BY JESSICA GUO The first of three Company Snapshots, these research-based pieces by guest author Jessica Guo look at aspects of successful companies that can be examined for strategy and information of benefit to both active businesses and the academics that study them. Additional Company Snapshots will be published on Mondays for the next two weeks. Company Snapshots: At Costco, Culture…
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY JOSHUA ELLE Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Successby Adam GrantPenguin Group (2013) (public library)Summarized by Joshua Elle Overview Adam Grant combines personal accounts and contemporary research, both made readily accessible, to build a case for thinking of people as takers, matchers, and givers. He shows how givers tend…
BY DAVID DOBOLYI INTRODUCTION Every organization must confront the challenge of motivating its work force. From research on fairness in organizational contexts (‘organizational justice research’) we know that fairness is one key. Organizational justice research consistently finds that employees are more motivated when they feel that organizational resources are allocated fairly, that organizational decisions are made in fair ways, and…
Ethical Systems’ Breaking the FeverPodcast Series on Climate Change – Episode 5 Episode 5 featured Damon Silvers, special counsel at the AFL-CIO. From the echoes of corporate power in the 1920s to the reverberations of the 2008 crisis, from workers’ rights to the instability of the financial system, this was an exciting journey through the…
Ethical Systems’ Breaking the FeverPodcast Series on Climate Change – Episode 20 In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Marsha Ershaghi Hames about how COVID-19 has shaped and continues to shape, the way corporate leaders respond to challenges not only to their business models but also how they are evolving their dialogue with…
This TED Talk looks at what’s changed at Verizon during the COVID-19 pandemic and how to lead and communicate during a time of change. Craig Silliman, Verizon’s executive vice president and chief administrative, legal and public policy officer, discusses not only how to meet the challenge of COVID-19, but also how outside events can spur…
An employer’s right to discipline employees for actions outside the workplace is not always clear-cut. Even in states covered by “at will” employment — where the law allows you to terminate an employee for any reason, or no reason — firing employees for activities outside the workplace can be illegal due to privacy, anti-discrimination or…
Robert Greenleaf’s concept of “servant leadership” prioritizes the well-being of the team, rather than focusing solely on achievement. This short video identifies 10 characteristics central to the development of servant leadership. An effective servant leader builds better organizations and promotes justice and empathy in the larger world. This video originally appeared on YouTube on June 30,…
Better Business Bureau Ethics TORCH Award Finalist Lakeshirts Blue 84 from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, builds their business by following five ethics rules and involving employees in the success of the company. Used by kind permission of the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota & North Dakota. Originally published on November 28, 2018.
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden elicited some playful teasing when, early in his presidential campaign, he rather quirkily took to quoting Immanuel Kant, the renowned German philosopher. In various venues, he’d paraphrase what Kant, in one formulation, called his “categorical imperative”—to treat people as ends in themselves, never as a means. On the talk…