Leadership and Corporate Accountability Class: Leadership & Corporate Accountability Classes teach MBAs to avoid chasing money down sewers. Ethical moments do not come with labels. M x F = D which means that a court decision (D) is the product of a legal model (M) and the facts (F). Is bluffing true ethics? Business seems to be about playing with a set of rules, and not seeking the higher ground. If you found out that hackers had broken into your credit card system you are obligated to tell your customer immediately. If you are bluffing your business with people’s lives in the balance, you are breaking an ethical code in many peoples opinion…think Jeff Skilling at ENRON. HBS shoulders a lot of blame over the years in business, so they have tried to quantify ethics, and leadership to counter-act this problem. People are taught accounting on the condition that they do not then manipulate their company’s earnings or minimize taxes to such an extent that it amounts to crime or ethical problems.
Lavish Executive Compensation: mediocre CEOs in the US and Europe are habitually paying themselves as if they are entrepreneurs or athletes. Is this wrong? Friedman hated the idea of companies donating to museums or sending employees to work in homeless shelters. That is robbing shareholders. Companies have a moral and economist purpose. The best employees want to work for good companies with good cultures, not just maximizing ones.