some of the suppliers who make the parts for the plane... So not only are they not flying, now they've had to halt production. And so their suppliers are now having to lay people off because they can't...
02:49 Matt Waller: Then these people can't build a new deck or buy some things they wanted to buy.
02:55 Cindy Moehring: Right.
02:55 Matt Waller: And so it has a ripple effect in the whole economy.
02:57 Cindy Moehring: Huge ripple effect in the whole economy. Huge ripple effect.
03:00 Matt Waller: And it also makes planning difficult for the airlines who expected to be able to use these airplanes.
03:06 Cindy Moehring: Yes. Because they had a number of them that were on order and they'd gone out and hired pilots, and trained more people, and so now what's happens to them? Now there's not a plane for them to fly.
03:16 Matt Waller: And the impact of this isn't just on the supply chain and the economy, but it clearly hurts Boeing's... The trust people have in Boeing.
03:26 Cindy Moehring: Definitely hurts the reputation. Definitely. And it kinda goes back to one of the principles we talked about before and the importance of trustworthiness is if you don't have trust, then you're gonna lose customers or they're gonna start to go in a different direction. So it's really important that Boeing get this one figured out. It's been a long time. I think part of the problem is they kept telling all of us the public, and Congress and regulators, "Few more months, few more months. We'll have it. We'll have it. We'll have it." And they just I don't think quite saw the magnitude of what they were dealing with, which we now see it's been almost a year.
03:57 Matt Waller: A lot of this had to do with the computer programs that they used and the systems.
04:06 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
04:06 Matt Waller: And I wonder sometimes to what degree we're developing systems that are so complicated. Yes, we're able to automate, we're able to use artificial intelligence. But what we wind up with is something that no one person understands even a small fraction of, and so trying to make sure... How do you know all the ways to even test it?
04:31 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. It's hard to say actually they're finding so many different problems now but the actual problem with the Max system, was my understanding it was a single point of failure and they didn't have a backup if this one piece of machinery failed on this one test.
04:49 Matt Waller: And they knew it.
04:49 Cindy Moehring: And yeah, in this case they knew, they designed it with a single point of failure. So there are lots of lessons in this one.
04:57 Matt Waller: So what are some practical tips for this?
05:02 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, if you break it down to it's most basic level, I think that the reason why Boeing ended up in the situation that it did which leads to the practical tips, is they were focused on cutting costs after they merged with McDonnell Douglas in the late 90s. And they really were trying to stay ahead of their competitor Airbus, and they had some tight deadlines they had to hit to get a big order with American Airlines and so they cut a deal and said, "We'll get them to you in a certain amount of time" and they've been focused on cutting costs. In business today, what business isn't trying to cut costs and operate more efficiently? And what business isn't trying to stay ahead of their competition? So it's not like they were dealing with pressures that aren't common in business. But the practical tips have to come back to at a very basic level, what is it that they did wrong in handling those pressures?
05:54 Cindy Moehring: And what I would say is that there are three things that leaders can take away from this situation that weren't happening right at Boeing. And the first practical tip is, you can never say to your folks, "Do it at all costs. Do whatever it takes to get it done" because you're not gonna be happy with the results if you say that, that you will have people on your team that will... They'll think you've given them free license to go outside the lines of what's ethical because the only thing that matters to you is get it done, get it done at all costs. And so that really sets the wrong tone, so that's something you don't ever wanna say and end the sentence there. Second practical tip is it's also not right to just be silent because if you as a leader are stressing, "We have to cut costs and we've gotta meet this delivery deadline," and you don't go ahead and say, "We wanna do it the right way. We wanna make sure that we're doing it within ethical bounds," all you're doing is just re-emphasizing kind of the... You're not saying at all costs, but you're re-emphasizing the goals, your teams will read into that. That that's really all you care about.
06:58 Cindy Moehring: You didn't say specifically, "Don't go outside the line." So maybe that's what you want me to do. So first practical tip, don't ever say at all costs. Second practical tip, don't be silent on the issue, which leads to the third practical tip, you actually need to fill that communication void and say, "Yes, we do need to focus on costs. And yes, we absolutely do want to make sure that we are trying to hit our delivery deadline, but never at the expense of safety," for example in the Boeing situation. That phrase right there takes the pressure valve off the boiling pot of business where you're really trying to achieve objectives and it creates an environment where people then feel like, "Okay, safety's number one." And sometimes it's hard decisions that sometimes you really have to sit down and make tradeoffs. Am I gonna do this or am I gonna do that? But it's having those tough conversations and making those trade-offs that actually ends up saving the day because those are the hard conversations that need to be had.
[music]
07:57 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, The Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google SoundCloud, iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us and you can find us by searching The BIS. That's one word, T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
Avoid Discrimination and Harassment
In the age of #MeToo, respecting other’s autonomy is at the forefront of the media. But when work cultures sometimes blur lines, how do you respond? This episode breaks down actionable tips you can use to practice the business ethics principle of avoiding discrimination and harassment.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of the BIS, the Business Integrity school, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the Founder and Executive Chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:21 Dr. Matt Waller: So principle number three is respect everyone's autonomy. What does that mean?
00:29 Cindy Moehring: So, being very practical about it, it comes down to making sure you don't treat anyone like a second class citizen, so it brings to bear the issues of discrimination and the issues of harassment, you gotta respect everyone's autonomy in a business relationship.
00:43 Dr. Matt Waller: And it seems like for as far back as I can remember, there's been evidence of this happening, but lately, it's really taken off with #MeToo.
00:54 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yes, it sure did, yeah. It really started in the media area in 2017, and with Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer and a whole host of others, Roger Ailes and just Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein, many of them are still in the news today, but it bled over into the business community as well, and we just seem to have reached a tipping point, I think, on that particular issue, and women feeling more comfortable, not just raising their voices, but recognizing that they were gonna be heard. And one recent example that bled over into the business world was with a real iconic brand, McDonald's. And so, I thought we would just talk about that one for a little bit and how it, what happened there really implicates this business ethics principle.
01:40 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, and McDonald's had a policy that you weren't allowed to have a romantic relationship with a direct or an indirect report. Some companies allow that.
01:51 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, well, yes, but what I would say is, most, a lot of companies have policies that would say, "You may have a relationship with someone else in the company, but if there's a direct or indirect relationship, then we gotta find a different... "
02:05 Dr. Matt Waller: And it has to be disclosed.
02:06 Cindy Moehring: And disclosed, you gotta find a different place for them to work, so it isn't as though you can't have a relationship at companies, but when you're the CEO of the company, pretty much everybody...
02:14 Dr. Matt Waller: Everybody.
02:14 Cindy Moehring: Is your direct or indirect report, right?
02:16 Dr. Matt Waller: And that's the problem with this case.
02:17 Cindy Moehring: So that was the problem in this particular case, yes. So he was... Somebody did speak up in this case, so that's the good news, and the board did an investigation and found it to be true, and he did get fired for that for having an inappropriate relationship, but the more important point here, I think is in addition to that, what it brought to light was this party culture that existed at McDonald's and it actually becomes systemic, so it was more of a macro company issue, I think the new CEO has got his hands around it now and he's definitely set a different tone, but it existed for a long period of time.
02:52 Dr. Matt Waller: I heard that someone in particular started that party culture, do you know who it was?
02:57 Cindy Moehring: I don't know who it was.
03:00 Dr. Matt Waller: Ronald McDonald.
[laughter]
03:00 Dr. Matt Waller: He's, you know, you look at him...
03:02 Cindy Moehring: Well, you do.
03:03 Dr. Matt Waller: You can tell, this guy has a party way about him.
03:06 Cindy Moehring: Well, he's a clown, right?
03:07 Dr. Matt Waller: He's a clown, yeah.
03:08 Cindy Moehring: So, I mean, you know, and when you think of a clown, you think of parties. [chuckle]
03:10 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah, so, exactly, and they were just having fun.
03:12 Cindy Moehring: They were just having a good time.
03:14 Dr. Matt Waller: But that particular...
03:15 Cindy Moehring: But it did get out of control.
03:16 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah, Ronald McDonald didn't intend for it to be...
03:19 Cindy Moehring: No.
03:19 Dr. Matt Waller: Come that kind of a party.
03:21 Cindy Moehring: Right.
03:22 Dr. Matt Waller: But that kind of a partying culture where there's flirting and things like that, that's where it crosses the line.
03:28 Cindy Moehring: Well, that's where it starts to get really gray, right? Particularly when you have, it's you've got Mr. Easterbrook and even the head of HR was showing up sometimes at these parties and...
03:38 Dr. Matt Waller: Oh!
03:39 Cindy Moehring: And so then in addition to the issues that we're talking about, which is respecting everyone's autonomy, you get this extra layer of questions about, "Well, am I expected to go to rise through the company, do I need to be seen in that environment even if it makes me uncomfortable?" So there's a whole other host of issues that come out of that kind of a culture.
03:58 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, there's another leadership issue here.
03:58 Cindy Moehring: Definitely.
04:00 Dr. Matt Waller: If the CEO is going to parties and flirting with employees, that tells everyone, that's okay to do that.
04:07 Cindy Moehring: Right, right.
04:08 Dr. Matt Waller: Even if he says it's not okay.
04:10 Cindy Moehring: Right, right, 'cause what he's doing then isn't matching what he's saying necessarily, right? And so that's one of those situations that you wanna avoid, but in a party culture like that where you've got flirting going on and maybe some even unwanted physical advances or comments that are being made, that's where it really crosses the line into this sexual harassment issue and I think what McDonald's noticed was and realized, and actually why Mr. Easterbrook lost his job in addition to just violating the policy, it's the larger issue of the culture that was being created, and whether or not it was setting the company up for really a culture that just tolerated sexual harassment through that kind of a party culture. So they decided they needed to go in a different direction and he lost his job over that quite recently.
04:55 Dr. Matt Waller: And of course, there's many other examples of that.
04:58 Cindy Moehring: There are, there are, yeah.
05:00 Dr. Matt Waller: So what are some practical tips here?
05:03 Cindy Moehring: So I'd say there are a number of practical tips, but we'll just break it down to three. One is, if you happen to find yourself in that situation where someone is made and in the workplace, a comment to you of a sexual nature that isn't wanted or makes a physical advance that's unwanted, you really do need to find that trusted source and raise your voice. It's not always black and white, and it could be very gray, and no one's expecting you to have all the facts, but you need to speak up if your gut's telling you that that was an unwanted advance and not something that you wanted. Second thing is, as a leader, you really do need to get to know your people, so I would say if you are, it's always good to check in, but particularly, if you're a new leader of a group of folks, it is worth your time by 10, by a 100 to get to know your people and get to know the ethical culture, and ask...
05:53 Dr. Matt Waller: Do you mean the direct reports or more...
05:55 Cindy Moehring: No, the whole team, yeah, you've gotta go below just your direct report, you've gotta get to know the team so that they get to know you as an individual. Authentically, and so that they know that you want to hear about issues and so as a new leader, it gives you an opportunity to let them know, "I wanna hear about problems that exist." Third tip would be if by chance somebody does come to you and say, there's this situation of sexual harassment, that I think it's an allegation that I think is going on in the area or lo and behold it happened to them and they're disclosing it to you. My advice is to it to a leader is to take care of that just as quickly as possible. You want to take a partner, you want to go to your HR department, you want to go to another trusted source legal, ethics, compliance, whatever it is, but deal with it quickly. That's the practical tip because you may not realise how distracting it is to your team, but the people who are involved in that situation will be completely consumed and distracted by it until it is taken care of, so that they're not gonna be able to spend all their time on the goals that you want them to go accomplish when they've got this distraction over here. So part of your job is to get that distraction, out of the way and deal with it.
06:58 Dr. Matt Waller: In a lot of universities like ours, we have a title nine coordinator, that deals with those kinds of things and the appropriate procedure is for the person who has been harassed to immediately contact the title nine coordinator. Now, sometimes they don't. They'll contact, maybe their department chair or someone else. But then the department chair is supposed to immediately report it. In fact, in our university, we are not permitted to investigate or do anything and until we have disclosed, we've got to disclose. And so, someone can't even tell us something in confidence. If, as soon as we know, a leader like a department chair, Dean, associate Dean, etcetera, etcetera. As soon as you are aware of an allegation, you immediately have to call the title nine coordinator, and then they have a process of investigation, so you don't actually have to do the investigation. But it's really kind of an efficient and effective way of doing it.
08:03 Cindy Moehring: It is, it is, and when I say that the third practical point of dealing with it quickly would be that in business. Leaders need to make sure that they're taking a partner to actually do the investigation for them they don't want to get into that necessarily themselves but you've got to hand it off very quickly and make sure that their business partner is staying on top of getting to the bottom of the issue, because their team won't be able to focus on it So, yes, if an issue comes to your attention like that and you're in business and your company doesn't have a policy of immediate notification to HR or to your ethics and legal and compliance department, somebody to deal with it for you. You need to get it to them very quickly just like what Matt's describing exists here at the university, because you don't want it to be a distraction to your people and you also want to show your folks that you're listening to them and dealing with the issues that are in front of them.
[music]
08:52 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, the Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google SoundCloud, iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us, and you can find us by searching the BIS. That's one word, T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
Want to Advance in Your Career? Follow These 3 Simple Tips
By Cindy Moehring
Refrain from Fraud and Improper Deceit
Being fraudulent or deceitful isn’t always out of malice or intent to harm. Unfortunately, it often comes out of arrogance and hubris. Watch to learn more about how to use three simple tips to practice the business ethics principle of refraining from fraud.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, The Business Integrity School, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and executive chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:23 Dr. Matt Waller: So business ethics, principle number two is avoid fraud and improper deceit?
00:28 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
00:29 Dr. Matt Waller: And of course.
00:32 Cindy Moehring: Right. Of course, you would think, and sometimes those situations can... They can get pretty complex when you're trying to track through some complicated business transactions. Sometimes it's just really, really simple. So I thought on this one, we would just start with a very simple example. It might be unbelievable, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, and in this case, I would say that is absolutely the case. So fraud and improper deceit. We had a trader in London for city group that was making over a million dollars a year and ended up being suspended from his job because he wasn't paying for his food in the cafeteria.
01:14 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah, but a million dollars a year is just enough to break even in London.
01:18 Cindy Moehring: I know. I mean, he probably didn't have enough money to pay for [chuckle] the cafeteria food. But he did it repeatedly and ended up getting suspended for it and you gotta call it what it is, that's fraud and improper deceit. He's essentially stealing food from the cafeteria.
01:33 Dr. Matt Waller: But he was probably the best trader.
01:36 Cindy Moehring: He probably was, and who knows.
01:39 Dr. Matt Waller: [chuckle] So if you're the best trader, of course you don't have to pay for you food, right?
01:42 Cindy Moehring: You don't have to pay for your food because you're too valuable as an employee.
01:45 Dr. Matt Waller: Exactly. Exactly.
01:46 Cindy Moehring: And you know the same thing actually happened, the Financial Times reported in... Few years ago, so this isn't an isolated incident, but also in London, so you gotta wonder. Well, it's a financial capital but it was a Black Rock fund manager, and this person wasn't paying his full bus fare. He was going to work, making over a million dollars a year as well, and not paying his full bus fair. And the regulatory authority in London actually banned him from being able to be a fund manager because it implicated his honesty, they thought, "Well, if you can't be honest yourself about how you're getting to work and paying for it, we don't want you managing other people's money."
02:20 Dr. Matt Waller: The same kind of thing happens a lot with like travel receipts.
02:24 Cindy Moehring: It can.
02:25 Dr. Matt Waller: People sometimes can submit things that really aren't a part of business or a trip, or really inflate some of the costs. I think this happens quite a bit in business.
02:39 Cindy Moehring: It does. It's a real risk area and one that has to be very carefully managed because it's kind of tedious [chuckle] and it really gets into the details, but is an area that unfortunately, I think a lot of employees take advantage of.
02:55 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah. I think, I've always thought if you're not sure, either check it out with your boss or just don't submit it.
03:02 Cindy Moehring: You're right, yeah, yeah, that's the better rule of thumb.
03:05 Dr. Matt Waller: But you know, a lot of this is, as we've talked about, has to do with arrogance and hubris. Would you mind speaking to that?
03:16 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah. So, when you talk about the trader in London who is not paying for his cafeteria food, or the person who is not paying for his bus fair, I think we sit back and think, "Why in the world would somebody do that?" And it really comes down to, there's this character that's called hubris, and it's this inflated sense of self-importance and arrogance, and believe it or not, it actually is a very real fatal flaw of many leaders in business.
03:42 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, I think too, on the one hand, you want employees that are confident.
03:47 Cindy Moehring: Sure you do.
03:48 Dr. Matt Waller: But I think sometimes you can mistake what seems to be confidence is actually hubris. So you've gotta be humble on the one hand and confident on the other. But when you're hiring people, sometimes it's hard to tell, are they arrogant or they just confident?
04:07 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, making sure you get a right culture fit is so, so important to avoid the mistakes that can come if in fact they're arrogant and not just confident, but yeah, hubris is... And you see that play out in business, and you see folks like we just talked about here whose careers and lives get wrecked because they were overconfident which turned into arrogance and they really end up feeling like the rules don't apply to them. They're so important or so good at what they do, or so above everybody else that they get to play by a different set of rules. And pretty soon that crashes down around them.
04:42 Dr. Matt Waller: So what should we do? What are some practical...
04:45 Cindy Moehring: Real practical tips for us in this situation to just keep it to the basics.
04:49 Dr. Matt Waller: Don't travel.
04:50 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, don't travel.
[laughter]
04:53 Dr. Matt Waller: Don't ride the bus. Don't eat in the cafeteria.
04:55 Cindy Moehring: Bring your lunch every day. I'd say this one is real simple. You wanna make sure you just be honest and be humble and really resist the temptation to think that the rules don't apply to you because the rules do apply to everybody and the higher up you rise as a leader, the more your folks are gonna be watching you. So if you act as though the rules don't apply to you, then they're gonna start thinking the rules don't apply to them either, or that you're just playing by a different set of rules and then you lose the trust of all your employees.
05:25 Dr. Matt Waller: I think another practical tip here is accountability.
05:29 Cindy Moehring: Yeah.
05:31 Dr. Matt Waller: And I personally think... I'm big on mentorship. I think everyone should be mentoring people and being mentored, but when you have a really good mentor or two. In my case, I have two mentors, but I always make it clear to them that they can speak into my life, tell me when you think I'm doing something wrong, but I also tell my direct reports that, "Please tell me when you see me doing something you think isn't right, or just not good for the organization."
06:03 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, but I think you'd be surprised how many leaders don't go that extra step of saying, "Tell me." And then you gotta go, you gotta be open to it. It's more than just saying, "Tell me", you gotta show them that you really are open to receiving that feedback, which I know you and you clearly are, but it is something that I think a lot of leaders struggle with.
[music]
06:22 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, the Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google, SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us, and you can find us by searching TheBIS, that's one word, T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
Speak Up and Let Your Voice Be Heard
The pressure of situations can make speaking up difficult to do. However, it is an important aspect of the practice of business ethics. This episode offers practical ways you can find and use your voice.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, The Business Integrity School, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and executive chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:23 Matt Waller: One of the principles is that we're supposed to speak up and let our voice be heard. Why is that so important?
00:31 Cindy Moehring: Well, because you're responsible for your own actions and the consequences from those actions, if you know someone's asking you to do something that is unethical, can be dire and in some situations it can not only affect your own life, but the lives of lots of other people. So you really have to think beyond yourself in a situation like that and figure out... If you need to just take a break and not interact right then with the person who's asking you to do something that you know is wrong, and figure out how you gonna address the situation, better to that than to just rush ahead. It can have disastrous consequences.
01:08 Matt Waller: Well, at work we're often so busy, it's like we can't get our to-do list done in a day, and it just keeps building. And I think there's a tendency to think, well, this will blow over, or someone else will take care of this, but that can have disastrous consequences, and I know you've talked to me about one that's been very disastrous.
01:32 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, I actually watched Chernobyl recently, it's one of the mini-series on HBO, it's won a ton of awards, and so we sat down and watch that and it's chock-full of just lots of life lessons in addition to being a really good mini-series on HBO. But that whole situation, which truly it was a nuclear meltdown of a power plant in Ukraine.
01:53 Matt Waller: 1986.
01:54 Cindy Moehring: 1986, and it erupted and we'll talk about why and how that came to be, but it spread just nuclear debris all over Western Europe, and Russia and Ukraine, and pretty much that whole part of the world. Lots of people died, and it happened because of the simple act of one individual that didn't speak up and use his voice.
02:16 Matt Waller: And that area is still unusable, right?
02:19 Cindy Moehring: I think it is still unusable today. And you think about the first responders that rushed into that situation thinking that was just a fire, another day, I need to go put out a fire, and didn't realize that they were being exposed to all of this radiation.
02:34 Matt Waller: And people are still having reactions to it today, they're still being hurt today.
02:41 Cindy Moehring: So let's talk about that story.
02:46 Matt Waller: Yeah. What did they not speak up about it?
02:49 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. So Shift Manager was there working with the team because they were supposed to run a test that day on the nuclear reactor, and they were supposed to make sure that everything was working okay, and his team came to him and said, "Look, these readings don't look right for this one nuclear reactor, we don't think we should run the test." Because if... It's like running a test on something that you know is already broken, you know what's gonna happen in that situation, and it looked like it was already broken. So the Shift Manager was convinced that they weren't gonna run the test, that they shouldn't, his team gave him the data, and data's important to support your decisions.
03:23 Cindy Moehring: And then a busy boss walks in the door, and asks the Shift Manager, "What are we doing? Why are we not running the test? We're supposed to be running the test, it's already supposed to be under way." He tries to explain to his boss, who's very busy, the reasons why he wasn't gonna run the test and his boss simply wouldn't listen to him and was insistent, "No, this is what we're supposed to be doing. You're the Shift Manager. We're supposed to run the test, I don't care what your data says, run the test." And so he did, and when he ran the test, the nuclear reactor blew up, and that's what caused the whole event that many of us who lived through it, actually only know as Chernobyl, and it was that, Oh, that really bad accident, but it was all because one person didn't speak up on his shift.
04:09 Matt Waller: And you know, again, as leaders, leaders have to make it clear that they want people to speak up, and then they can't reprimand them if they do speak up. They've got to praise them and really just show that, yeah, we want this kind of behavior in our organization. So what are some practical tips that we could take to move forward with this?
04:32 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, I think the practical tips here are... I think about the person who's in that shift manager situation, because that could literally be anyone who was in that situation, you just talked about, what a leader should do. Practical tips, I think if you find yourself in that situation is you really do have to plan ahead, you need to think about what you would do before you're in that situation, and what you would do if someone and your boss actually does tell you to do something that you know is wrong. You need to practice how you would react in that situation, and do it ahead of time, it's almost like, Matt if somebody were to ask you to jump into the deep end of the pool and swim, and you've never even jumped off a diving board before.
05:12 Matt Waller: What would you do?
05:13 Cindy Moehring: So what would you do? So you really do have to practice that, you have to learn how to swim, you have to learn how to jump off a diving board, you have to learn how to get in a pool. And that means practicing through these situations.
05:22 Matt Waller: Well, there's two things that come to my mind, one is that again, we're all busy, so people have to understand that really is worth it, right?
05:34 Cindy Moehring: Right, it really is.
05:34 Matt Waller: It's a top priority. The second thing that comes to my mind about this is that I think thinking through it is important, but for many people, they probably need to write it out, because I think that if they just think about it, it might not settle down into them deeply, whereas if they write it out, it's very clear, and sometimes writing makes things more clear and clarifies your own logic.
06:00 Cindy Moehring: Right. Or if you're already in the business world, and in addition to writing it down, you could go find a trusted source, someone else in the company that is trusted, whether it's gonna be your HR Department, or your legal or Ethics and Compliance, but find somebody that... And if it's not your own boss that's asking you to do it. You can go talk to your boss about it. Take a partner and just talk through it, and there are lots of strategies, and we can get into that in further episodes, but there are ways to deal with it so that you can defuse the situation by not reacting right in the moment and creating some time and space in there, so that you can get the courage that you need to speak up in the right way, in a diplomatic way that works through the situation, in a way that's gonna be effective for everyone involved.
06:42 Matt Waller: I think this is another reason why people need mentors too.
06:46 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, mentors help a lot in these situations.
06:49 Matt Waller: If you've got a really good mentor that you've been working with for a long time, then you feel comfortable to call them or contact them, say, "Hey, my boss is wanting me to do this, What do you think?" And that could give some good guidance as well.
07:06 Cindy Moehring: And you know what, people may think this doesn't happen in business, but it does, and it does oftentimes just because of the pressure of the situation, and they may be misreading what their boss is actually telling them to do, but other times they're not. This isn't just a movie, a Chernobyl situation that happened in 1986. These situations do arise in business.
[music]
07:29 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, The Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us, and you can find us by searching The BIS, that's one word T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
Here’s How to Increase Trust with Stakeholders
By Cindy Moehring
Trustworthiness
This video explores how people decide which companies to trust. Research has shown that people base their trust in a company on two things: the company’s ethics and competence, but the two are not equally weighted. Ethics is 3x more important. Watch this episode to learn more about how you can establish trust with your customers by focusing on business ethics.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, the Business Integrity school. Your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and executive chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, dean of the Walton College.
00:23 Dr. Matt Waller: So one of the reasons that business ethics and integrity is so important is because of trustworthiness, and we discovered that in a article recently, would you mind talking about that a little bit?
00:36 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. So it was the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer report, and they're a global communications firm, they've been actually measuring trust for the last 20 years among the major institutions in society. So, it's business, and it's NGOs, and it's government, and it's the media. And sad to say, but what they actually found is that none of those institutions in society are trusted. None of them. Not a single one of them. What they also found, some are better than others, but what they also found are there are two main components to what makes up trustworthiness, so whether or not an individual decides to trust a business, is two things. And one is three times more important than the other, do you wanna guess at what the two things are that make up trustworthiness?
01:23 Dr. Matt Waller: I've read the article so that's not fair.
01:25 Cindy Moehring: It's your ethics and it's your competence, and the one that's three times more important is your ethics. So people will decide whether or not to trust your business three times more if you're ethical, if they think you're just good at what you do, that's only 25% of the equation. So, it's a really important finding for business to dial in on.
01:46 Dr. Matt Waller: You know, one thing I thought interesting about that is that in business schools throughout the country, we really teach and instill competence.
01:55 Cindy Moehring: Right. And you got to have that.
01:57 Dr. Matt Waller: You got to have that.
01:58 Cindy Moehring: That's your baseline, you got to have it.
02:00 Dr. Matt Waller: We do it by teaching things like accounting and finance and marketing and business law, etcetera, etcetera. We also do it by having students get involved in extra-curricular activities.
02:10 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
02:11 Dr. Matt Waller: And internships.
02:12 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
02:12 Dr. Matt Waller: And all these things build competence, and we want them to be mentored, etcetera, etcetera, but really ethics and integrity needs to be a core part of that as well. I mean, these students in business schools, both undergraduate and graduate, they're brought up in homes where they learn about things, but context really does matter.
02:35 Cindy Moehring: Context matters a whole lot, which is why I love the approach we're gonna take where we integrate the business ethics along with the competencies. So, while you're sitting in your accounting class, you can also talk about a business ethics issue that relates to accounting or one in your supply chain class.
02:51 Dr. Matt Waller: Or if you're a leader in business of any sort.
02:54 Cindy Moehring: In business you're going gonna be talking about it, of any of these issues, because what you'll learn is that these issues apply regardless of what you choose to do with your life and business, they apply. So, you can't just focus on in business being a good merchandiser or being a good accountant, you've gotta focus on how do I be a good... How do I show up as an ethical individual that is gonna contribute to the company, and as I rise in the company how do I show up as an ethical leader because that's gonna matter three times more than your competence.
03:23 Dr. Matt Waller: And trust is so important.
03:25 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it is.
03:26 Dr. Matt Waller: Because consumers and customers don't want to buy from companies that they don't trust, and so that is part of the business... I guess the business model or argument for making ethics so important in your business.
03:46 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
03:46 Dr. Matt Waller: It's because consumers and customers will trust you more, but I think also for the leadership team to be trusted, means that they can get people aligned more easily and set the direction in a way that is more effective than if they aren't trusted.
04:03 Cindy Moehring: Yes. And customers will vote with their... They'll vote with their wallets. And so if they don't believe that you are doing the right thing ethically and that you're doing something that's good for the communities in which you operate, 'cause that's a broader kind of view of ethics, they're gonna vote with their wallets and they're gonna take their money somewhere else. And so, you really wanna make sure that your customers trust you so you can grow your business.
04:26 Dr. Matt Waller: And nowadays, people are, the young people in college are way more concerned about the purpose of the company. When they're trying to see should I go to this company or that company to work, they think, "Does this company... Is it moral? Is it ethical? Is it doing what's good for the environment?" Etcetera, etcetera. I don't think that was as true 30 years ago as it is today.
04:53 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. I think it's really changed and I think that we've kind of... Business round table's definition of what the purpose of a corporation is has really changed, and it used to be that it was there only to serve the shareholders and to get the most profits or the most gain, and now they've really redefined, at least 181 of the world's largest company CEOs signed on to redefine the purpose of a corporation more broadly, to recognize some of the things we're talking about. You've gotta have ethical dealings with your suppliers and you've gotta look after your own employees and you've got to think about the communities that you serve. And all of that matters a tremendous amount to the customers that you serve. So...
05:32 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah. One thing I really found interesting in that report was they looked at the main institutions, business, government, NGOs and business...
05:44 Cindy Moehring: Media.
05:45 Dr. Matt Waller: Media, but media and government were low on competence and low on trust.
05:51 Cindy Moehring: Low on both, yes.
05:52 Dr. Matt Waller: Whereas business was high on competence, low on trust.
05:57 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
05:58 Dr. Matt Waller: And NGOs were low on competence and high on trust.
06:01 Cindy Moehring: Well, high on ethics, actually.
06:03 Dr. Matt Waller: High on ethics, yeah.
06:03 Cindy Moehring: To have trust, you gotta have both.
06:05 Dr. Matt Waller: Ethics, that's right.
06:06 Cindy Moehring: And so nobody was up or right. So business was competent but not seen as ethical. And NGOs were seen as ethical but not particularly competent. And then unfortunately, both government and media were seen as unethical and incompetent.
[chuckle]
06:20 Cindy Moehring: So it really speaks to, I think, the mood of the country right now.
06:25 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah and what, as a dean of a business school, what really caught my attention was their finding that business really needs to lead the way in this.
06:36 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
06:36 Dr. Matt Waller: People are expecting business to lead the way.
06:39 Cindy Moehring: Yes, they are. And that was one of the findings on the report, is that the individuals expect business to lead the way. They have the most freedom to act and they can act quickly, and you have to act quickly today in business if you wanna stay ahead of the pack. So, a lot of people expect business to lead the way and I think that's a wake-up call really for business leaders to understand that they... They've got the ball and all they need to do is run with it. And the way you can run with it here and really make a difference is to focus on the six business ethics principles we talked about and then find a way to communicate that. I mean, part of it is a marketing strategy, you gotta do it. You can't talk about something if you're not actually doing it, but do it and then find ways to celebrate that, both internally and externally. Find ways to talk about what you're doing to improve the communities where you operate in as a business and find ways to highlight some of your employees that are actually really living up to those business ethics principles in a way that can inspire some of your other employees, and if you talk about it, then that will help drive what you were just mentioning about people wanna join a company where they believe in its purpose and they know that the company is true to what they said.
07:49 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, the Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us, and you can find us by searching The BIS, that's one word T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
6 Principles for Practicing Business Ethics
Business ethics often seems impractical and hard to grasp, but here are examples and practical tips on how to better understand and apply business ethics. This episode provides insight into the 6 principles for practicing business ethics effectively.
Podcast:
Episode Transcript:
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of The BIS, The Business Integrity School, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who hass been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and Executive Chair of The Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today, is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:22 Dr. Matt Waller: Cindy, last time we talked about why business ethics is failing in industry, and why it's needed in business schools, and you mentioned the six principles, you've told me about them. Would you mind, let's talk about that a little bit.
00:40 Cindy Moehring: Sure. So part of making business ethics understandable for our stakeholders is to make sure that it's very practical and how we talk about it. And part of making it practical is breaking it down into its most basic and I'd say simple form, so that people and leaders in business can find their true North and organize all of this noise in a way that makes sense. And then they can deal with it. So there are these principles that a professor at Georgetown, John Hostas, he teaches in the McDonough School of Business there, and also an attorney, he teaches at the law school, he really picked up on that Harvard Business Review article that we talked about last time and took a stab at then recognizing what he found were basically five business ethics principles that just exist in business today. Just implicitly have existed. There's another one I think needs to be added. And he agrees these five aren't all there is, but these five are implicit. And we'll talk about a sixth one with technology today that needs to be added to that list.
01:43 Dr. Matt Waller: And that sixth one you came up with, through dialogue with Mary Lacity?
01:48 Dr. Matt Waller: Yes with Mary. Yeah, she's one of the members of the academic advisory board and works in the blockchain center and well-known professor in the Information Systems area but with technology so pervasive in society today, we just didn't feel like it was one that could avoid being recognized.
02:06 Dr. Matt Waller: You know these principles seem like a great idea. Because as a leader, part of the purpose of a leader is to set direction.
02:14 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
02:15 Dr. Matt Waller: And if you adopt these principles or some form of them, then you're setting the direction towards ethical behavior in the organization.
02:26 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
02:27 Dr. Matt Waller: So let's start with the first one.
02:30 Cindy Moehring: Sure. So the first one is remembering that everyone has the inalienable right and responsibility to use their own voice so you've gotta speak up. Essentially saying my boss told me to do it, it's never going to cut the mustard. That's just not gonna be an okay answer. When you saw that in the news just recently with the Astros and with the sign-stealing scheme they had for the 2017 World Series, their shortstop actually, careerists said just recently in the paper that they all knew, they all knew the whole team knew that it was going on. And any of them have the opportunity to speak up and for some reason, they didn't.
03:08 Cindy Moehring: But suddenly it's dangerous to speak up, isn't it? You might get fired, you might not get promoted. You may be sort of pushed out of the inner circle if you will.
03:20 Cindy Moehring: Yeah. So there are ways there are strategies. That's a whole another series of topics that we can talk about, but yeah, the fear of retaliation is one of the main reasons that people don't speak up. So you have to figure out how can you overcome that fear of retaliation because it is real, it is definitely real, but now they're walking around with World Series championship rings, and I'm not sure that anybody really believes that they should have that ring.
03:48 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, I think with these principles, as we said, it's helpful for leadership because it's a way for a leader to clearly set direction.
03:57 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
03:58 Dr. Matt Waller: But in addition to that, leaders have to gain alignment, they have to get people on board. And so you would have to get people on board with these principles in order to actually be able to move forward. And they seem very reasonable.
04:12 Cindy Moehring: They are.
04:12 Dr. Matt Waller: There's none of them that seem unreasonable.
04:14 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, so the second one is avoid fraud and improper deceit. So the first thing that comes to mind there would be like the Wells Fargo situation. You had... Just call it what it is, it was fraud and improper deceit because they were opening accounts for customers that never asked for those accounts to be opened. So they were doing it without the consent of the customers and sending them credit cards that they never asked for. So avoiding fraud and improper deceit sounds great in principle, but pressures of business can cause that to creep in ways that you might not expect. And it's not that you have a bunch of bad apples. It's just decisions get made because they're not aware, really, of dealing with a situation and then it's one step and another step and another step. And before you know it, you've gone so far that it actually is fraud and improper deceit.
04:57 Dr. Matt Waller: And again, I think leaders have to be so aware of this. So what's the third one?
05:01 Cindy Moehring: So the third one is respecting everyone's autonomy. So essentially, that means there are no second class citizens in a business relationship. So that really brings to life the whole Me Too movement and a lot of what we've heard about lately with sexual harassment in the workplace and discrimination. So that's really what that principle is all about is respecting everyone's autonomy.
05:23 Dr. Matt Waller: Now with the Me Too movement, I know I've seen a timeline of what will happen with that. But that clearly was disrespecting their autonomy.
05:36 Cindy Moehring: Yes.
05:37 Dr. Matt Waller: At what point do you think people started to realize that's what was going on?
05:44 Cindy Moehring: That's a great question. I think it's a... My own personal opinion is that it's been known that it's been going on for a long time. The question is whether or not someone was gonna speak up about it and whether or not they were gonna be heard and be believed. And I think we finally hit a tipping point in about 2017, when the whole kind of #MeToo movement started with Harvey Weinstein and then the thing just exploded with a number of big stars in the entertainment industry primarily, but not just there. It's definitely bled over to the business world as well. And we'll talk more about that in some of the upcoming episodes.
06:26 Dr. Matt Waller: And it's another example of what leaders need to make sure that people recognize that they can speak up safely.
06:34 Cindy Moehring: That's right, safely. Right.
06:37 Dr. Matt Waller: So the fourth one, what's the fourth one?
06:39 Cindy Moehring: So the fourth one is making sure that you honor all the terms of your contract, both the explicit and the implicit terms of your contract for any other products or services that you have to offer. That one may sound like, "Well, of course, who wouldn't do that?" Well, what comes to mind for me on that one is Boeing. Just cut it right down to its most basic point, Boeing had a responsibility to make safe planes. And they didn't make safe planes, and that was the basic implied term in their contract.
07:07 Dr. Matt Waller: Absolutely.
07:08 Cindy Moehring: But that's for the flying public.
07:09 Dr. Matt Waller: Same with airlines.
07:11 Cindy Moehring: And with airlines and with the pilot.
07:12 Dr. Matt Waller: And I think Southwest. Southwest didn't have an accident. But Southwest has this tremendous cultural history. They've got one of the best cultures in the industry, but their planes had flown I don't know how many passengers but it was a large number without maintenance verification that was required. And it was simply a lapse.
07:36 Cindy Moehring: It was a lapse. Now the FAA did contribute to that particular situation by allowing this long period of time in order for Southwest to get their maintenance records in place. But the question I have there is, should Southwest have really relied on that low bar when they're known as a company that typically goes above and beyond to meet the customer expectation?
07:57 Dr. Matt Waller: You wouldn't expect that they would.
08:00 Cindy Moehring: You wouldn't.
08:00 Dr. Matt Waller: Because their culture is so phenomenal.
08:03 Cindy Moehring: Exactly.
08:03 Dr. Matt Waller: And their leadership is so phenomenal. We would think, "Yeah, of course, they probably go above and beyond what the FAA requires. So what's the next one?
08:14 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, so the next one is refrain from physical coercion or threat of physical harm, basically, it's no forced labor. And that one, the other one you may think, "Well, that's obvious. Honor the terms of your contract." This one no forced labor. I think some people think really?
08:29 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah, we don't have any that.
08:31 Cindy Moehring: We don't have any of that. Actually, we do here still in the United States, which we'll talk about and get into in the future, but it's definitely still prevalent in some of the developing countries. And it's a real challenge for big companies who have several steps in their supply chain and don't have direct relationships with all of those suppliers to have visibility through their entire supply chain and make sure that there is no forced labor. But the tech companies, in particular, are facing that. And we'll talk about that with some of the minerals that they're trying to mine.
09:01 Dr. Matt Waller: Yeah. And even recently, a Chinese company was blacklisted by the US because they were using laborers from North Korea. And North Korea is known to sell laborers or lease them out. And they got blacklisted. So that means that all of their assets in the United States are frozen. And no US company can do business with them.
09:32 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
09:33 Dr. Matt Waller: But the thing is, with some of the new technologies coming on online, like Blockchain Technologies, together with Internet of Things, kinds of technologies and sensors, I think eventually it will get easier. But companies are resistant a little bit to this kind of transparency as well. But I think if they thought through the implications of it, they might not be.
09:57 Cindy Moehring: That's right. So that'll be a challenge. And then the last one is really the principle about technology and making sure that technology is pervasive in our lives today. And so it just makes sense that we think about technology in a way that is explainable, and that's gonna be transparent. I think people have a real fear about machines kind of taking over the world and not understanding how decisions get made. So that's really the sixth principle is making sure that algorithms, when they are used, are explainable and are transparent so that the decisions that occur through the use of artificial intelligence is understandable to those who are using it.
10:38 Dr. Matt Waller: I look forward to talking about that. That's a really interesting one. I'm glad you added that to the list.
10:43 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, it is very interesting and timely.
[music]
10:47 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, The Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google, SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us and you can find us by searching The BIS. That's one-word T-H-E-B-I-S. Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
The Integrity Crisis and 7 Things Business Schools Can Do About It
By Cindy Moehring
Introduction to Business Ethics
Business ethics is an integral part of the corporate world. This introductory video offers information on how it applies to everyone in business, and the importance of integrating the topic in a practical way throughout a business school’s curriculum. Continue through this series to learn more about the principles of business ethics and how you can apply them.
Podcast
Episode Transcript
[music]
00:03 Cindy Moehring: Welcome to this edition of the BIS, The Business Integrity School, your resource for practical tips from a business ethics pro who's been there. I'm Cindy Moehring, the founder and executive chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Joining me today is Dr. Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College.
00:21 Dr. Matt Waller: Cindy Moehring had a 20-year experience at Walmart, and she was Chief Ethics Officer. And so that's why one of the reasons she's leading this initiative is she's also passionate about it. And we're trying to bring more of this into the college. We already have a course on ethics, business ethics, but we think it needs to be more pervasive in the college and also outreach focused as well. So thank you for joining us.
00:50 Cindy Moehring: Sure.
00:51 Dr. Matt Waller: Why is business integrity important today?
00:55 Cindy Moehring: Well, it's really important in many respects but it almost seems as though it's been normalized in our society right now, so we're kind of at the pivotal moment of helping people really understand what is going on in the news that they hear today and how do they make sense of it. And some of the statistics you've seen lately are a little alarming, when in 2018, the number one reason for CEO departures from companies of the world's largest companies, the 2500, was for unethical behavior. That was the number one reason, that was more than poor financial performance and more than not getting along with their boards. And we saw a similar trend in 2019 and those numbers are still coming in, but it was a high trend again. And so, again, I think we're just at this point where we've almost normalized unethical behavior, where people can't make sense of all this news that's coming at them so quickly. So it's a perfect time in the time of Walton college where you already have the "be epic" values with integrity, embedded into the professionalism value to really bring that to life in an entirely integrated very practical, very experiential approach for students and really all the stakeholders of Walton College.
02:11 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, you know, one of the articles we're gonna talk about is the article that was from Harvard Business Review in 1993. And in that article it said that something like 75% of the business schools were working to include business ethics into their curriculum. And I think it's probably 100% now. I think the difference is, though, I think most business schools, could say they have it, but is it a part of their culture?
02:41 Cindy Moehring: That's right.
02:44 Dr. Matt Waller: Does every student get exposed to it? And is it a part of how they do business?
02:49 Cindy Moehring: Right, right, right. And I also think that in addition to a kind of pervasive in the culture, how is it really being taught? So, one of the things they talked about in the article about what's really wrong with business ethics and business schools and how it's being taught is that it's pretty philosophical, has been over the years pretty general and very impractical, and so it's...
03:13 Dr. Matt Waller: I remember in undergraduate I took a class called Ethics and my mom thought it was a really good idea.
[laughter]
03:24 Dr. Matt Waller: I'm like, they're not teaching me anything about what you would think of as ethics.
03:28 Cindy Moehring: Right, right. Business managers need to be able to have very practical information to deal with, they're trying to figure out when they get out into business. How do I design an organization that has the right kind of checks and balances, but isn't overly bureaucratic? How do I design a compensation system that's gonna incent people in the right way but yet not drive them to try to get results the wrong way? So real practical.
03:57 Dr. Matt Waller: You know about this experiment I did? Where I over a three-week period, I looked every day at the Wall Street Journal, to see seven days a week, to just find a business integrity violation to read about it and think about it. And I couldn't believe that it was easy to do, there were usually multiple in the Wall Street Journal every day. At some point it can kind of weigh on you reading about those things. So as we talk through these things, I think one of our challenges is going to be making it palatable for people.
04:31 Cindy Moehring: I agree. There's some good news stories out there too.
04:34 Dr. Matt Waller: There are.
04:34 Cindy Moehring: So we'll be sure to highlight some of those. But it's also cutting through all that noise so that it doesn't feel so heavy and helping people understand how to organize that information that's coming at them. So that they can avoid some of those same mistakes. I think in all those stories, the new cycles so fast, it comes out, you kind of shake your head, shrug your shoulders and move on. But I don't think enough people are stopping to think about what if that were me? Or what if that were my company? And what are the simple, practical tips that I can be employing and my company can be employing to make sure that that isn't me? 'Cause things happen.
05:11 Dr. Matt Waller: And everyone thinks they're ethical and everyone tries to be ethical.
05:17 Cindy Moehring: Yeah, yeah.
05:17 Dr. Matt Waller: But you see all these failures out there.
05:19 Cindy Moehring: Right.
05:19 Dr. Matt Waller: And so that tells us that anybody could fall.
05:22 Cindy Moehring: Sure.
05:22 Dr. Matt Waller: So it has to be top of mind, you need to understand it if you're gonna be in business, and everyone's in business, and everyone knows that.
05:28 Cindy Moehring: And everyone is in business absolutely. So it is something that everyone needs to understand and relate to. And be able to make sense of, so that they don't find themselves in one of those situations. Reputations get tattered and careers get destroyed, and lives get altered, and sometimes companies get brought to their knees. And those are very painful experiences to work through. So, we're gonna make it engaging and talk about current events and make it very practical and principle-based and simple to understand.
06:00 Dr. Matt Waller: Now, you introduced to me, some principles that were from an article you read, and that's what we're gonna include in this, is that right?
06:10 Cindy Moehring: It is, it is. The main lesson I would say and the practical tip to learn from today is; business schools, while we have made some progress I think over the years, there's still more room to go or we wouldn't be seeing all these stories in the Wall Street Journal or in all the other sources that we've got. So I think the real practical tip, is you've got to focus on how can you make it practical, how can you break it down into the very basic principles, and really focus on making it an integrated approach. So, you're hitting all of the business school students and helping them learn it in an experiential way.
06:44 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, and people that are actually practicing business right now will benefit from this too.
06:49 Cindy Moehring: And they're gonna learn from the same lessons too. This is like one of those life-long learning opportunities. We're gonna try to help those that are gonna enter the workforce learn it, but also help those that are already in the workforce make sense of all of this, so they can become better as well.
07:02 Dr. Matt Waller: Well, thank you for being willing to help us with this initiative.
07:04 Cindy Moehring: Happy to, excited to be here.
[music]
07:08 Cindy Moehring: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The BIS, The Business Integrity School. You can find us on YouTube, Google, SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us and you can find us by searching The BIS, that's one word, "T-H-E-B-I-S". Tune in next time for more practical tips from a pro.
What We're Doing
The Sam M. Walton College of Business began the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative
in January 2020 to bring a more comprehensive, strategic and influential approach
to business ethics for our students and other stakeholders.
We are equipping future business leaders with a mindset that encourages them to act with integrity. We are also equipping current business leaders with a mindset that encourages them to lead with integrity for long-term, sustainable business success.
We’re accomplishing this by creating and sharing thought leadership and encouraging innovation through three channels: education, research and outreach. Our Initiative’s approach is practical, integrated, and experiential in nature.
Vision:
Promote thought leadership and ongoing inquiry among scholars, students, business leaders, and regulators to address the evolving ethical challenges inherent in our increasingly complex global business world and foster a culture of integrity within organizations.
Mission:
To advance and disseminate business ethics knowledge and to encourage innovation in the practice of business integrity.
- Education - Develop innovative and experiential educational courses and opportunities to advance the understanding of practical business integrity issues, foster sound norms of ethical reasoning, and influence students to become responsible business citizens who act and lead with integrity.
- Research - Produce and publish transformative research on matters related to the ethical challenges individuals and organizations face in business and the increasingly interdependent global marketplace.
- Outreach - Create externally oriented programs designed to bring business leaders, students, scholars, and regulators together to provide analysis and discourse on the complex business integrity issues that exist for individuals and organizations in the global business community and in the regulation of global economies.
Why It Matters
In business, managers and leaders must act and lead with integrity to attain long-term, sustainable business success. That means all business students, and those managing and leading businesses need to understand business ethics, and how it affects a company’s strategy and operations.
"Personal and moral integrity is one of our basic fundamentals and it has to start with each of us."
- Sam Walton
To thrive, companies must be trusted. Studies indicate that stakeholders base their
trust in a company primarily on their view of that company’s ethics.
Despite this, business leaders and even some CEOs fail to understand that their own unethical behavior affects how stakeholders view their company’s culture of ethics and integrity. In the past few years, we have unfortunately seen a record number of CEOs let go for unethical behavior.
With this Initiative, Walton College is poised to help reverse this trend and positively affect the amount of trust that current and future business leaders create for stakeholders.
A Message from the Founder and Executive Chair
Cindy comes to the Walton College with over 27 years of leadership experience, most recently at Walmart, Inc., where she spent the last 20 years collaborating with the Walmart Board of Directors, four of the five Walmart CEOs, C-suite executives, and other senior leaders to drive global, technology, culture, risk management and governance change across the enterprise.
Cindy spearheaded the transformation of Walmart’s global culture of integrity in the wake of Walmart’s foreign corrupt practices act investigation. She developed and implemented a global ethics program in 27 countries for over 2 million employees.
She also led a multi-disciplinary, 400-person ethics and compliance department and implemented blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to advance controls in critical regulatory risk areas existing in over 5,000 U.S. facilities.
Cindy also drove the modernization of Walmart’s global corporate governance and enterprise risk management practices. She regularly reported to the Audit Committee, interfaced with and presented to the Walmart Board of Directors, and served as a key, senior leader of the Walmart Global Governance and Walmart U.S. business leadership teams.
Externally, Cindy is the immediate past Chair of the Board of the Ethics and Compliance Association. She also served as a Director for the Ethics Research Center. She has served locally on the board of the Ruth I. Kolpin Family Foundation for 20 years, and as a board member of the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of Girls on the Run.
Cindy is a licensed attorney with a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center, where she graduated magna cum laude. She also graduated summa cum laude from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Science degree.
I’m excited to join the Sam M. Walton College of Business as the Founder and Executive Chair of the Business Integrity Leadership Initiative.
Operating with integrity was a core principle for Sam Walton, our college’s namesake, and how he ran his business, Walmart. This same focus has been carried over into the values of Walton College – excellence, professionalism, innovation and collegiality (EPIC).
Integrity is called out as one of the core behaviors that define “professionalism.” Because integrity is already woven into the values, Walton College is well-positioned to take a more comprehensive approach to integrating business ethics into the culture of the college itself, and the experience of all students and business stakeholders.
I am thrilled to be here and have the opportunity to work with the amazing faculty, staff and students who are eager to take business integrity to the next level at Walton College!
Connect with Us
Engage with our initiative on social media, and get updates from our email newsletter.
News of Note
Noteworthy Papers/Articles
- Building a Culture of Honor and Integrity in a Business School
- Teaching Business Ethics: The Principles Approach
- Principled Artificial Intelligence: Mapping Consensus in Ethical and Rights-based Approaches to Principles for AI
Activities / Events
- University of Arizona case competition, October 2020
- February 2020: Sponsored APPE’s annual workshop for University Ethics Center Directors. Over 40 different universities represented.
- April 2020: Presenting Partner sponsorship of IBECC’s 23rd Annual International Business Ethics Case Competition
- Six students involved in IBECC's April 2020 Moral Compass Competition, and three students placed!
Faculty and Staff Engagement
- Creation of an Academic Advisory Board at Walton College for Business Integrity Leadership
- Creation of an Staff Committee at Walton College for Business Integrity Leadership
