Causes, Effects and Solutions Anyone who has read my blog over the years knows I believe that the moral values of Americans are in decline. This is an important issue to discuss, especially in light of the debate between former President Trump and President Joe Biden tomorrow night. Should we care about the perceived moral values of each candidate? I believe so since the next president will be the leader of our country and, indeed, the free world. Shouldn’t we care whether they are good or bad? Whether they do the right or wrong thing? It’s easy to say that moral values are in decline. All on ..read more

Measuring Sustainability Performance I have previously blogged about the link between ESG reporting and sustainability. In this blog, I will briefly address the question of whether gathering and reporting ESG data really matters. ESG reporting provides a specific framework for evaluating and measuring a company’s sustainability performance. It assesses a company’s ESG-related risks and opportunities by providing a standardized approach for stakeholders, including investors, creditors, regulators and society in general, to assess corporate sustainability. ESG Factors? ESG is a broad range of n ..read more

      The following is the program for the 28th Annual Ethics Symposium sponsored by the Public Interest Section of the American Accounting Association to be held on August 11, 2024, in Washington, D.C. You can register for the Symposium on the website of the American Accounting Association (https://aaahq.org/Meetings/2024/Annual-Meeting). Continuing Professional Education is provided for attending these sessions as indicated in the program. Ethics Research Symposium Sunday, August 11, 2024 7:00 am – 8:00 am           Br ..read more

Do What We Say, Not What We Do No, it is not about washing your clothes in a responsible way. Ethics Washing refers to the practice of ethical window dressing. It is where an organization gives lip service to ethics to make it seem as though it acts responsibly but does not do anything to make sure that, in fact, it is occurring in practice. Ethics is mainly for show. In other words, the organization adopts the position: “We are an ethical organization. Just look at these policies.” An example of ethics washing is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies of organizations ..read more

The Decline of Moral Values in Society I have blogged many times before about the decline of moral values in America. We are falling off a cliff in that regard. Let’s face it: We have lost our moral compass as a society and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Just consider the following: Gun violence in our streets has risen by epic proportions. Racial injustice persists in our society. Black Americans have been gunned down by police for inexplicable reasons even with the #blacklivesmatter movement. Sexual harassment in the workplace has not been abated even after the ..read more

Ignoring Quality Controls to Maximize Profits The case of Boeing and its manufacturing deficiencies and production flaws is a tale of what can happen when a company puts profitability over safety. Most readers will be aware of the Boeing airplane crashes between 2018 and 2024 that threatened the very existence of a manufacturing company whose name was once synonymous with engineering excellence. What you may not know is the extent to which Boeing ignored manufacturing deficiencies that led to flaws in the MAX line of planes. As a result, hundreds of passengers lost their lives. Boeing hid the ..read more

How Corporate Culture Drove Decision-Making The story of Boeing is it placed profits ahead of safety and the result has been a series of crashes/mechanical problems that have led to inspections by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and litigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In this blog I will address the culture at Boeing that led to taking shortcuts in the production process and the role of whistleblowers to point this out to management. In my next blog, I will discuss the SEC actions taken against Boeing. An article in Business Week addresses the problems ..read more

California Dreaming No More California used to be the dream state to live in. However, things have been changing during the past several years. There are many reasons for the shift including the high cost of living, including paying about $1 more per gallon for gasoline than in other states, "smash-and-grab" crimes that are plaguing many large cities with mobs of thieves making off with expensive goods in brazen, mostly nighttime raids, shuttered businesses as a result of the increase in crime, filthy streets, crumbling infrastructure, an increase in the homeless living on the streets, and a ..read more

The Value of Soft Skills I recently read an interesting article on Forbes Advisor online that addresses the importance of soft skills in the workplace. According to the article, “Soft skills—also known as “people skills” or “interpersonal skills”—are a set of personal attributes and abilities that allow individuals to effectively interact with others in a professional setting. At their core, these include the ability to collaborate effectively, manage time and communicate with clarity, among others.” I have championed soft skills in my teaching of ethics because it encompasses several of thos ..read more

Creating an Ethical Framework to Mitigate Risk I have previously blogged about the problem of creating an ethical framework and processes for AI. AI can improve human decision-making, but it has its limits. The possibility exists that bias in algorithms can create an ethical risk that brings into question the reliability of the data produced by the system. Bias can be accounted for through explainability of the data, reproducibility in testing for consistent results and auditability. Ethics Risks We often hear that AI systems must mitigate bias by understanding the workings of sophistica ..read more