Video replay of the virtual event held via Zoom on Wednesday, April 28, 2021.
Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, is joined by business ethics interns Isabella Draskovic ’21 and Jonathan Sampson ’22 to interview Kirk Hanson, senior fellow and former executive director at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics about Hanson’s recent book, and the ethics of corporate misconduct.
After 50 years of campaigning for ethical behavior in business, former Markkula Center executive director Kirk Hanson and his coauthor, Marc Epstein of Rice University, have asked why unethical behavior still occurs so frequently in business. Their recent book, ROTTEN: WHY CORPORATE MISCONDUCT CONTINUES AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, gives their answer to this critical question and describes why attempts by corporate executives, corporate ethics officers, government regulators, and a generation of business ethics professors like themselves have failed to stop misconduct.
Hanson and Epstein believe corporate misconduct is embedded in the failure of companies to rein in bad apples (individuals), bad barrels (corporate cultures), and bad orchards (corrupt industries and competitive markets). They believe companies have allowed bad apples to remain in the company, bad cultures to produce one scandal after another, and bad orchards to create the cynical belief in business and business students that you have to take the low road to be competitive and successful.
Hanson returns to the Markkula Center to present the argument he and Epstein make, and to suggest ways we CAN now encourage better conduct by businesses and business executives.
