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This article describes the shameful episode where the doyens of Australian cricket leadership indulged in grubby cheat tactics in front of 30 cameras for the world to see letting themselves, their sport, the baggy green, their fans, and the rest of the country down. When the leadership team apparently encourages the laws of the game to be breached, how can anyone ever take them seriously again?

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Updated March 26, 2018 08:04:19

Australia's stand-in captain Tim Paine has revealed Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft are going through emotional turmoil following a "strange, horrible 24 hours" after admitting to their role in the ball-tampering scandal that has rocked Australia cricket.

Smith was stood down as Australia captain for the remainder of the third Test against South Africa, which the tourists lost by 322 overnight in Cape Town, before being handed a one-match ban by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Australia vice-captain David Warner was also removed from his position on the fourth day in Cape Town.

The ICC did not ban Bancroft, instead punishing his ball-tampering charge with a hefty fine and three demerit points.

Paine, who was appointed interim captain, said both Smith and Bancroft were trying to come to terms with the ramifications of the scandal.

"They're not great. It's been a horrible 24 hours, they're struggling but probably the reality and the enormity of what's happened is starting to sink in," Paine said.

"Maybe some did [underestimate how bad it was]. I don't think we all would have expected this to be as big as it has been and particularly the fallout that we have seen from back home.

"The reality and enormity of it has sunk in."

Paine would not be drawn on whether Smith and Australia coach Darren Lehmann should continue in their posts.

"That's I think something that might come up this week," he said.

"But there's an internal review that's going to take place in the next few days and until that's happened, no-one will be making any comment on anything like that."

Paine also would not entertain the prospect of replacing Smith in a full-time capacity.

"There'll be a review this week. I'm not sure what's going to happen," he said.

"I don't think anyone is, so it's an impossible question to answer.

"Not the circumstances that anyone would like to be sitting here. Really bizarre, strange, horrible 24 hours."

Du Plessis understanding of Smith's position

South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis chose his words wisely in Cape Town when asked about Smith's likely mindset amid the ball-tampering furore.

Du Plessis pleaded guilty to the charge of ball tampering in a 2013 Test. He rubbed the ball on the zipper of his pants pocket and umpires awarded a five-run penalty against the Proteas.

He maintained his innocence in 2016, when footage emerged of him using a mint to help shine the ball during a Test against Australia in Hobart but never beat the charge of ball tampering.

Du Plessis still has the resultant three demerit points on his record from 'mintgate'.

"I can understand it's a really tough time for him to be in right now," du Plessis said.

"Obviously the situation I was in was really difficult for me as well. Because people were attacking me, my personality and my character.

"And I felt it was wrong. It wasn't fair. I don't know he feels about his own situation.

"Ball shining versus ball tampering, they're two very different situations. One is definitely much more serious than the other."

Du Plessis, generally forthright in his dealings with the media, was relatively diplomatic when asked whether Smith cheated.

"It's difficult for me to answer. What he did is against the ICC rule book. He knows that, he's owned up to it," he said.

"It's not right to do that but he's put his hand up and I suppose now he can try and move forward and the Australian team are going to try and move forward.

"He's trying to take responsibility, so there's right in that."

Du Plessis was not surprised by how Smith's compatriots back home reacted to the indiscretion.

"When I was in Australia it felt like the same. I was being followed everywhere I went," du Plessis said.
AAP/ABC
First posted March 26, 2018 08:03:13

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Smith, Bancroft 'struggling' as impact of ball-tampering scandal hits home

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Updated March 26, 2018 08:04:19 Australia's stand-in captain Tim Paine has revealed Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft are going through emotional turmoil following a "strange, horrible 24 hours" after admitting to their role in the ball-tampering scandal that has rocked Australia cricket.

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The jewels, the designer and Liberal Party donor: Julie Bishop facing new questions over disclosures

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The jewels, the designer and Liberal Party donor: Julie Bishop facing new questions over disclosures

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Two areas of unethical behaviour are highlighted in Bourke’s (2018) article concerning Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop. One is as follows:

Ms Bishop has accepted gifts of high-end jewellery from friend and Liberal Party Doner, designer Margot McKinney without declaring them in the Parliament Register of Interest (Bourke, 2018).

Ms Bishop has been photographed more than 50 times wearing the jewels with celebrities and at fashion events, which she has posted on Instagram, to which Ms McKinney has reposted, essentially promoting her products (Bourke, 2018).

The Register of Interest, which is made public, require gifts over $300 to be declared as well as any other dealings that could be seen as a conflict of interest (Bourke, 2018). The author provides a comment from Ms McKinney concerning the ownership of the jewels, though she refused to comment (Bourke, 2018). The article could be even stronger if effort was made to contact Ms Bishop as well as Ms McKinney in relation to the Register, even if she declined to comment.

The article demonstrated likely unethical and non-transparent actions from a person who holds a leadership position.

References
Bourke, L. (2018, March 3). The jewels, the designer and Liberal Party donor: Julie Bishop facing new questions over disclosures. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-jewels-the-designer-and-liberal-party-donor-julie-bishop-facing-new-questions-over-disclosures-20180301-p4z2dp.html

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Border Force commissioner sacked for helping girlfriend get job

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Border Force commissioner sacked for helping girlfriend get job

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Wroe’s (2018) article details Roman Quaedvlieg, the former Border Force Commissioner’s recent dismissal, following a 10-month investigation by the PM&C Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

The ethical issues surrounding the case involved Mr Quaedvlieg failing to disclose his relationship status with a woman who was applying for a job and meant that he ultimately had influence over the final decision of her appointment.

Not only did Mr Quaedvlieg fail to disclose separation from wife and new relationship with a member of staff, he made a made a false statement to the then minister for Immigration, dismissing allegations of relations with himself and his co-worker.

Further, Mr Quaedvlieg altered the recruitment processes and made omissions to his girlfriend’s application to advantage her above other worthwhile candidates.
Mr Queadvlieg abused his position of leadership in favour of a sexual partner over all other applicants and this is not ethical.

References
Wroe, D. (2018, March 15). Border Force commissioner sacked for helping girlfriend get job. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/border-force-commissioner-sacked-for-helping-girlfriend-get-job-20180315-p4z4i0.html

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'You're fired!': Who Donald Trump has sacked and who has resigned during his time as president

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'You're fired!': Who Donald Trump has sacked and who has resigned during his time as president

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President Donald Trump was sworn in as leader of the White House on January 20 2017. In a little more than a year, 20 members of staff have turned over. The article by Chris Graham neatly summarises those who have voluntarily resigned, been dismissed and the issues leading to each event.

Graham (2018) subtly sways the reader to suggest that Trump’s leadership is dictatorial or as DuBrin (2016) calls it, “a personalised power motive,” (p. 54). The summary of events highlight’s Trump’s scant emotional intelligence in maintaining relationships with his team evidenced by the high ration of staff turn-over. Graham (2018) suggests an inflated self-awareness in Trump’s ousting of James Comey, Trump stating he decided to “just do it”; his poor relationship management shown when The President repeatedly publicly criticised Andrew McCabe who resigned in January; and the recent dismissal of Rex Tillerson via social media, not in person.

Graham (2018) presents the article in a straightforward, open way with the aim of letting the reader decide their own opinion on The President’s actions. The tone of the introduction does suggest Trump is ruthless and unsystematic in his approach to dismissal, however, it could be argued that Trump is merely reshuffling his cabinet, so he has the right personalities that will complement his own to make a solid team.  Critiquing further, Graham (2018) could have, for consistency, included a summary profile on everyone in the article. Graham (2018) includes a profile on Michael Flynn and Reince Priebus but 18 individuals remain without summaries.

References
DuBrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 223). Cengage Learning.

Graham, C. (2018, March 13). 'You're fired!': Who Donald Trump has sacked and who has resigned during his time as president. The Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/fired-donald-trump-has-sacked-has-resigned-time-president/

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Stella McCartney's   commitment to ethical fashion in Paris.

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Stella McCartney's   commitment to ethical fashion in Paris.

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We live in socially conscious climate in which more and more people are pledging their commitment to sustainability, the details undeniably matter and can be favourable for business. On the catwalk in Paris that theory was brought to life in a show that combined menswear and womenswear for the first time and focused on twisted tailoring of fabrics that are 100% compostable using no water, chemicals, dyes or pesticides combining fur-free fur, skin-free skin, faux leather and “loop” trainers that use special stitching instead of glue.

The leadership vision of Stella McCartney has persevered since starting in 2001. Standing up for what she believes in for the industry for a chance to re-evaluate and modernise the world of fashion using determination to take it to the highest level.

McCartney reflects the epitome of ethical leadership with a directed focus on fashion trends towards sustainability and to persuade others it’s doable with no compromise and its values for global welfare.

References:

Marriott, Hannah. (March 2018). The Guardian: Ethical fashion is order of the day for Stella McCartney in Paris. Retrieved 15th March 2018 from: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/mar/05/ethical-fashion-stella-mccartney-paris-fashion-week

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Studies that tested toxic fumes on humans and monkeys

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Studies that tested toxic fumes on humans and monkeys

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This article exposes harmful events in which humans and monkeys inhaled harmful gases, including nitrogen dioxide — a component of car exhaust which was ultimately financed by German car maker Volks wagon.

one study at a German university involved, 25 human subjects exposed to toxic gases - nitrogen dioxide every week, over four weeks to note the effects to the lungs and approved by the university’s ethics committee.

In the same period an experiment that forced monkeys to inhale car exhaust involving 10 cynomolgus macaque monkeys in airtight containers and fed them fumes from a running diesel Volkswagen Beetle to compare the fumes’ effects to those from a 1999 Ford diesel pickup.

These tests on monkeys or even people are in no ethical way justifiable and raise many critical questions to the leaders who approved the test it was poor judgement on leaders involved who ignored the ethical implications. There are laws that leaders must follow when involving life and serve a purpose of scientific pursuit but to always be committed to the humane and ethical treatment of humans or animals involved in any research,

References:

Golgowsk, Nina. (February 2018). Huffpost: German Carmakers Paid For Studies That Tested Toxic Fumes On Humans And Monkeys. Retrieved 15th March 2018 from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/study-monkeys-vw-exhaust-fumes_us_5a6f5006e4b06e25326a3a9b

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Harvard and Stanford addressing the ethical dark side.

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Harvard and Stanford addressing the ethical dark side.

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The Universities are offering new course on the ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence titled 'Ethical Foundations of Computer Science' and brings morality to computer science to train the next generation of technologists and policymakers to consider the ramifications of innovations — like autonomous weapons or self-driving cars — before those products go on sale.

Leaders must understand Technology is not neutral and have social ramifications and at this moment big tech companies are struggling to handle the side effects that come from a mentality of build-it-first fix things later attitude that has generally dismissed ethics as a hindrance.

The technological tools today have ultimately altered human society, universities are rushing to help students understand the potential consequences where students learn to deal with ethical challenges  which enhances leadership capabilities where a lot of ethically charged decision-making has to do with the choices the leaders of the company makes.

References:

Singer, Natasha. (FEB 2018). The New York Times: Tech’s Ethical ‘Dark Side’: Harvard, Stanford and Others Want to Address It. Retrieved 15th March 2018 from:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/business/computer-science-ethics-courses.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FEthics&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=24&pgtype=collection

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Australian managers don't have what it takes to be a good leader

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Australian managers don't have what it takes to be a good leader

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In recent studies, it has shown that Australian managers are increasingly lacking in leadership skills. A study conducted by LinkedIn found that 69% of human resources decision-makers have said the filling leadership positions has become increasingly difficult through Australia and New Zealand. Businesses are having to make do with management staff with underdeveloped leadership skills having a frustrating outcome for Australian businesses.

This increasing lack in leadership skills in one of the biggest challenges as companies require effective leaders to ensure their success as an organisation. There is an emphasis on managers not having the “soft” leadership skills required to be an effective leader. Because leaders of large companies have a responsibility to ensure that their doing will be beneficial to society, companies will struggle to thrive if they can’t find leaders with the right skills to ensure that ethical decisions will be made throughout all levels of management.

Australian managers don't have what it takes to be leaders. (2018). Business Insider Australia. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-managers-dont-have-what-it-takes-to-be-leaders-2016-9

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United apologises after dog dies on flight

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United apologises after dog dies on flight

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A flight attendant on a United Airlines flight instructed a family to place their pet dog in one of the overhead bins after ensuring the owner it would be safe to do so. People on the flight did question this decision at the time but no one really challenged it as the flight attendant seemed sure that placing the dog there was an acceptable thing to do.

In this situation, the flight attendant had a responsibility and was in a position of authority over the passengers when she made a decision that resulted in the death of someone’s family pet. It is appalling that someone would suggest this be done in the first place and shows no forethought or consideration for the animal when the safety of every living thing on board should have been her foremost priority. It shows a complete lack of consideration for the animal’s welfare.

Airline under fire as dog dies in overhead bin. (2018). NewsComAu. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/united-apologises-after-dog-dies-on-flight/news-story/87aac83b2810e7acbf1ce94474a5faa5

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Passenger Dragged off overbooked united airlines flight

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Passenger Dragged off overbooked united airlines flight

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In May 2017, United Airlines were making news headlines after a man who refused to give up his seat on an over booked flight was dragged by security off the aircraft. The man was asked to remove himself from the flight to make room for four United Airlines employees. This incident caused an uproar on social media by people who disagreed with the decision to remove the man from the plane and sparked a debate as to whether overbooking flights should be legal.

Despite the Airline trying to defend their actions the CEO eventually issued a formal apology regarding the incident. This example goes to show how important leadership is in times where there is an ethical issue in question. The CEO’s decision to try and defend the Airlines actions drastically affected the airlines profitability after people started to question the airline’s corporate policies.

United Airlines shows it’s time to reframe the conversation about ethics. (2018). Ethics.org.au. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from http://www.ethics.org.au/on-ethics/blog/may-2017/united-airlines-time-to-reframe-the-conversation

Jessica Walters

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This article published by Al Jazeera in 2016 outlines how Bashar Al Assad rose to power and has maintained his position as Syria’s Leader.

During the Araba Spring Bashar promised his people change, he stated “We have to keep up as a state and as institutions," he added, "Political, administrative, economic: These are the changes we need." While he has delivered somewhat economic prosperity for the wealthy of Syria he has failed to deliver political and administrative change. There is speculation that this is due to his, limited political experience his professional background being a doctor. During the Arab Spring he has relied on advisors that lead under his father’s authoritative rule and again it has been speculated that he has relied excessively on these advisors when managing crisis and threat of losing control. It appears after these events his leadership stance has reflected his father's authoritative hardline policy towards Israel, in January 2012 he addressed the public that he would crush "terrorism" with an "iron fist".

Ethical leadership implies the individual must reflect integrity and authenticity, without these attributes deterioration of followership may occur. To navigate crisis effectively a leader must be decisive, lead with compassion, think strategically, display optimism and be a transformational leader.

This calls to question the type of leadership power Bashar possesses. Having displayed coercive behaviours that have been reactive, is this most effective in achieving organisational goals or his promises to his people.

References:

Hu, Z. (2016). Why Bashar al-Assad is still in power. Aljazeera.com. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/syria-bashar-al-assad-power-160904081138141.html

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The article published by BBC News is regarding Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and her stance on immigration policy during 2015.

In 2015, over 1 million immigrants entered Germany due to conflict in the Middle East. Merkel was confronted with the decision to open the boarders. Merkel knew the German economy would suffer and that she would lose votes as a result. Her choice to benefit the welfare of others took precedence over her own personal welfare; she displayed the characteristics of a servant leader.

Many people lost faith in her leadership as a result of this decision and wanted to send the Syrians out due to the initial strain on infrastructure and arising social issues.  Despite these external pressures Merkel would continually say ‘Let them in’, her integrity and authenticity did not falter when challenged. She displayed the characteristics of an ethical leader abiding by primary values acceptable to both the organisation and society.

Within an organisation leaders are confronted with decisions that may conflict with their own personal interests. Leading with integrity and authenticity provides employees with assurance and transparency, contributing to a reputation of ethical leadership. Role modelling this behaviour will influence the behaviour and conduct of the organisation. (Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley & Muntean, 2016)

References:

BBC News (2015). Angela Merkel's quiet power. BBC News. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/angela_merkel

Shaw, W., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean, D. (2016). Moral issues in business (3rd ed., p. 145). Melbourne: Cengage.

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Genevieve Hofman- Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs

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Genevieve Hofman- Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs

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In 2016 Al Jazeera conducted an interview with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Within this interview they discussed Duterte’s war on drugs and the mass killings that have resulted.

Duterte position indicates that he is a task driven leader. Within the Philippines there are over 3 million drug addicts, he views these people as an economic burden. 3500 people have been killed as a result of his strict regime, he states, ‘I would rather intimidate and strike fear in the hearts of criminals, I do not care of human rights, I have a duty to preserve future generations’. Opening rehabilitation centers is not an option, due to the annual budget ‘priorities’.

Within an organisation setting task driven leaders are effective for short term benefits. Their priorities are often to maximize shareholder wealth no matter the cost at times some leaders engage in unethical behaviour. There is a strong link between employee’s satisfaction, increased profits and the long term prosperity of an organisation. (DuBrin, 2014)

References:

DuBrin, A. (2014). Leadership (8th ed., p. 3). USA: Cengage.

Rodrigo Duterte on drugs, death and diplomacy (2016). YouTube. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2KtLTXXej8

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Euthanasia legalised in Victoria, Australia

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Euthanasia legalised in Victoria, Australia

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Euthanasia is the painless killing of a person, suffering from an incurable and painful disease or someone in irreversible coma. As of November 2017, Euthanasia become legal in Victoria, Australia but won’t commence until mid-2019.

This article focus’ on the debate and legalisation of Euthanasia in Victoria, Australia. It’s been a hot topic with people having mixed feelings on the issue. As stated by ABC News, “some conditions of being able to euthanise you must be over the age of 18, of sound mind, have lived in Victoria for at least 12 months and be suffering in a way that ‘cannot be relieved in a manner the deems tolerable’”. This statement shows that although it is legalised there are still requirements that need to be met by terminally ill patients before being able to proceed the procedure.

I’m not sure how I feel about this issue, I’m in two minds. We are brought up knowing and believing killing another person is the wrong thing to do, whereas on the other hand if I had a loved one who as suffering immensely, I would want to get rid of the pain. I guess it’s a hard one as many of us say we would do one thing and then when we are actually in the situation think the complete opposite.

According to J. DuBrin, leader political support refers to, political acts and influence behaviours performed by leaders to provide followers with valuable resources to advance individuals, groups, or organisations objectives. Premier Daniel Andrews is known to support euthanasia after the death of his father last year, he links this issue to his personal life, seen by the nation and other political personnel.  Andrews has stated, “this is a day of reform, a day of compassion, a day of giving control to those who are terminally ill.”

Euthanasia is illegal under the federal level but states and territories have legislated this issue. In years to come I believe that Euthanasia will be legalised in all states and territories in Australia.

Reference
ABC News. (2018). Euthanasia passes Parliament in Victoria. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-29/euthanasia-passes-parliament-in-victoria/9205472

J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 223). Cengage Learning.

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Updated November 29, 2017 12:38:56

Victoria has become the first state in the country to legalise assisted dying for the terminally ill, with MPs voting to give patients the right to request a lethal drug to end their lives from mid-2019.

After more than 100 hours of debate across both houses of Parliament and two demanding all-night sittings, Lower House MPs ratified the Andrews Government's amended bills.

The bill will now go to the Governor for royal assent.

Premier Daniel Andrews, who came to support euthanasia after the death of his father last year, paid tribute to colleagues, including Health Minister Jill Hennessy, for their work on the bill.

"I'm proud today that we have put compassion right at the centre of our parliamentary and our political process," he said.

"That is politics at its best and it's Victoria doing what it does best - leading our nation."

The landmark legislation passed the Upper House 22 votes to 18 last week after a number of amendments, which had to be approved by the Lower House to be enshrined in law.
Lower House MPs voted 47 to 37 in favour of the original voluntary euthanasia bill last month.
The changes included halving the timeframe for eligible patients to access the scheme from 12 months to six months to live.

There will be exemptions for sufferers of conditions such as motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis who have a life expectancy of 12 months.

The Andrews Government also pledged to spend $62 million over five years on end of life and palliative care.

New criminal offences to protect the vulnerable

Opponents of the legislation made a last-minute bid to block the legislation by proposing to defer debate indefinitely on Tuesday, but the motion was lost 46 votes to 37.

Government minister Natalie Hutchins missed the vote because she was attending her husband's funeral in New South Wales and was not granted a pair.

Under the legislation, Victorians with a terminal illness will be able to obtain a lethal drug within 10 days of asking to die,after completing a three-step process involving two independent medical assessments.

They must be over the age of 18, of sound mind, have lived in Victoria for at least 12 months and be suffering in a way that "cannot be relieved in a manner the person deems tolerable".

The patient must administer the drug themselves, but a doctor can deliver the lethal dose in rare cases where someone was physically unable to end their own life.

The legislation includes 68 safeguards, including new criminal offences to protect vulnerable people from abuse and coercion, and a special board to review all cases.

Topics: euthanasia, community-and-society, state-parliament, government-and-politics, laws, melbourne-3000, vic

First posted November 29, 2017 11:58:40

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'Compassionate' Victoria becomes first state to legalise euthanasia

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Updated November 29, 2017 12:38:56 Victoria has become the first state in the country to legalise assisted dying for the terminally ill, with MPs voting to give patients the right to request a lethal drug to end their lives from mid-2019.

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Port Arthur anniversary: Seizing the moment on gun control changed Australia, says John Howard

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Port Arthur anniversary: Seizing the moment on gun control changed Australia, says John Howard

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This article outlines an interview with former Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard. In 1996 there was a horrific mass shooting leaving 35 people dead in Port Arthur, Tasmania. Mr. Howard had been Prime Minister for 6 weeks at the time. A quote from Mr. Howard's interview; "The country was reeling, it didn't believe that something of this magnitude could happen in Australia. I thought, I have this huge majority, we have elected a new government and we have to do something".

This article looks at the actions of a man in a position of leadership from over 20 years ago. A man faced with a very difficult task of what do to in that situation. This article depicts the former Prime Minister like an industry leader. Someone who could do something about an issue that did.

What we can take away from this article is that, demonstrations of leadership such as this can be a great learning tool. However, after 17 people were murdered in a school shooting in Florida last month, Their leader took no such action other than suggesting that school staff were not well enough equipped and should all carry guns. Poor leadership.

References:

Davies, A. (2016). Port Arthur anniversary: Seizing the moment on gun control changed Australia, says John Howard. The Sydney Morning Herald.

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The importance of ethics of organization now-aday 

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The importance of ethics of organization now-aday 

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News reported by Jena McGregor has illustrate 2500 largest public companies ousted their CEO from ethical issues. This report showed that the ratio of CEO getting fire by ethical issues is increasing for recent years. In my opinion, the increasing ratio is actually illustrate how business and public is being more concern of ethical problem or issues. As the boards of organization is more focus on business ethical and social responsible image and greater scrutiny from both investors and the public.

Therefore, this news report has display the importance of developing ethics to the business. Also the concern of public reacting on ethical issues. There have a lot of organizations starting to response to clients and public of ethical issues by firing their CEO. Business image of ethical and social responsibility has become an important standard of customers’ to select organization product and service. Therefore, implementing ethical culture have become a largest subject for a lot of large organization.

Reference:

McGregor. J. (2017, May 15). More CEOs are getting forced out for ethics violations. The Vashington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/05/15/more-ceos-are-getting-forced-out-for-ethics-violations/?utm_term=.7f4a9dd437dd

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This article written by Paula Fernandes has illustrate how to become an ethical leader. The main concept of Fernandes article is to create a culture of ethics. By instill the idea of ethic to the organization, to create a sustainable ethical culture.

To successfully achieve the goal of creating ethical culture, Fernandes has analysis a few different element on creating ethical culture. Firstly, leader has to openly discuss the ethical gray areas. Employee can openly speak up about ethical issues. Also, ensure employees understand their suggestions and insights are welcome and valued.

Secondly, establish a formal ethics statement. As everyone has difference values of ethics. It is important to ensure employees to have the same standard of ethics or value. Therefore, a statement of ethics could help employees to easier to achieve the ethical standard of the organization.

Finally, reward of ethical behavior. By rewarding employees ethical action, to motivate employees actively report or react on ethical issues. Championing high ethical conduct and emphasizing prevention. Also, it is important to renew the concept of ethics to employees to create a sustainable ethical culture.

Reference:

Fernandes. P. (2017, April 3). How to be an Ethical Leader. Business News Daily. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5537-how-to-be-ethical-leader.html

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Credit: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

There is an evident difference between a leader and a boss, and the way they make those below them feel. Do they abuse their power to intimidate workers, or do they lead by example? The latter is key to managing a healthy, happy team.

"In today's transparent social media driven world, senior executives, especially those with a high profile, will be tested and called to task over their morals and ethics in how they do business," said Shane Green, author of " Culture Hacker" (Wiley, 2017). "This used to be more focused on business practices but is now shifting focus on their leadership practices as well. Businesses and their leaders are under a microscope. How they act and interact with those around them professionally will have a significant impact on their ability to attract new talent and ultimately their bottom lines."

Ethical leadership should be implemented by every person in a management position. This style of leading fosters an environment of trust and respect with workers and executives. If you want your company to reap the same benefits, follow these tips to becoming an ethical leader.

Consider the values you had growing up - treat others how you want to be treated, always say "thank you," show support to those struggling, etc. But as you grow, and as society progresses, conventions change, often causing values to shift.

"This is the biggest challenge ethics face in our culture and at work, and the biggest challenge ethical leadership faces," said Matthew Kelly, founder and CEO of FLOYD Consulting and author of " The Culture Solution" (Blue Sparrow Books, 2019). "What used to be universally accepted as good and true, right and just, is now up for considerable debate. This environment of relativism makes it very difficult for values-based leaders."

Kelly added that to find success in ethical leadership, you should demonstrate how adhering to specific values benefits the mission of the organization.

"Culture is not a collection of personal preferences," he said. "Mission is king. When that ceases to be true, an organization has begun its journey toward the mediocre middle."

Ask yourself what matters to you as an individual and then align that with your priorities as a leader. Defining your morals not only expresses your authenticity, it encourages your team to do the same, creating a shared vision for all workers.

While your ethics don't need to be the same as your workers', you should be able to establish common ground with them. This often starts with the hiring process and is maintained through a vision statement.

"I do not believe that every person is a fit for every company, and that is okay," said Green. "Companies need to do a better job ensuring they find people who are aligned with their values rather than just hiring for experience. People of every race and sexual orientation have different values, so I believe that you can still create a very diverse, respectful work culture and team that is aligned around certain ideals."

In fact, Kelly believes it's valuable to hire employees who have different experiences and perspectives, because they each offer their own solutions to challenges.

"But when it comes to values, I think having and hiring people who share your values is critical," Kelly added. "Nobody wants to work for somebody who doesn't share their values ... Without mutual respect, it is very difficult to form a dynamic team, and most people find it very difficult to respect someone who doesn't share their values."

Every employee is different, even if they share similarities. With each decision you make, be transparent and encourage feedback from your team. This helps you become a better leader and helps your workers feel more confident sharing their ideas or concerns.

"I believe that one of the important responsibilities for the modern company is to create an environment where open communication is encouraged and that, more importantly, people are listened to," said Green. "We are seeing a lot of employees calling on their companies to change policies, drop customers or take a stand on current issues. Companies cannot bend to every employee's demand, but what they do need to start executing is to create forums where employees can raise their viewpoints, feel they are listened to and receive follow-up explaining why certain things can or cannot happen."

As humans, many of us were instilled with subconscious beliefs that might be outdated or offensive today. No leader wants to admit to their flaws, but not practicing self-awareness can lead to detrimental consequences.

"Everyone has bias, but for the longest time, you were not called out on them because they were never really challenged," said Green. "Now that the workforce is more diverse, whether with race or sexual orientation/preferences, some unexposed biases are being called out. Managers need to ... look at themselves and be honest that they do in fact have biases that may impinge on another person feeling comfortable at work."

If you are an open-minded leader, you will build and maintain better relationships with your workers.

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How to Be an Ethical Leader: 4 Tips for Success

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There is an evident difference between a leader and a boss, and the way they make those below them feel. Do they abuse their power to intimidate workers, or do they lead by example? The latter is key to managing a healthy, happy team.

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VW emissions scandal: Carmaker says 'tough luck' to Australian drivers, ACCC tells court

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VW emissions scandal: Carmaker says 'tough luck' to Australian drivers, ACCC tells court

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This article discusses the suggested legal ramifications that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and its lawyers took to the Federal Court surrounding the VW emissions scandal. In the years leading up to 2015 Volkswagen released millions of diesel cars to the marketplace claiming the cars had extremely low harmful gas emissions. This was later discovered to be untrue. The company had use 'defeat devices' to alter test results in their favour.

The VW brand has for decades, been associated with excellent engineering and a high quality product however, the reason for this deceit is due to an ethical breakdown according to (Luann J. Lynch, 2016). This article published in 2016 outlines how "a combination of autocratic leadership and lack of both controls and consequences led to a corporate culture that proved fertile ground for bad decisions".

The German car manufacturer had set unrealistic targets for the companies engineers in an attempt to take control of marketshare in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

This created the ethical dilemma. Companies and their leaders need to make decisions based on other factors than just profit alone. Just like the case of VW, companies and leaders that don't will eventually lose. Ethical considerations need to be the building blocks of all decisions.

References:

Luann J. Lynch, C. S. (2016). VW EMISSIONS AND THE 3 FACTORS THAT DRIVE ETHICAL BREAKDOWN. Darden School of Business.

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Pharmaceutical Company Forced to Pay $3 Billion Over Faking Research, Bribing Doctors

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Pharmaceutical Company Forced to Pay $3 Billion Over Faking Research, Bribing Doctors

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This article goes into how one of the largest Pharmaceutical companies in the world being “GSK” not only was involved in the deaths of 14 babies during illegal vaccine trials in Argentina but also how they manipulated research evidence in medical journals.

I have personally worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years and this is by far one of the worst cases of unethical behaviour in this industry that I have witnessed in recent history. Most cases of unethical business behaviour surround money, but when this behaviour has a direct impact on the people lives then in my opinion it is particularly heinous.

The Lancet medical journal commented that this Argentine dead baby vaccine scandal exposes inadequate ‘ethical and procedural standards of trials done in developing regions of the world.’  Duh. This settlement shows Glaxo follows similar unethical business practices in the developed world with its primary pharmaceutical products.

An Australian professor wrote a revealing article about how Glaxo manipulates research evidence in medical journals. He gained this insight through internal company documents he had access to during a lawsuit.

If you think corrupt and dishonest drug companies are being honest about vaccine safety, efficacy and adverse reactions, you have been deceived by their marketing and PR departments. Glaxo is pleading guilty and paying a criminal fine of $1 billion for misreporting efficacy data and failing to report adverse safety data from post marketing studies.

By Martin Azzopardi

Reference

Belkin, M (2012) Pharmaceutical Company Forced to Pay $3 Billion Over Faking Research, Bribing Doctors

https://healthimpactnews.com/2012/pharmaceutical-company-forced-to-pay-3-billion-over-faking-research-bribing-doctors/

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Despite the recent scandals, 'business ethics' isn't a contradiction in terms

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Despite the recent scandals, 'business ethics' isn't a contradiction in terms

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This article discusses how unethical corporate behaviour will unfortunately be something that will always be around, but the irresponsible conduct of some should not tarnish those businesses that act honestly and take pride in their standard.

According to a Four Corners report, the convenience chain 7-Eleven exploits and underpays workers in many of its franchises. An insider claims that the company is built on something not much different from slavery.

This case is only the tip of the iceberg. More accounts of how businesses exploit workers, particularly foreigners, are now appearing in the media.

These reports of unethical and illegal business practices support the contention that ethical behaviour is incompatible with corporate logic. According to Carl Rhodes, a Professor of Management and Organizational Studies at Macquarie University, it is a mistake to think that businesses can be ethical.

This claim is unfair to those business people who care about ethical standards and take pride in adhering to them.

It also ignores common sense. Being unethical can be very bad for a business, as Volkswagen and 7-Eleven have discovered.

Volkswagen faces costs of billions of dollars in recalls and fines and a loss of reputation that is likely to lead to diminished sales. The founding chairman of 7-Eleven was forced to resign.

7-Eleven franchise holders who exploited workers were doing what they thought they needed to do in order to remain in business. If the survival of a company depends on cutting ethical corners, then the temptation to do so will be very strong. Unethical behaviour is more prevalent in small businesses or franchises where profit margins are small and survival is always in doubt.

By Martin Azzopardi

Reference

Thompson, J (2015). Despite the recent scandals, 'business ethics' isn't a contradiction in terms.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-05/thompson-business-ethics-isnt-a-contradiction-in-terms/6827488

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Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million For Opening Accounts Without Customers' Knowledge

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Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million For Opening Accounts Without Customers' Knowledge

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In this article it address the unethical behaviour of Wells Fargo, an American international banking and financial services holding company. The article goes into the details of the behaviour of this business in receiving financial befit by deception.

In 2015 the  city of Los Angeles sued Wells Fargo for unethical customer conduct, by secretly opening unauthorised accounts that then accrued bogus fees dating back to 2011. The total fees collected by Wells Fargo was over $2M.

Rumblings of account impropriety have been in the open since 2013, when an LA Times investigation first revealed that sales pressures led Wells employees to cut legal and ethical corners. "Wells Fargo is the nation's leader in selling add-on services to its customers," the paper wrote at the time, in an article that would go on to get the attention of the Los Angeles city attorney and lead to the city's 2015 suit against the bank. "I'm not aware of any overbearing sales culture," then-CFO (and current COO) Timothy Sloan told the Times.

The shady consumer practices didn't end at unauthorized debit and credit card accounts, consumers also found that unauthorized lines of credit were opened in their names.

In the end the unethical behaviour shown by Wells Fargo had cost them as they have reached settlements with city and federal officials totalling nearly $200 million.

By Martin Azzopardi

Reference

McGrath, M (2015). Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million For Opening Accounts Without Customers' Knowledge.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/09/08/wells-fargo-fined-185-million-for-opening-accounts-without-customers-knowledge/#79d2ea0851fc

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Trump Is Telling Foreign Leaders That the U.S. May Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, Ex-Aide Says

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Trump Is Telling Foreign Leaders That the U.S. May Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, Ex-Aide Says

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This article by Justin Worland looks at the political motives behind US President Donald Trump's decision to remove the US from the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is an agreement between 196 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As Trump stated in June of 2017 that leaving the Paris Agreement would allow the country to revive the local coal industry in the US. However, in recent weeks we have started to hear talk about Trump's return to the agreement. In this article (Worland, 2018) shares information recieved from an ex-aide to the President about his plans to use the rejoining of the agreement as political tool come the 2020 elections.

I believe that the transparency of Trump's political moves shines a light on what pathetic leadership can be demonstrated in todays' world politics. My understanding was that political agendas were meant to be more covert. The problem I have with this issue is Trump's absolute lack of care  in terms of doing the right thing. Society has evolved to understand (through science) that we have done some damage to our environment and now have to do what we can to slow that damage. Donald Trump should be thinking likewise. Another person in a leadership position, not a leader.

References:
Worland, J. (2018). Trump Is Telling Foreign Leaders That the U.S. May Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, Ex-Aide Says. Time Magazine.
http://time.com/5171805/paris-agreement-united-states-david-banks/

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benefit of being ethical conclusion on famous leader example 

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benefit of being ethical conclusion on famous leader example 

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Article written by Vivian Giang has illustrate seven famous business leaders experience on ethical issues. Cases from Binta Niambi Brown will be discuss in this articles.

Binta Niambi Brown is the CEO of Fermata Entertainment. When she was a senior associate fifteen years ago, she received some information that could sabotaged a $3 billion asset acquisition that is about to sign by her client. In this situation, Brown has chosen to tell her client the information before client signed the paper. Brown shows her ethical behavior and social responsible to her client. She gain respect and trust from her clients. Even she lost her entire deal, she gain high value business deal with this client and others because of her ethical action after this case.

Therefore, being ethical and social responsibility is a long-term investment to keep the business sustainability. Even it makes Brown lost her deal, she create an ethical and responsible business image to clients.

Reference:

Giang. V. (2015, February 6). 7 Business Leaders share how they solved the biggest moral dilemmas of their careers. Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3046630/7-business-leaders-share-how-they-solved-the-biggest-moral-dilemmas-of-their

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This article by James Epstein-Reeves explores the growth of Corporate Social Responsibility over the last few decades and how its growth has been influenced by events such as the exposure of Nike’s business model and Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line. In the 1970’s, Blue Ribbon Sports, now known as Nike had a business model that focused on finding low-cost producers overseas in order to gain advantage over its competitors; and in 1996, it was announced that Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line used child and sweatshop labour to produce clothing items.

Epstein-Reeves, J (2010) argues that these two events created placed responsibility on organisations to ensure that expectations were met in terms of actions taken with regard to social and environmental impacts of its supply chain which I tend to agree with. Organisations do not want their images tainted throughout the media like Nike in the 70’s and as such need to implement tight measures to ensure that expectations with regard to CSR are met.
By Kevin Villaver

Refences:

Epstein-Reeves, J. (2018). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2010/06/08/the-parents-of-csr-nike-and-kathie-lee-gifford/#1bead605f416 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].

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Just a few decades ago, "CSR" meant customer service representative. My, how things have changed!

Corporate social responsibility is now a profession. Business schools feature CSR curricula while the popularity of sustainability professional organizations such as Net Impact have exploded. Even CSR-focused think-tanks and trade media have proliferated: The Corporate Responsibility Officers Association joined the ranks of Ethical Corporation which followed Business for Social Responsibility that stood on the shoulders of the Center for Corporate Community Relations (now the Boston College Center on Corporate Citizenship).

It wasn't always so. CSR, as we now know it, sprung out of the apparel industry's use of sweatshop and child labor. There are two pivotal events that changed the expectations of business to evaluate the social and environmental impact of its supply chain: the exposure of Nike's business model and Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line.
NIKE TRIPS OVER ITSELF
The 1990's was not a good decade for Nike's reputation. Especially mid-decade, one might imagine that the Greek Goddess of Victory would have wanted to send down Zeus' henchmen to snatch her name back from the Oregon-based sportswear company.

Through the 1970s, when it was still known as Blue Ribbon Sports, the company focused its business model on finding low-cost producers overseas in an effort to undercut competitors and gain entry into the marketplace.

According to an academic paper by Richard Locke at the MIT Industrial Performance Center, criticism of Nike's subcontractors subverting minimum wage laws in Indonesia appeared in 1994 in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs and The New Republic. The company tried to ignore the issue, claiming it could not be held responsible for the practices of suppliers. But then in June 1996, Life magazine published pictures of a child in Pakistan assembling Nike soccer balls. This was a critical event in reshaping the company's view of its responsibility for the supply chain, according to Locke.

After a 1997 company-sponsored Ernst & Young audit of a Vietnamese factory was obtained and leaked by the Transnational Resource and Action Center (now known as CorpWatch), Nike's chairman and CEO Phil Knight issued a mea culpa.

"The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse," Knight said at a 1998 press conference at the National Press Club, as quoted in a New York Times article. It was at this conference that the company announced that it would implement a more rigorous social auditing regime and extend US operating rules and processes to its overseas contractors.

"We believe that these are practices which the conscientious, good companies will follow in the 21 st century," Knight said according to the Times. "These moves do more than just set industry standards. They reflect who we are as a company."

This was one of the watershed moments in CSR. For once, a major public company with a household-name brand took responsibility for its supply chain. No longer could companies get away with simply shrugging off the practices of its suppliers as "out of their control." As one of the most visible brands in the marketplace, Nike joined a chorus of other companies, including Levi Strauss, that adopted this expanded view of its responsibilities to producers and consumers. Nike is now considered a top corporate citizen, according to Corporate Responsibility Magazine.
KATHIE LEE PUSHES CSR TO GO "POP"
In 1996, another child labor scandal was brewing. The National Labor Committee, led by Charlie Kernaghan, announced that a Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line sold at Wal-Mart used child and sweatshop labor. Lee's first reaction was to challenge the Labor Committee to a public relations duel. In a tearful and angry reaction on her show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, she claimed that the accusations were false.

Once Kernaghan paraded factory worker Wendy Diaz around Capitol Hill to testify about her experience working in the factory, Kathie Lee and her husband Frank Gifford retraced their steps and tried to make amends with the workers. They brought paychecks to the Hill in an attempt to pay the workers a fair wage and pledged to eliminate child labor through activism in Washington.

It was because of Kathie Lee's experience that the issue of the working conditions of subcontractors entered into popular culture. For once, sweatshop working conditions left the confines of the "activist" and "corporate" public relations spin masters to join the conversation at the morning breakfast table.
AND SO IT BEGAN
These two cases cemented an expanded expectation of business to accept responsibility for the oversight of the social and environmental impacts of its supply chain. In the aftermath, companies in industries other than apparel became concerned about tarnished reputations, potential regulations, and shareholder actions and enacted CSR programs as preventative measures.

The cottage industry of CSR developed into a maturing profession. Whether or not this change in the marketplace will be permanent remains to be seen.

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The Parents Of CSR: Nike And Kathie Lee Gifford

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Just a few decades ago, "CSR" meant customer service representative. My, how things have changed! Corporate social responsibility is now a profession. Business schools feature CSR curricula while the popularity of sustainability professional organizations such as Net Impact have exploded.

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This article by Paul Klein explores the actions that Apple are taking in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as opposed to the actions that apple should be taking given their current market position. Here is apple’s statement on CSR: “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility wherever our products are made. We insist that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes.”

Apple have taken action to stop unethical practices among its suppliers, some of which include underage labour, dangers working conditions and bribery. Klein, P. (2011) argues that given Apple’s current position in the business world, more needs to be done with regard to tech giant’s impact on social change and I tend to agree with this. Klein, P. (2011) suggests that Apple are in a position to use technology to become central in fighting disease, distributing food and improving education and I believe that it is up to Apple’s leaders to implement this.
By Kevin Villaver

References:

Klein, P. (2018). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2011/08/12/where-is-apples-social-purpose/#35260026499d [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].

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corporate social responsibility Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Paul Klein , Contributor
Apple Inc., the one-time computer also-ran that changed the way the world listens to music, is now the most valuable company in the world. (See "Apple becomes world's most valuable company," The Globe and Mail.)

There's no question that Apple is a remarkable company. In addition to its business turnaround, its innovative design, and its media content and apps, the unadulterated sexiness of all its products makes Apple hard to resist. For me, what isn't hard to resist is asking: How can a company that is this extraordinary in other respects be missing in action on corporate social responsibility?

Here's what Apple says on its website: "Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility wherever our products are made. We insist that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes." You can access the company's 2011 Supplier Responsibility Report on its web site.

A review of Apple's Supplier Responsibility Report reveals that the company is taking action to stop unethical practices among is suppliers. These have included use of underage labor at 10 facilities, dangerous working conditions at two facilities, falsification of audit materials at four facilities, and bribery at one facility. It's obvious that these irresponsible actions need to be prevented. However, doing what's necessary in this area doesn't add up to CSR as it should be practiced at Apple.

(As an aside, over the last year it's been really interesting to see how central Research in Motion's Blackberry Messenger has been to social change. Albeit, not intentional and not always ethical.)

What should CSR at Apple look like? I'm sure Steve Jobs has an answer to this question, but in case he doesn't, here are a few ideas:

Page 1 / 2 Continue

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Apple Inc., the one-time computer also-ran that changed the way the world listens to music, is now the most valuable company in the world. (See "Apple becomes world's most valuable company," The Globe and Mail.) There's no question that Apple is a remarkable company. In addition to its business turnaround, its [...]

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Volkswagen researchers used monkeys and people to test diesel emissions 

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Volkswagen researchers used monkeys and people to test diesel emissions 

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This article by ABC News reports that Volkswagen have yet again been involved in another diesel scandal along with car manufacturing giants Daimler and BMW.  Reports suggest that in 2014, all 3 automakers funded a European research group known as EUGT who reportedly conducted tests in which 10 monkeys and 25 people inhaled diesel exhaust fumes. These tests were conducted in an attempt to defend diesel fuel after revelations had suggested that diesel exhaust fumes were carcinogenic.

Volkswagen have advised that members within their legal department and technical development division had been aware of these tests being carried out in 2014 however was never discussed in any management board meetings. It has however been reported that an internal email showed that some senior managers were informed about the design of the research which to me suggests that there is a lack of communication between employees and Volkswagen Automotive Group’s leaders.
By Kevin Villaver

References:

ABC News. (2018). Volkswagen-sponsored researchers used monkeys and people to test diesel fumes. [online] Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-29/vw-supervisory-board-demands-inquiry-into-diesel-fume-tests/9372040 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].

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Updated January 30, 2018 07:33:32

The German Government has denounced tests funded by the country's carmakers, in which humans and monkeys reportedly inhaled diesel exhaust fumes.

Carmakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW funded a research organisation which reportedly conducted the testing on 10 monkeys and 25 people in 2014.

The German Government said such tests could not be justified and called for answers.

All three companies have denounced the research and Volkswagen's supervisory board has called for an immediate inquiry, promising consequences for those involved.

"I will do everything possible to ensure that this matter is investigated in detail," Volkswagen supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said in a statement.

"Whoever is responsible for this must of course be held accountable."

The company also wrote on Twitter that it "explicitly distances itself from all forms of animal cruelty".

"We know that the scientific methods used by EUGT were wrong and apologise sincerely for this," it said.

German carmakers used the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, also known as EUGT, to commission the tests, the New York Times reported.

The study, conducted in 2014, was designed to defend diesel following revelations the fuel's exhaust fumes were carcinogenic, the paper reported.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the details and purpose of the study and a representative for EUGT, which was dissolved last year, could not be reached for comment.

EUGT received all of its funding from Volkswagen and fellow German carmakers Daimler and BMW, the New York Times said.

It remains unclear whether the carmakers were aware of monkeys being used in the experiments.

Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW have denounced the study, whose revelation is the latest aftershock from the Volkswagen emissions-rigging scandal, which continues to rock the auto industry.

Volkswagen has pledged never to test with animals again.

Thomas Steg, VW's chief lobbyist, told German daily Bild: "We want to absolutely rule out testing on animals for the future so that this doesn't happen again."

On Monday, Volkswagen said that some staff members, whom it did not identify, including some in its legal department, at the VW brand's technical development division and at Volkswagen of America, had been aware of the tests at the time.

But Volkswagen said the study was never discussed in any management board meetings, after Bild earlier reported that an internal email showed that at least some senior managers were informed about the design of the research.

In a statement on its website, Daimler said it had launched an investigation.

"Even though Daimler did not have influence on the study's design, we have launched a comprehensive investigation into the matter," it said.

The company also said all of the research work commissioned with the EUGT was accompanied and reviewed by a research advisory committee, "consisting of scientists from renowned universities and research institutes - from selection through to the presentation of results".

People inhaled nitrogen dioxide as a part of the studies

On Sunday, German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung reported that EUGT also sponsored scientific studies testing nitrogen dioxide, a gas found in exhaust fumes, on people.

Aachen University's research hospital confirmed that EUGT had sponsored a study in 2013 and 2014 but said it was related to workplace safety, not diesel emissions.

As part of the study, 25 people were exposed to varying levels of nitrogen dioxide for three hours to investigate the possible health effects of the chemical compound in concentrations below the limit for workplaces, Uniklinik RWTH Aachen said in a statement.

The German Government said on Monday that any auto emissions testing on monkeys or people were unjustifiable.

"These tests on monkeys or even people are in no ethical way justifiable and raise many critical questions about those who are behind the tests," Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference in Berlin.

Stephan Weil, who represents the German state of Lower Saxony, a Volkswagen shareholder, on the supervisory board, said the board was pressing the carmaker to urgently provide information about what the aim of the studies was.

"At the end of the day, the purpose of such experiments is the decisive factor," Mr Weil told a news conference.

"If for example, safety and health in the workplace were being tested, as Aachen University has suggested, and ethical standards were adhered to, it is defensible.

"Where experiments served the purposes of marketing and sales, however, I cannot think of an acceptable justification for such an approach."

Aachen University had no immediate comment.
Reuters
Topics: automotive, fraud-and-corporate-crime, germany

First posted January 29, 2018 23:38:23

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Volkswagen-sponsored researchers used monkeys and people to test diesel fumes

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Updated January 30, 2018 07:33:32 The German Government has denounced tests funded by the country's carmakers, in which humans and monkeys reportedly inhaled diesel exhaust fumes. Carmakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW funded a research organisation which reportedly conducted the testing on 10 monkeys and 25 people in 2014.

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This article addresses the issue of companies cheating the system in order to make more profit and proves that the risk is not worth the result. As well as raises the issue of was the leader doing their job and making sure their team were working in an ethical way.

Hyundai deciding that ‘using not the average data, but the best data’ was the right way to produce their stats on fuel economy (Neuhauser, 2014). It increased their sales, until they got hit with a huge $300 million in federal penalties. As a leader of the company, the CEO has responsibility to ensure the culture of the company is ethical and the employees are aware that unethical practices are not ok.

McCarthy comments on this issue stating “That tilts the market in favor of those who don’t play by the rules and it disadvantages those that actually do play by the rules. And that is simply not fair, and it’s also not legal.” (Neuhauser, 2014). I believe Hyundai has tarnished their reputation and that the overall leadership and company culture was not in place.

References

Neuhauser, A. (2014, 11 3). Hyundai, Kia Face $300 Million Penalty. Retrieved from U.S. News: Link; https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/11/03/hyundai-kia-face-300-million-penalty-for-systematically-overstating-vehicle-mileage

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Coca-Cola and Corporate Social Responsibilty 

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Coca-Cola and Corporate Social Responsibilty 

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This article addresses the problem of how can a company, in this case Coca-Cola say it cares for its consumers and uphold its company social responsibility if it sells a product that causes so many health problems and is it important to be socially responsible or to just to be seen that way.

Coca-Cola had to be extremely careful how they handled this issue as it came more of the focus points of activists. Coca-Cola could change their product but they could change the way they market it. Heather Harder comments on the issue stating ‘’ By acknowledging the obesity issue and spending millions of dollars on anti-obesity efforts, Coca-Cola is demonstrating corporate social responsibility—if not in its products, then at least in its community involvement” (Oxford, 2015).

Some people see it as Coca-Cola accepting its social responsibility and doing everything it can to educate people on obesity and balance diets.  Whereas critics see this as a ploy to keep sales up and keep their heads of the chopping block. Nielsen did a survey which showed people are more likely to buy from socially responsible companies (Nielson, 2014). This reinforces how important it is to be seen as socially responsibility in society’s eye, even if you’re not.

References

Nielson. (2014, 06 25). 0% of Global Consumers Surveyed Willing to Pay More for Goods, From Socially Responsible Companies, Up From 2011. Retrieved from Nielson: http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/press-room/2013/nielsen-50-percent-of-global-consumers-surveyed-willing-to-pay-more-fo.html

Oxford. (2015, 10 19). Coca-Cola and Corporate Social Responsibility. Retrieved from Oxford Presents: http://www.oxfordpresents.com/ms/kelleher/coca-cola-and-corporate-social-responsibility/

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Coca-Cola's position atop the branding world hasn't come easily, and its future there isn't guaranteed. In 2013, Coca-Cola slipped to third place behind Apple and Google on Interbrand's list of best global brands.

In recent years sugary drinks have been identified as culprits in the fight against obesity. Now being the number one soda brand in the world carries with it the risk of also being labeled as public enemy number one in the fight against obesity, particularly in America. How can a company that relies on sales of sugary drinks that lead to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay make a compelling case that it also cares deeply about the health of consumers?

Elon University student and PRSSA President Heather Harder won the 2014 Arthur W. Page Society case study competition with her analysis of how Coca-Cola has managed its precarious position. She summarized the company's strategy as one of corporate social responsibility. "By acknowledging the obesity issue and spending millions of dollars on anti-obesity efforts, Coca-Cola is demonstrating corporate social responsibility-if not in its products, then at least in its community involvement."

In late 2012 and early 2013, Coca-Cola launched a campaign called "Coming Together" that included a theme that "all calories count." The theme emphasized logic that consumers should balance the number of calories taken in with the number of calories they burn, and that calories from Coke products are essentially the same as calories from any other source. Coca-Cola used a variety of tactics to support the theme including:

videos aired on mainstream media (CNN, Fox, MSNBC)

a crowdsourced effort that invited consumers to email comingtogether@coca-cola.com with personal stories

online video via http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coming-together/

the announcement of several "commitments to fighting obesity" including

offering low- or no-calorie options in every market

more prominently displaying calorie information on product labels

funding physical activity programs worldwide

adopting more responsible marketing practices that avoid targeting children under the age of 12.

Coca Cola has begun offering more low-calorie options including Coca Cola Life, which is made with stevia, a plant-based sugar substitute. To which publics is Coca-Cola loyal in this marketing effort?

The PRSA Code of Ethics features loyalty as a core value. "We are faithful to those we represent, while honoring our obligation to serve the public interest." In this case, those working in public relations for Coca-Cola must balance their loyalty to their employer with their loyalty to many publics with varying interests.
According to Harder, "The challenge is for Coca-Cola to find a way to be taken seriously as a player in anti-obesity efforts while simultaneously increasing sales and offering consumers the products they love." Harder's conclusion highlights the importance of relationships with several key publics in defining the success of the CSR efforts.

Critics and activists

Perhaps the most vocal opposition in this case is the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit organization that seeks "to educate the public, advocate government policies that are consistent with scientific evidence on health and environmental issues, and counter industry's powerful influence on public opinion and public policies." The essence of CSPI's criticism was captured in the brevity of a single tweet on May 8, 2013. "Coca-Cola is desperately trying to disassociate itself with #obesity. Too bad the core product causes it."
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) sent this tweet in May of 2013. How can Coca-Cola balance loyalty to its shareholders and employees with loyalty to the consumers represented by organizations like CSPI?
Consumers

Let's face it. People don't drink Coke for their health these days. If you work for Coca-Cola, you can be loyal to your consumers in a lot of ways with a lot of different products, but it would be a stretch to imply that your signature cola equates to healthier food options. That said, research shows that consumers pay attention to CSR. In 2013, Nielsen surveyed 29,000 Internet respondents from around the world. Half of them said they would be willing to pay more for goods and services from socially responsible companies, and 43% reported that they actually have paid more.

Investors

To preserve excellent investor relations with its thousands of shareholders around the world, Coca Cola must maintain a profitable business model. Can you imagine what it would mean to shareholders-and even entire economies-if Coca-Cola just stopped selling soda because the product was unhealthy? The golden mean is an ethical principle in Aristotelian, Buddhist, and Confucius philosophies, which holds that the most ethical course of action lies between extremes. A golden CSR strategy for Coca-Cola undoubtedly lies somewhere between shuttering its flagship product line to allay the concerns of its critics and ignoring its critics altogether with an uninhibited drive for profit. In fact, CSR may help with profitability, as is evident in research suggesting a link between charitable giving and corporate revenues.

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CECP is a coalition of CEOs who believe that societal improvement is an essential measure of business performance. In 2014, they released this infographic highlighting trends in corporate societal engagement. Is there a causal relationship between corporate giving and increased revenue? Why or why not?

Employees

Relationships with employees are an important part of the equation linking social responsibility with profitability. It is not hard to imagine how companies with satisfied, committed, trusting and empowered employees (i.e., excellent relational outcomes) are more likely to profit in business. CSR trends include programs that encourage employees to participate in service such as pro bono work or paid release time to volunteer in their communities.

Policymakers

Legislative relations also come into play, and Coca-Cola invests strategically in its own advocacy. The company lists corporate taxation, environmental policy and product-specific policies including taxes and regulation as areas for investment. Product-specific policy was made more salient in 2012 when former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a ban on the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces. In its relationship with regulators and legislators, Coca-Cola "advocates for choice and opposes discriminatory tax policies that single out certain beverages."

Tom Kelleher on ethics and Public Relations

"Interbrand-Best Global Brands," Interbrand, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.interbrand.com/it/best-global-brands/2013/Coca-Cola.
"Are All Calories Created Equal?" Arthur W. Page Society, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.awpagesociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Coca-Cola_CaseStudy.pdf.
"Coca-Cola's Global Commitments to Help Fight Obesity," The Coca-Cola Company, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coming-together/infographic-illustrating-coca-colas-global-commitments-to-help-fight-obesity.
"About CSPI," Center for Science in the Public Interest, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.cspinet.org/about/index.html.
CSPI, May 8, 2013 (12:55 p.m.), commented on Twitter, "Coca-Cola is Desperately Trying...," https://twitter.com/CSPI/status/332222216836087808.
"Nielsen: 50% of Global Consumers Surveyed Willing to Pay More for Goods, From Socially Responsible Companies, Up From 2011," Nielsen, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/press-room/2013/nielsen-50-percent-of-global-consumers-surveyed-willing-to-pay-more-fo.html.
"New Study Shows Strong CSR Boosts Profits," Bulldog Reporter, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/article/pr-biz-update/new-study-shows-strong-csr-boosts-profits-majority-of-companies-incre.
"Public Policy Engagement," The Coca-Cola Company, accessed July 25, 2014, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/investors/public-policy-engagement.

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Coca-Cola and Corporate Social Responsibility

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Coca-Cola's position atop the branding world hasn't come easily, and its future there isn't guaranteed. In 2013, Coca-Cola slipped to third place behind Apple and Google on Interbrand's list of best global brands. In recent years sugary drinks have been identified as culprits in the fight against obesity.

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For benefit of government, soldiers may soon be able to volunteer to advance themselves in "supersoldiers" by way of "altering the structure and function of soldiers' digestive system" and "direct wiring of prostheses to their brain."

The "hierarchical command structures ... may impact the soldier's capacity to refuse enhancement." Historically, the army has been a very tall structure by means of hierarchy, not by want but by need. This culture will inherently cause issues in a soldier's capacity to refuse to be a part of a seemingly intense and untested trial for gain of our government.

It is the responsibility of government and military officials to ensure that the power they exert in regard to applying soldiers to this trial is not overwhelming in that the soldier will not be given more than one option.

Culture is a hard thing to govern from a legal standpoint, it is up to the people in the power positions to make the most ethical and morally correct decision they can.

By Jack Green

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Updated March 01, 2017 10:16:46

Enhancing a soldier's capacity to fight is nothing new.

Arguably one of the first forms of enhancement was through improving their diet. The phrase "an army marches on its stomach" goes back at least to Napoleon, and speaks to the belief that being well fed enhances the soldier's chances of winning a battle.

But recent research has gone well beyond diet to enhance the capabilities of soldiers, like purposefully altering the structure and function of soldiers' digestive system to enable them to digest cellulose, meaning they can use grass as a food.

Perhaps their cognitive capabilities could be substantially altered so they can make more rapid decisions during conflict.

Or their sensitivity to pain could be diminished, or even the severity and likelihood of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reduced.

Or even the direct wiring of prostheses to their brain.

This kind of biological and technological enhancement is often referred to as developing "supersoldiers".

It's not science-fiction; research is underway around the world. And it brings with it a host of ethical concerns.

Ethical dimensions

One concern revolves around the capacity for a soldier - or any other member of a military force - to give meaningful informed consent to partake in clinical research or undergo enhancement.

The concern here is twofold. First, some of these interventions would be confidential; a military might justifiably want to keep new technologies top secret.

This need for secrecy can impact how much information the subjects of enhancement receive, thus impacting the "informed" part of informed consent.

Second, we might have concerns about whether a soldier can actively consent to enhancement.

That is, the hierarchical command structures and training in the military may impact the soldier's capacity to refuse enhancement.

Given the prominence of informed consent to medical ethics, this is a core issue for enhancement before we even get to conflict.

Numerous forms of enhancement look at ways of indirectly or directly impacting the soldier's cognitive capacities.

One example is countering the need for sleep through the use of drugs like amphetamines or Modafinil, or other longer-lasting neurological interventions.

Another is enhancing a soldier's capacity to make moral decisions.

Another concern is what might happen if we reduce a soldier's capacity to experience trauma with a drug like propranolol, which is being investigated for its ability to dampen the emotional force of particular memories.

If administered rapidly after a particularly traumatic military activity - say, killing a teenage combatant to protect a school full of children - this pharmaceutical intervention could reduce the likelihood or severity of the soldier developing post traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD).

Moral obligation

The ethical worries here turn on whether such interventions negatively impact a soldier's capacity to follow the laws of war.

However, if these enhancements don't increase the chances of the soldier committing war crimes, then perhaps there is even a moral obligation to enhance soldiers in such situations.

Conversely, there are reasons to be worried that enhancing soldiers can make their opponents, or even civilians, treat those soldiers immorally.

For example, if it is believed that enemy soldiers are enhanced so that they don't feel pain, some might be more inclined to torture them.

Treating the enemy as inhuman or subhuman is sadly all too common through history.

Enhancements may exacerbate this process, particularly if opposing groups can classify their enemies as inhuman mutant supersoldiers.

Another concern is around the soldier's life after conflict ceases or they leave the military.

For instance, does an enhancement have to be reversible?

And if not, what special responsibilities does the military have to care for veterans, above and beyond existing supports?

Similar issues have already been explored in science-fiction.

In a sense, none of these ethical concerns are specially new. Informed consent, limiting war crimes and a responsibility to care for veterans are hardly novel ideas.

What enhancement technologies do is shine a light on existing behaviour.

And though we don't need to worry about enhanced soldiers becoming mutant superheroes quite yet, there is value in considering the ethical aspects of such technologies before they become used rather than after the fact.
Dr Adam Henschke is a lecturer at the National Security College (NSC) at the Australian National University and a research fellow with Delft University of Technology (TUD) in The Hague, The Netherlands. Originally published in The Conversation
Topics: defence-forces, defence-and-national-security, defence-industry, ethics, science-and-technology, community-and-society, australia

First posted March 01, 2017 07:43:49

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Supersoldiers and the ethics of human enhancement

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Updated March 01, 2017 10:16:46 Enhancing a soldier's capacity to fight is nothing new. Arguably one of the first forms of enhancement was through improving their diet. The phrase "an army marches on its stomach" goes back at least to Napoleon, and speaks to the belief that being well fed enhances the soldier's chances of winning a battle.

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Free-range eggs: How to know what you're getting for your money

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Free-range eggs: How to know what you're getting for your money

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To make a claim that eggs are "free range"� when they clearly are not and argue the fact that there is no regulation against calling them that, is a clear violation of a moral standpoint.

Consumers actively seek free-range eggs and make their decision to pay more money for the ethical treatment of animals.

The idea of ethical treatment of animals is what adds value to this product, and to claim that for financial gain is a clear immoral and unethical act.

The level of bias in this article has been demonstrated at a low level as it does point out what groups are debating what stance - "This has been hotly debated, with animal welfare and consumer groups arguing that this is not what most people would consider free-range, while producer groups have supported the standard."

The culture surrounding free-range eggs has become stronger in the past decade, with a big push from PETA in marketing the underwhelming conditions of chicken farms in quite an effective way. The shift in this culture has put pressure on egg producers to improve conditions for their stock, thus increasing costs and end price of the eggs.

By Jack Green

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Posted August 01, 2017 15:15:09

Last week, egg producer Snowdale Holdings was penalised $1 million for falsely labelling their eggs as free range. Snowdale, one of the biggest producers in the Australian market, owns brands including Eggs by Ellah, Swan Valley Free Range, and Wanneroo Free Range.

Given the significantly higher prices generally charged for free-range eggs, you could be forgiven for having doubts over what you're getting in the supermarket. Even when egg cartons are legally accurate, the government definition of "free range" might not mean what you think it does.

But you don't need to shop blind: there are a range of resources that can help you find egg producers that follow best-practice standards, avoid farming practices that concern you and understand what government guidelines really mean.

What's in an egg label?

Previous research has shown that people buy free-range eggs for a range of reasons, including taste and quality, as well as concern for animal welfare.

But unlike other labels such as nutritional information panels or best-before dates, the "free-range" claim is not regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).

In fact, no claims about production methods are subject to this kind of regulation. Food labelling regulation by FSANZ is about what a food contains, rather than how it is produced.

However, there is an Australian definition of "free-range", created in March 2016 under Australian consumer law.

Essentially, it means that the chickens have "meaningful and regular access to the outdoors" and that outdoor stocking densities are no more than 10,000 birds per hectare.

This has been hotly debated, with animal welfare and consumer groups arguing that this is not what most people would consider free-range, while producer groups have supported the standard.

The new regulations also requires producers to "prominently disclose" the outdoor stocking density, and we are now starting to see that on packaging.

What does free-range really mean?

In practice, stocking chooks at 10,000 per hectare and giving them regular access to the outdoors, might not result in animals that are especially free (or "cruelty free" - another claim showing up on an increasing number of egg cartons).

For a start, CSIRO has published a code of practice for animal welfare that recommends farmers should have no more than 1,500 birds per hectare. If you want to buy from producers that meet that standard, the consumer group Choice has an app called CluckAR that can scan egg cartons in the store and give immediate feedback on the brand's farming conditions.

Choice also provides a table of free-range egg producers. Reading that table - and from my own discussions with Australian egg producers - it's clear that price is not a totally reliable indicator of stocking density.

However, stocking density is only one factor in how hens are treated. Some independent certifications have more stringent guidelines. The Australian Certified Organic Standard, as well as specifying a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare for set stocking systems and 2,500 for rotational systems, also prohibits practices like withholding feed and water to induce moulting.
Hens naturally moult in autumn, when they lose significant body weight and stop laying eggs while their reproductive tract rejuvenates. For greater control over when hens produce eggs, as well as extending their hens' laying lives, farmers can induce moulting by reducing their feed, or withholding food altogether for certain periods. Although heavily regulated at the state level in Australia (hens may not go without food entirely for more than 24 hours), it is considered cruel by animal welfare groups.

Similarly Humane Choice recommends a maximum of 1500 birds per hectare. And unlike the government definition of free-range, which calls for "meaningful and regular" access to the outside, Humane Choice standards specify that hens can "forage on the land, move untethered and uncaged".

Of course, it is important to note that free-range farms are not free of animal welfare issues, such as feather pecking, where hens pull out the feathers of other birds.

There are further challenges is managing exposure to weather or predators to consider. Caged-egg producers argue that consumers should be able to choose from a range of production methods.

However, if animal welfare, sustainability, and labelling are things that you are concerned about, then do your own research and identify the products that align with your values. Don't rely on a label to tell you what is ethical.
Heather Bray is a senior research associate at University of Adelaide. This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
Topics: food-and-beverage, business-economics-and-finance, food-processing, ethics, poultry-and-egg-production, australia

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How do you know what you're getting when you buy free-range eggs?

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Posted August 01, 2017 15:15:09 Last week, egg producer Snowdale Holdings was penalised $1 million for falsely labelling their eggs as free range. Snowdale, one of the biggest producers in the Australian market, owns brands including Eggs by Ellah, Swan Valley Free Range, and Wanneroo Free Range.

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Lawsuit says Trump's ownership of hotels violates the constitution

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Lawsuit says Trump's ownership of hotels violates the constitution

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Trumps previously demonstrated behaviour somewhat establishes a 'one-way street' type of leadership, so I can see why the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) have taken the steps to lodge a lawsuit. Actions taken by Trump could result in misconduct and bribery for personal gain amongst world leaders.

Crew believe Trump has an unfair business advantage that harms his rivals while he is in office, where he can incentivise official acts favourable for his own personal business ventures.

To put his business ventures in a blind trust - a trust independently administering the private business interests of a person in public office to prevent conflict of interest - would be an act that would demonstrate full commitment to his role in office. To not have his business ventures in a blind trust raises questions in regard to his level of involvement and subsequent temptation in personal affairs.

Comments such as "The government has sought to dismiss the case" portrays a degree of bias in this article. The author does not offer a comment from Trumps side of the issue, simply reporting on Crew's findings.

By Jack Green

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A federal judge on Wednesday pressed government lawyers to explain why Donald Trump's ownership of hotels patronized by foreign government officials did not violate the constitution, a key question that could shed light on Trump's finances if a civil lawsuit heard in New York is allowed to proceed.

At issue in the case brought by the left-leaning public policy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) is the interpretation of the so-called foreign "emoluments clause" of the constitution, a provision meant to prohibit bribery of federal officials by foreign governments.

A lawyer for Crew, which represents competing restaurateurs, hotel owners and others in the industry, said during oral arguments in Manhattan federal court that by doing business with foreign officials with an interest in currying favor with the White House, Trump runs afoul of the constitution. A lawyer for the Department of Justice disagreed, saying a violation only happens if an actual act is done in exchange for a payment.

US District Judge George B Daniels said he would rule on whether the case can go forward in the next 30 to 60 days. The government has sought to dismiss the case.

If Daniels allows the case to proceed, it could reveal much about Trump's business and personal finances, possibly forcing him to disclose tax returns and other financial information in the course of discovery.

Trump, who made his fortune in real estate, marketing and entertainment, bucked decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential elections. That has fueled suspicions about his possible conflicts of interests as well as concerns about the source of his income, including whether any of it comes from sources abroad.

Government lawyer Brett Shumate argued for a precise definition of the emoluments clause, saying that because an emolument includes the exchange of payment for an official act, Trump's business income couldn't qualify as such a payment.

Daniels repeatedly questioned him on that point and others, proposing that if the president promises to take an official act in exchange for money - by signing a treaty, for example - the money transferred is an emolument whether or not the president ever follows through on the action.

The framers of the constitution did not just want the president not to take money from foreign governments, "they wanted him to not take the promise of the money", he said.

Later in the hearing, Daniels pushed Crew attorney Deepak Gupta to explain why the issue is even something the courts should have to resolve, asking at one point whether Congress, instead of the courts, was best suited to resolve the case.

"They have the power to act if they had a concern about acting," Daniels said, at one point likening litigation on behalf of rival hotels, restaurants and good-government groups to "a street fight" with the president.

The clause at issue allows for that, saying no US official can "accept any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state" without the consent of Congress.

Attorneys for Crew say that court precedent on the topic gives the judicial branch authority to explore the issue.

Crew, in a lawsuit first filed in January, has argued that Trump, who didn't put his businesses in a blind trust after becoming president, has an unfair business advantage while in the White House that harms his rivals in the industry, taking away their business and enriching him by actors with an incentive to curry favor for official acts.

As part of their case, they submitted affidavits from industry experts detailing the competitiveness in the market for high-end hotels and restaurants in New York and Washington DC, that cater to foreign diplomats and other government officials.

Two other emoluments-related lawsuits have also been filed against Trump by members of Congress and the attorney generals for Maryland and the District of Columbia.

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Lawsuit says Trump's ownership of hotels violates the constitution

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A federal judge on Wednesday pressed government lawyers to explain why Donald Trump's ownership of hotels patronized by foreign government officials did not violate the constitution, a key question that could shed light on Trump's finances if a civil lawsuit heard in New York is allowed to proceed.

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Apple failing to protect Chinese factory workers

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Apple failing to protect Chinese factory workers

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This article addresses an issue for many business and that is overseas factories. It discusses how Apple chose to handle the news getting out and how they established to the community that they were ethical, despite unethical activities happening under their noses.

Video footage of an Apple factory outskirts of Shanghai emerged featuring workers falling asleep at their stations and being overall overworked and exhausted. Undercover workers were working 12-16 hour days and stated ‘even if I was hungry I wouldn’t want to get up to eat’ (Bilton, 2014). They also stated that they work 18 days straight in some cases. Fair work tells us that the Australian standard working week should be 36hours unless ‘more hours are reasonable’ (Fair Work, 2018). From the workers and society’s view this is unethical for Apple to allow this to be happening.

However, Apple states they are working at improving conditions and have standards in place for employees. Apple see’s themselves as doing ‘as much as they can’ and progressing in the right way. Apple could shut down those factories in order to prevent the mistreating of workers but that would cause them to lose money. It raises the question whether they are more worried about being ethical or making money.

References

Bilton, R. (2014, 12 18). Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'. Retrieved from BBC News: Link; http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30532463

Fair Work. (2018). Maximum weekly hours. Retrieved from Fair Work: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-entitlements/national-employment-standards

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Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken.

It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions.

Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move.

"Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."

'Continuous improvement'

Apple declined to be interviewed for the programme, but said in a statement: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

"We work with suppliers to address shortfalls, and we see continuous and significant improvement, but we know our work is never done."

Apple said it was a very common practice for workers to nap during breaks, but it would investigate any evidence they were falling asleep while working.

It said it monitored the working hours of more than a million workers and that staff at Pegatron were averaging 55 hours a week.

The poor conditions in Chinese factories were highlighted in 2010 when 14 workers killed themselves at Apple's biggest supplier, Foxconn.

Following the suicides, Apple published a set of standards spelling out how factory workers should be treated. It also moved some of its production work to Pegatron's factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

But Panorama's undercover reporters found that these standards were routinely breached on the factory floor.

Overtime is supposed to be voluntary, but none of the reporters were offered any choice. In addition to the excessive hours, one reporter had to attend unpaid meetings before and after work. Another reporter was housed in a dormitory where 12 workers shared a cramped room.

Apple says the dormitory overcrowding has now been resolved and that it requires suppliers to retroactively pay workers if it finds they haven't been paid for work meetings.

Pegatron said it was carefully investigating Panorama's claims and would take all necessary action if any deficiencies were found at their facilities.

"Worker safety and well-being are our top priorities. We set very high standards, conduct rigorous training for managers and workers, and have external auditors regularly visiting our facilities to find areas for improvement," a statement said.

Dangerous conditions

Panorama also travelled further down Apple's supply chain to the Indonesian island of Bangka.

Apple says it is dedicated to the ethical sourcing of minerals, but the programme found evidence that tin from illegal mines could be entering its supply chain.

It found children digging tin ore out by hand in extremely dangerous conditions - miners can be buried alive when the walls of sand or mud collapse.

Twelve-year-old Rianto was working with his dad at the bottom of a 70-foot cliff of sand. He said: "I worry about landslides. The earth slipping from up there to the bottom. It could happen."

Panorama tracked down a gang who collect tin from the area where Rianto was working. One of them said they sold tin to a smelter on Apple's list of suppliers.

Johan Murod, who runs one of the smelters on Apple's list, said 70% of the tin that is exported comes from the small-scale mines.

"At the smelter there's everything from both large and small scale mines. It's all mixed. There's no way to know what is legal and what is illegal."

Apple says it is a complex situation on Bangka with tens of thousands of miners selling tin through many middle men.

"The simplest course of action would be for Apple to unilaterally refuse any tin from Indonesian mines. That would be easy for us to do and would certainly shield us from criticism.

"But that would also be the lazy and cowardly path, since it would do nothing to improve the situation. We have chosen to stay engaged and attempt to drive changes on the ground."

Watch Panorama: Apple's Broken Promises on BBC One on 18 December at 21:00 GMT or watch later on BBC iPlayer.

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Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

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Poor treatment of workers in the Chinese factories which make Apple products is discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

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Media praises Trump after agreeing to meet with Kim Jong-Un

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Media praises Trump after agreeing to meet with Kim Jong-Un

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Fox Business' news video begins with a reporter highlighting the media's uncircumstantial perspective on POTUS, Donald Trump in regards to negotiations between the US President and North Korea's leader Kim Jon Un.

“Rare and very reluctant praise there,the media applauding, atleast momentarily President Trump...”

The mainstream media holds Donald Trump in notoriety, as awknoledged by the opening quote of the video and Trump claims his use of 'twitter' is to connect to the population without the filter of mainstream media.

The mainstream account of the recent events in the video are accurate in that they highlight face-to-face negotiations between a US president in office and Kim Jon are unprecedented.

Joe Concha, an interviewee in the video accounts that Trump's motives for the negotiations are to deflect away from inter organizational controversies within the White House, which could be construed as a biased opinion of Trump's decisional roles in Mintzberg's Management Roles leadership model.

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Media praises Trump after agreeing to meet with Kim Jong Un

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I hate journalists and I'm over the mainstream media': ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr

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I hate journalists and I'm over the mainstream media': ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr

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Andrew Barr wants to change the function of mainstream media and norms of communication media. An audio recording was leaked to the Canberra Times regarding this.

The language that the journalist writing this article has chosen reflects (in my opinion) a non biased standpoint from the Canberra Times. The article mainly reiterates what was said by Mr. Barr in the audio recording log so the accounts are accurate for what is stated in the article. Personal opinions are kept to a minimum with some of the only imput being the following comment:

“Mr Barr has had an uneasy relationship with the media and has often criticised TheCanberra Times, frequently refusing to deal directly with its political reporters.”

In respect to the Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership theory Mr. Barr is 'selling' his opinion to his following team members. His responses from his team members will depend on their levels of maturity (M1, M2, M3, M4).

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ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has declared he is "over" the mainstream media and "hates journalists".

Mr Barr, speaking to communications specialists at a "meet the buyer" event at the ACT parliament on Thursday, set out his new communications plans to bypass traditional media.

​"It is a very clear and deliberate strategy for change, it has the backing of my government, my administration," he said in a recording of the event leaked to The Canberra Times, challenging the communications companies to come up with contentious and risky ideas.

"And if the word of the chief minister is anything in this context, let me be absolutely crystal clear about our intention to both resource this and to deliver this change. It has to happen. We're going to make it happen," he said.

Mr Barr told the group he had been "blunt and frank" in delivering the same message to "everyone within the communications area of government".

"It is absolutely clear to me that that is the way forward and that is the path that we are going to be pursuing over the next few years."

Mr Barr began his remarks by saying he would start with some "frank statements that may or not shock some people in the room". "I hate journalists. I'm over dealing with the mainstream media as a form of communication with the people of Canberra. What passes for a daily newspaper in this city is a joke and it will be only a matter of years before it closes down," he said.

Mr Barr claimed the average age of viewers of the ABC television 7pm news bulletin was in the mid 60s, and the circulation of the print edition of the Canberra Times was less than 15,000.

Most Canberrans did not consume traditional media, Mr Barr said, referring to the relative youth of the wider community with half of Canberrans aged under 34. It is a recurring theme of Mr Barr's that older Canberrans have a disproportionate say, including last week when he hit out at the opposition of "a certain generation of Canberrans" to tall buildings.

"We need to completely overhaul the way we communicate as a government and that's exactly what we're doing," he told the communications specialists. "My challenge to everyone in this room is to be at the cutting edge of communication, to put up contentious, risky and interesting ideas about how we can communicate ...

"No idea should be too crazy ... We wont accept every single one of them but we definitely have to change how we engage."

The government wanted to hear directly from Canberrans and communicate directly back to them, "not through the filter of journalists, and particularly through the filter of print journalists, which is a dying industry", he said, inviting ideas for digital, video and creative content that would "completely sweep aside the reputation that Canberra has for being bureaucratic and dull".

A Fairfax Media spokesperson said Canberra was well served by its independent media - including Fairfax's own publications.

"Those held to account by the media often find it not to their liking," the company said in response. "It is worth remembering the profound words of the United States Supreme Court in its landmark decision on media freedom to report - for the protection of 'the governed not the governors'."

Mr Barr has had an uneasy relationship with the media and has often criticised The Canberra Times, frequently refusing to deal directly with its political reporters.

He has also refused to deal with other groups which have upset him, including Clubs ACT, which ran a campaign against his government at the 2016 election. Last year, he blasted Clubs ACT as "a wreckage and a joke" and vowed to no longer deal with the industry group that represents clubs. Instead, he said he would negotiate with the breakaway clubs group organised by the CFMEU-linked Trades clubs.

In June 2016, he told estimates he had taken "great pleasure" in cancelling his subscription to "the daily rag", to which his then minister, Joy Burch, said she had cancelled hers "years ago". Mr Barr's office said at the time that he read the paper on his ipad so no longer needed the hard copy, which was in any case "always available in the office".

At one stage in 2017, Mr Barr locked down his Twitter account.

He began talking about his desire to bypass special interest groups after the government was forced to back down on the bid to redevelop Manuka Oval and when he hit opposition to the West Basin redevelopment.

Asked for comment on Friday, Mr Barr's spokeswoman said he had long believed that government communications must rapidly adapt to the changing needs of audiences and embrace new technologies and more direct ways of communicating.

"The chief minister was challenging communications professionals to challenge us, inspire us and go beyond the ordinary and think of new ways to reach our diverse community given the decline of the traditional media," she said.

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'I hate journalists': ACT Chief Minister's hatred of media drives policy

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ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has declared he is "over" the mainstream media and "hates journalists". Mr Barr, speaking to communications specialists at a "meet the buyer" event at the ACT parliament on Thursday, set out his new communications plans to bypass traditional media.

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Supercomputer model of Gasses in the Earth's Atmosphere (Cross Examination of Article 1 & 2)

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Supercomputer model of Gasses in the Earth's Atmosphere (Cross Examination of Article 1 & 2)

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Article 1: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SgmFa0r04)

This post presents a supercomputer model of the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide levels circulating the Earth’s atmosphere. It presents the stark picture of how the globes emissions are both maintained within the atmosphere for considerable time, as well as the interesting effects that the Earth’s natural growth seasons function to minimise and absorb some of these harmful gases. While many climate scientists agree that the Earth is considerably affected by the human greenhouse gas emissions produced, it is rarely publicised how the Earth’s natural season’s return the atmosphere back to original balance. While nature is at stake, it would seem as though nature is also the solution.

Article 2:
According to another climate change post presented around the same time, (https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/enhanced-greenhouse-effect) the finding of this projection are relevant and equally as damning, suggesting that human activity has gradually altered the balance of noxious greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

Insofar as the video is accurate in terms of data presented, it does not determine how the post measures its findings and then manipulates them into this diagram. It is prudent to point out that while the NASA title does carry significant meaning in terms of research and discovery, it can be easy for this title, and relevant works, to be accepted without criticism.

One of the alternate perspectives that the presentation does not elude to are the natural carbon monoxide and dioxide levels which are naturally released through primary function. The earth has existed for approximately 4.5 Billion Years (Redd, 2014), and for some time after the Permian era, the eruption of Siberian Volcanoes contributed to the emission of vast greenhouse gasses and the destruction of most of the globes glaciers (Switek, 2010). And yet, nature devised a coping mechanism for an event which was responsible for the extinction of nearly 90% of all forms of life.

References.
Redd, N. (2014, February 27). How old is Earth. Retrieved from Space.com: https://www.space.com/24854-how-old-is-earth.html

Switek, B. (2010, April 10). The History of Air. Retrieved from Smithsonian.com: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-history-of-air-21082166/

Zilman, J., & Sherwood, S. (2010, February 19). The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect. Retrieved from Australian Academy of Science: https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/enhanced-greenhouse-effec

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NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2

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'Edgy' ClearView sold dodgy insurance to remote indigenous communities

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'Edgy' ClearView sold dodgy insurance to remote indigenous communities

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The article reveals that ClearView, a wealth management corporation was found to have sold inappropriate life insurance products, using high-pressure and misleading and arguably illegal sales techniques to Indigenous community members living in remote communities.

It advises that Indigenous community members, often with English as a second language, were clearly targeted and taken advantage of and they have certainly paid the price; ClearView has had to pay $1.5 million to 16,000 vicitims made up of paid premiums, bank fees and interest.

Lord John Browne (2016) maintains that reputation is a result of your main business activity, not something created beside it. Furthermore, he offers the concept of connected leadership; where societal and environmental considerations are integrated into core business strategy at every level of the company.

If ClearView enacted connected leadership, rather than mislead and defraud the remote Indigenous communities, they may have even developed specialised life insurance products, and cornered the low-socioeconomic market, rather than trying to ‘shed’ it.

The possible innovation may have cost more or less than the $1.5 million they are forced to repay, however it is guaranteed they wouldn’t have suffered an invaluable loss to their reputation like they have in this scenario.

References

Danckert, S. (2018, February 6). 'Edgy' ClearView sold dodgy insurance to remote indigenous communities. The Sydney Morning Herald.

Leavy, B. (2016). Lord john browne: Beyond CSR - why business needs to engage more radically with society. Strategy & Leadership, 44(4), 32-40. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1826809599?accountid=1034

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'Edgy' ClearView sold dodgy insurance to remote indigenous communities

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ClearView chief executive Simon Swanson has apologised for the behaviour of some of the company's sales staff.

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Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson 'covered up' abuse, Royal Commission finds

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Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson 'covered up' abuse, Royal Commission finds

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The article about “Knox Grammar headmaster ‘covered up’ the abuse” – is an example of unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour. The Royal Commission conducted an investigation into the matter of child sexual abuse which saw a serious breach of the school’s social responsibility to the student’s welfare.  The investigation found the headmaster of Knox, always fostered the culture and attitude at the school by deliberately covering up the incident in order to maintain their pristine reputation amongst the public eye. The headmaster was dismissive about any allegations made regarding child sexual abuse and intentionally withheld information from the Knox Council, the body responsible for the management of the school,". (Browne, 2016).

This unethical act demonstrates the negligence of the headmaster shown for his students’ welfare, and the demoralisation of the school upholding values, therefore highlights the misuse of position power placing profitability and the number of enrolments ahead of compassion, respect and responsibility of its students. The lack of remorse shown by the headmaster gives victims a feel of being unsupported and emotionally traumatised - according to Jim Whitehurst, a leader can shape the organisational culture through their behaviour. (Whitehurst, 2016).
A good leader must have display empathetic nature toward others, however also the need to possess the courage to stand out and take accountability if the situation arises. Perhaps the headmaster was trying to protect the school from public backlash and scrutiny and out of fear of potentially losing his position if word got out. However, the damaged that ethical lapses cause may cost far more than letting go of an unethical employee or some inappropriate behaviour.

References

Browne, R. (2016, September 13). Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson 'covered up' abuse, Royal Commission finds. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/national/former-knox-grammar-headmaster-ian-paterson-covered-up-abuse-royal-commission-finds-20160913-grewhi.html

Gordon, N. (2012). How to Become a Better Leader. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224097

Whitehurst, J. (2016). Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/10/leaders-can-shape-company-culture-through-their-behaviors

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Confronting Putin, Part 6 | Megyn Kelly | NBC News

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Confronting Putin, Part 6 | Megyn Kelly | NBC News

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This media article talks about current Russian President Putin's ambition to be elected to a fourth term of presidency. The interviewer asks controversial questions such as;
“would you ever abolish term limits?” - in regards to amending constitution and
“can you stay in power?... experts say you'll have to stay in power in order to stay well”. The author's choice of words construct's an issue by inadvertently (or advertently) drawing a link between Putin's personal interests and political ambitions.

Fiedler's Contingency Model suggests that a particular leader will be suited to particular situations (static leader A matches situation A and static leader B matches situation B). Putin's behavior and calm rebuttals to the confrontational questions asked indicate that (in the context of Fiedler's model) Putin is a strong leader that has a high level of power within his organisation indicating how he ss a leader will fare in a given situation.

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Confronting Putin, Part 6 | Megyn Kelly | NBC News

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'Do whatever you have to': Woolworths staff rewarded for spying on pokie players

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'Do whatever you have to': Woolworths staff rewarded for spying on pokie players

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The article provides a recent example of corporations assuming of the narrow view of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The narrow view of CSR being; the only social responsibility of business is to maximise profits (Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley, & Muntean, 2013) may support the actions of the bar staff, albeit they could be seen as in breach of codes of conduct relation to responsible gambling practices.

Whilst watching the interview with the whistle blower, some of the main behaviours of concern they identified was around the data collection and sharing of the poker machine users (all unknown to them) and specialist VIP treatment to “high-rollers”, which I thought was very similar to the sales/marketing ploys used online by Facebook in the collection of cookies (data of web users ie web sites visited, items purchased, blogs read, etc) and in turn will tailor advertisement and rewards to this personal data.

Of course, for those of you who saying that context plays a big part here, and your right it does.

I would argue the most significant part of context in the two above examples is the customer.

SA Centre for Economic Studies (2005) defines problem gambling as “Problem gambling is characterised by difficulties in limiting money and or time spent on gambling which leads to adverse consequences for the gambler, others, or for the community.”

I’d wonder if the we replaced the word ‘gambling/gambler’ above with ‘shopping/shopper’, would society and indeed Facebook alter their attitudes and expectations?

If the customer’s overspending has negative effects on themselves, others and community, what does it matter if the money is going into the pokies or the cash register at the local Myers?... and not it where it needs to be?

References

O'Malley, N. (2018, February 27). 'Do whatever you have to': Woolworths staff rewarded for spying on pokie players. Sydney Morning Herald.

SA Centre for Economic Studies. (2005). Problem Gambling and Harm: Towards a National Definition. Melbourne, Australia: Office of Gaming and Racing Victoria.

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In a document entitled "GAMING DAILY BRIEFING SHEET" staff at one pub are provided the names, or identifying traits of each of the regulars, one of whom is identified by her first name with the note "little asin lady". There are also notes made recording the times some regulars enter.

A note in red at the top of the page says: "WE HAVE A MASSIVE WEEKLY TARGET - 1.36 TO BEAT. WE NEED TO BEAT, WE NEED TO BE OUT ON THE FLOOR REALLY PUSHING DRINKS - IT'S TAX TIME SO PEOPLE WILL HAVE MORE MONEY TO SPEND. DO HAND OUT DRINK CARDS, BE OUT THERE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO DO TO KEEP PEOPLE IN THE ROOM."

The same documents note the behaviour of some players individually, naming one man as "hitting his usual $5" per bet. Later it says: "Great hour at 1pm! 18.7K!"

In an interview with Mr Wilkie's office, a former Woolworths staff member says: "It used to be an unwritten thing, you'd talk to patrons in a genuine sense, but now those genuine interactions aren't what they used to be. We're actually writing it down so that we can get people to stay for as long as possible, to put as much money into the machines as possible.

"You'd record that stuff so that any new gaming staff can easily get up to speed with our VIP customers, who we want to keep gambling for as long as possible, so you can easily strike up a conversation with them and build rapport really quickly.

"You know the ins-and-outs of their life. You're writing down what they do, when they sort of ...what time they normally come in, the teams they barrack for and then you can go and have a conversation with them very, very easily because you've got that background information.

"It's the predatory tactics that's being deployed. It's unethical and essentially you are looking over people's shoulders, and documenting what people are doing and they don't know that you are doing that. They think you are having a general chit-chat with them, but you are actually profiling it.

"I'm not the only one that feels uncomfortable about it, a lot of my friends that work in the industry feel very uneasy about it, but they are told to do it by their bosses, so that's what they do. You have to keep your job."

Mr Wilkie told Fairfax Media last night the revelations showed that when it comes to its pokies business, Woolworths is a dreadful corporate citizen.

"This behaviour shows a complete lack of corporate responsibility and in some jurisdictions it might be illegal," he said.

"Regardless of that it is deeply immoral. No company has the right to engage in behaviour designed to increase addiction."

Mr Wilkie is expected to tell Parliament in a speech on Wednesday that "this practice undoubtedly increases revenue, but it's also immoral, possibly illegal and directly fosters increased gambling addiction".

"I know this because of two brave whistleblowers who've previously worked for Woolworths," his speech reads.

"We shouldn't blame the staff at these venues because I'm told they well understand that the practice is deeply unethical. Indeed the staff hate that they're being forced by Woolworths to spy on people and to use the personal information to increase gambling, even though this is creating new pokies addicts."

Dr Charles Livingstone, a researcher with Monash University's School of Public Health and an outspoken critic of the pokies industry said the behaviour revealed by the screenshots was reprehensible and in breach of the codes of conduct governing pokies venues in all Australian jurisdictions, and said it should prompt licence reviews of Woolworths-owned venues.

He said it was similar to having management rewarding staff for deliberately getting problem drinkers drunk.

Woolworths owns about 12,000 poker machines across the country via its majority shareholding of ALH, which owns around 400 pubs. In the company's annual reports it does not differentiate between revenue from pokies and other elements of its hospitality business.

But using data from a gaming industry report, Fairfax Media recently estimated Woolworths' annual net pokie revenue to be at least $1.2 billion.

The report charts the net profits of poker machines across Australia in pubs and clubs, revealing staggering profits per machine in NSW pubs equating to about $100,000 per machine per year, an average of $272 per machine per day, or almost twice the profits made by machines held by clubs. It is understood that Woolworths-owned pubs have the highest yielding gaming rooms in the country.

ALH is 75 per cent owned by Woolworths, with its founder Bruce Mathieson holding the other 25 per cent. It is run by Woolworths' high-profile former boss Roger Corbett, a former chairman of Fairfax Media.

In a statement provided to Fairfax Media last night by a spokesman for ALH said the company was "concerned" about some of the "gaming practices" revealed.

"We have commenced an investigation to ascertain what occurred as we take our responsibilities in providing responsible service of gaming and alcohol most seriously," the spokesman said.

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'Do whatever you have to': Woolworths staff rewarded for spying on pokie players

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In a document entitled "GAMING DAILY BRIEFING SHEET" staff at one pub are provided the names, or identifying traits of each of the regulars, one of whom is identified by her first name with the note "little asin lady". There are also notes made recording the times some regulars enter.

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AUSTRALIAN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTS ARE LITTLE BETTER THAN WINDOW DRESSING

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AUSTRALIAN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTS ARE LITTLE BETTER THAN WINDOW DRESSING

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This article highlights the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) usually being nothing more than just for show, typically because of corporations treating CSR as an addition to what they do rather than it being embedded into their operations or core business (the why they do, what they do). Often this is reflected in the corporations reporting, with CSR and sustainability being tabled in a separate document from the annual report.

The reasons for companies to at least appear to have strong CSR practices and culture, usually come from external influences, such as regulation, legislation and social movements. Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley, & Muntean (2013) offer external corporate responsbility audits as a strategy to tie the company’s words closer to their actions.

However whilst accountability and transparency foundations are based on external stakeholders, in order for true and meaningful cultural change to take place internally; Bill McHarg (Melbourne commercial real estate broker) attested “Culture is driven by senior management, and if change is not embraced at the top, then it’s just fluffy words”.

References

Schleimer, S., & Rice, J. (2016, October 4). Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing. Australia.

Shaw, W., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean, D. (2013). Moral issues in business. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

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Despite increasing visibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives over the last decade, real change in corporate behaviour has tended to be modest.

This is clear from the sections in financial reports from Australian companies listed on the stock exchange that cover social and environmental initiatives. For example, only a fraction of Australian firms report transparently, using suggested guidelines when publishing annual reports. Instead, there are carefully tailored public relations documents, fancy media campaigns, and glossy reports that showcase the firm's social good deeds. This weighting of image over substance, and spin over objectivity, leaves us questioning whether social initiatives today are simply window dressing.

According to the longest running study of CSR by the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Australians believe that progress in CSR has remained slow and insufficient over the last decade. The same study reports that compared to ten years ago, today there is at least an awareness of CSR.

It seems the majority of Australian businesses are just aware rather than truly integrating CSR into what they do. For example, although Qantas focuses increasingly on addressing its approach to and role in global sustainability, the balance of its latest annual reporting on sustainability in 2016 seems predominantly about the emerging possibilities for Qantas, rather than reducing damage to the environment caused by the company's CO2 emissions.

Similarly, BHP states in its latest annual report that:

"Sustainability is core to our business strategy and integrated into our decision-making. It helps us live our charter values of putting health and safety first, being environmentally responsible and supporting our host communities".

However, the same report also informs about five fatalities and two significant community incidents in 2015 alone, as well as the disastrous Samarco tailings dam collapse in Brazil. It seems that the company is all talk and no strategic action.

Another example is ANZ bank, which sets its yearly and half-yearly sustainability targets in a separate sustainability report. But, while the bank's 2016 report shows that the organisation wants to improve its sustainability deeds, targets like "improving customer satisfaction ranking" are what the organisation should be striving for anyway in order to achieve its yearly profit.

In getting companies to do better, there are various motivations. This could come from increasing regulations, class action lawsuits, and social movements holding firms accountable not just for their misdeeds, but their very existence. An example of such jurisdictions is South Australia's "Punters Tax" where 15% of South Australians' losses will be payable in tax by online betting agencies, in part to assist with gambling addiction. We expect other jurisdictions to follow with similar taxes.

However good initiatives should also be encouraged and promoted. Working with communities to proactively mitigate the potentially damaging consequences of business activities can create significant long-term benefits for generations to come. For example, Fortescue Metal's commitment to training and employing indigenous workers could change the lives of thousands of young people in the Pilbara.

Judging from the CSR reports of Australian companies above, businesses here seem to have at least understood in the last decade that the social and natural environments within which they reside are intertwined with their own existence. But, as there is no national standard on exactly how deep CSR must be entrenched in Australian companies' strategies, the approach by even the largest firms towards CSR remains operational at best.

If firms truly want to incorporate CSR into their long-term strategy, then this is where CSR needs to sit right in the heart of the firm. Every action that follows, every move the firm does will then simply be a way of communicating this central cause.

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Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing

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Despite increasing visibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives over the last decade, real change in corporate behaviour has tended to be modest. This is clear from the sections in financial reports from Australian companies listed on the stock exchange that cover social and environmental initiatives.

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A manager employed for Coles in Western Australia has attempted to influence his staff in an unethical manner, offering compensation for labour in the form of pizza, rather than legitimate pay.
The members of staff alerted the SDA union who contacted the manager and informed him that his behaviour was unacceptable.
The manager's offer was an additional blow to workers in light of the impending penalty rate cut announced by the Fair Work Commission.
Coles, when issuing a response to the allegations, referred to the manager as a trainee, and stated the company does not condone the actions of the manager in question. The union spokesperson cited pressure from upper management as the reason behind the desperate plea, although an anonymous insider claims that unpaid work is common practice in the supermarket industry. The question of how frequent an occurrence this is, looms now over the heads of those employed by the company, and what happens when these practices are not reported to the union?

Reference.
Ried, J. (2017, March 20). Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work. Smart Company. Retrieved from https://www.smartcompany.com.au/industries/retail/coles-head-office-steps-manager-offered-staff-pizza-not-pay-sunday-work/

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A Coles manager in Western Australia asked his staff to work for four hours for free on Sunday, just three weeks after the Fair Work Commission announced a cut to penalty rates.

The metropolitan supermarket boss offered staff pizza instead of pay, in exchange for helping get through excess stock in the store, a notice read.

However, the request was withdrawn before Sunday's shift, after disgruntled workers made the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers Association (SDA) aware of the proposal.

SDA state secretary Peter O'Keefe told ABC Radio Perth's Geoff Hutchinson the proposal was "unacceptable".

"Obviously this manager has decided for reasons of his own to request people to come and work unpaid," he said.

"As soon as he put that notice on the notice board, SDA members started ringing us and we immediately got in contact with the manager and told him this was unacceptable and it would not be allowed.

"He argued perhaps a little bit, but then took the message down. We also raised it with Coles head office, because this is clearly very concerning.

"Coles at the senior level are aghast that he actually took this step and they have taken steps to make sure not only that it doesn't proceed, but that it doesn't happen again."

The notice, which asked all of the store's 65 team members to work four hours for free on Sunday, was posted "to help the store get on top of this once and for all".

It asked for all employees to work from 5.30pm to 9.30pm on Sunday to help clear six pallets of stock as well as 78 cages of stock as part of a "personal request" from the manager.

"Yes, it is a big ask and I would not be requesting this unless it was absolutely necessary," the notice read.

ABC Radio's Mr Hutchison suggested the store manager might have been overworked and harassed with pressure from above to tidy things up. Mr O'Keefe agreed.

The SDA state secretary said the union believed this was likely a once-off request from an overzealous manager.

Coles responded to the letter, issuing a statement saying the "trainee manager" was out of line.

"Coles values the hard work of all of our team members and the notice in the store is completely out of step with Coles' way of working," a Coles spokesperson said.

"The notice, which was posted by a trainee manger, was quickly removed. Any team members working at the stated time will be paid as normal."

However, according to an "insider" quoted by Mr Hutchison, unpaid work is common practice for the supermarket giant.

"Hours and wages keep getting cut and more is expected to be done with less," they were quoted as saying.

"Everyone is overworked. This store manager would have been under extreme pressure from a regional manager and state operations manager to get the job done without spending any more money."
This article was first published by The New Daily. You can read it here.

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Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work - SmartCompany

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A Coles manager in Western Australia asked his staff to work for four hours for free on Sunday, just three weeks after the Fair Work Commission announced a cut to penalty rates. The metropolitan supermarket boss offered staff pizza instead of pay, in exchange for helping get through excess stock in the store, a notice read.

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Australia's Vehicle Emissions Still Lag Behind Foreign Countries.                                                   This piece discusses the impact of Australia’s lag behind international Vehicle Emissions standards; as a result, overseas vehicle manufacturers can dump vehicles which do not comply with local standards into the Australian market for sale. This article investigates the apparent need for Australia to continuously maintain alignment with global standards of Vehicle Emissions regulation, or otherwise face the reality that highly pollutant vehicles will end up on our shores. As of 2016, Australian standards are at Euro 5 (a standard of which Europe had determined by late 2009) and will commit to a more stringent tier (Euro 6) by April/June of this year. However, this article does not mention the fact that Australian Car manufacturing has steadily decreased in the past decades, and overseas importation has increased in relativity. Indeed, Australian standards will reflect the standards allowed by other international regulators (such as the US and Europe), of which the manufacturing and testing of Vehicle emissions in such countries is relatively greater. More to the point, many of the means by which Vehicle emissions are tested can be either faulted, as seen with the notoriety of Volkswagen, or are difficult to measure. Even in the event that Australia was as updated as foreign standards as concerned, the testing of vehicle emissions are susceptible to fraudulent activity or miscalculation. References Ristovski, Z., & Surawskia, N. (2017, October 27). Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/australia-still-lags-behind-in-vehicle-emissions-testing-86217

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Australia's Vehicle Emissions Still Lag Behind Foreign Countries.                                                   This piece discusses the impact of Australia’s lag behind international Vehicle Emissions standards; as a result, overseas vehicle manufacturers can dump vehicles which do not comply with local standards into the Australian market for sale. This article investigates the apparent need for Australia to continuously maintain alignment with global standards of Vehicle Emissions regulation, or otherwise face the reality that highly pollutant vehicles will end up on our shores. As of 2016, Australian standards are at Euro 5 (a standard of which Europe had determined by late 2009) and will commit to a more stringent tier (Euro 6) by April/June of this year. However, this article does not mention the fact that Australian Car manufacturing has steadily decreased in the past decades, and overseas importation has increased in relativity. Indeed, Australian standards will reflect the standards allowed by other international regulators (such as the US and Europe), of which the manufacturing and testing of Vehicle emissions in such countries is relatively greater. More to the point, many of the means by which Vehicle emissions are tested can be either faulted, as seen with the notoriety of Volkswagen, or are difficult to measure. Even in the event that Australia was as updated as foreign standards as concerned, the testing of vehicle emissions are susceptible to fraudulent activity or miscalculation. References Ristovski, Z., & Surawskia, N. (2017, October 27). Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/australia-still-lags-behind-in-vehicle-emissions-testing-86217

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Australian cars are using 23% more fuel than advertised, according to a report from the Australian Automobile Association, which also claims that eco-friendly hybrid electric cars emit four times more greenhouse gas than the manufacturers advertise.

The report on real-world (that is, on-road) emission testing was commissioned by consultancy firm ABMARC to test 30 cars twice on Melbourne roads. The method used to measure both the emissions and the fuel consumption was a so-called Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS).

Read more: The VW scandal exposes the high tech control of engine emissions

They found that when compared to the laboratory limits, on-road vehicle NOx (a toxic gas pollutant) emissions were exceeded for 11 out of 12 diesel vehicles, and carbon monoxide (also a toxic gas) emissions were exceeded by 27% of tested petrol vehicles.

However, the key consideration here is the phrase "comparison to the laboratory limits" because on-road tests can't directly be compared to the laboratory test limits, for several key reasons.

How are emissions from vehicles measured?

Australian Design Rules (ADR) stipulate that before introducing a new vehicle model on the market, every car or truck manufacturer in Australia has to test one new car in the laboratory.

This is done by placing the vehicle on a chassis dynamometer, connecting the exhaust to highly accurate emissions-measurement equipment, and driving the vehicle according to a strictly defined routine.

The chassis dynamometer simulates the load conditions that the vehicle would experience if it were driven on a road. In current practice, the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) is used. This defines the speed of the vehicle and rate of acceleration for every second of the 20-minute test.

There is strict control of the testing protocol, with stipulations on how and when the gears should be changed, right down to minute details such as turning off the radio while the headlights are on. This strict control enables testers to compare the performance of different vehicles measured in different laboratories around the world.

However, these highly defined conditions have led to certain manufacturers enabling the car's engine management system to recognise when it is being tested and to adopt and produce cleaner exhaust emissions. The most famous example of this is the recent VW scandal that affected millions of vehicles worldwide.

Even though the driving cycle has "new" in its name, NEDC was designed in the 1980s and today can be considered outdated.

Real Driving Emissions

To address these challenges, Real Driving Emissions (RDE) tests were developed. RDE tests measure the pollutants emitted by cars while driven on the road. To run a RDE test, cars are fitted with a Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS).

A PEMS is a complex piece of equipment that sits in the back of the car and monitors key pollutants emitted by the vehicle in real time as it is driven on the road.

These tests have proved extremely useful in highlighting some of the shortfalls of the laboratory tests. They can be run for much longer periods (several hours as compared with 15-30 minutes in the laboratory) and can give us information on long-term emission performance of the vehicles. They will not replace laboratory tests, but can provide additional information.

RDE requirements will ensure that cars deliver low emissions during on-road conditions. In 2021, Europe will become the first region in the world to introduce such complementary on-road testing for new vehicles.

RDE tests still face several unresolved challenges. The first is that the PEMS are still being developed and are not as accurate as the lab measurement equipment. The second, and more important, is the variability that one encounters while driving in real-world road conditions.

In order to compare the RDE test results with the laboratory-based standards a " conformity factor " is defined as a "not to exceed limit" that takes into account the error of measurements. This error is due to the PEMS equipment being less accurate, the variability in road conditions and driving behaviour, and thus the fact that the RDE tests will not deliver exactly the same results for each run.

A conformity factor of 1.5 would mean that the emissions measured by the PEMS in an RDE test should not exceed the standard NEDC test by more than a factor of 1.5. This is exactly the value that European Union legislators want to introduce - but not before 2021.

Australia is years behind

Australia remains years behind the European Union when it comes to vehicle emission standards.

The Euro emissions standards define the acceptable limits for exhaust emissions of new vehicles sold in the EU. Australia introduced the Euro 5 emission standards in 2016 as compared to Europe, which introduced these in 2009. At that time EU abolished the Euro 5 standard for already new ones in 2015.

Read more: Australia's weaker emissions standards allow car makers to 'dump' polluting cars

Australia needs to upgrade to meet Euro 6 standards in order to provide effective detection of new vehicles. These include measures such as remote sensing as part of a vehicles road-worthiness assessment. This would help to ensure the maintenance status of vehicles and deliver compliance with Euro 6 RDE legislation.

What the Australian Automobile Association report highlights most of all is that the in-use vehicles (whether or not they are hybrid vehicles), many of which fall under the Euro 5 standard (or older), have almost all failed emission tests.

Until Australia updates our vehicle testing regimes to meet international standards, it will remain extremely difficult for Australians who want to buy an energy-efficient vehicle to make an informed purchasing decision.

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Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing

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Australian cars are using 23% more fuel than advertised, according to a report from the Australian Automobile Association, which also claims that eco-friendly hybrid electric cars emit four times more greenhouse gas than the manufacturers advertise. The report on real-world (that is, on-road) emission testing was commissioned by consultancy firm ABMARC to test 30 cars twice on Melbourne roads.

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US President Donald Trump denied Tuesday that his White House is chaotic, but predicted more staff will leave, as allies and observers worry about West Wing brain drain.

But he just lost his top economic aide Gary Cohn who has quit today.

Trump's White House has made instability a virtue, but weeks of dysfunction and disarray - and a series of high-profile departures - raised internal fears of an exodus. Trump maintained that his White House has "tremendous energy," but multiple White House officials said Trump has been pushing anxious aides to stay.

"Everyone wants to work in the White House," Trump said during a joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. "They all want a piece of the Oval Office."

In a tweet earlier Tuesday, Trump sought to portray himself as the architect of some of the changes, writing, "I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection)."

Mr Trump also tweeted: "The new Fake News narrative is that there is CHAOS in the White House. Wrong! People will always come & go, and I want strong dialogue before making a final decision."

Trump acknowledged that he is a tough boss to work for, saying he enjoys watching his closest aides fight over policy. "I like conflict," he said during the press conference.

The president was pushing back against news report the White House is again being consumed by dysfunction and disarray.

But a conflict over trade policy is said to have provoked the departure of Cohn, the director of the national economic council.

Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banker, has been the strongest West Wing opponent of Trump's plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Cohn has been mounting an eleventh-hour campaign to swing the president's thinking around, but Trump so far has refused to back down on the proposal, despite opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill, international allies and many in the business committee.

A person who deals with the administration regularly on economic issues said Cohn was widely expected to leave the administration.

Both spoke on condition because they were not authorised to discuss internal conversations.

Cohn was nowhere in sight at the joint press conference and a seat reserved for him in the East Room was filled by a different aide.

Dating back to the campaign, Trump has frequently and loudly complained about the quality of his staff, eager to fault his aides for any mishaps rather than acknowledge any personal responsibility.

But the attacks on his own staff have sharpened in recent weeks and he has suggested to confidants that he has few people at his side he can count on, according to two people familiar with his thinking but not authorised to publicly discuss private conversations. Coinciding with the heated debate over tariffs, Trump's communications director Hope Hicks, one of his closest and most devoted aides, announced her resignation, leaving a glaring vacancy in the informal cadre of Trump loyalists in the White House.

Mr Trump's communications director Hope Hicks abruptly announced her resignation just weeks after her boyfriend Rob Porter was ousted over domestic violence claims.

Turnover after just over a year in office is nothing new, but the Trump administration has churned through staff at a dizzying pace since taking office last January, and allies are worried the situation could descend into a free- fall.

Making matters worse, the list of prospects to replace departing aides grows shorter as the sense of turmoil increases. Vacancies abound throughout the West Wing and the administration at large, from critical roles like staff secretary to more junior positions in the press office.

Multiple aides who are considering departing said they didn't have a clue who could fill their roles - adding that their desire to remain team players has kept them on the job longer than they had planned. But they warned they were nearing their breaking point.

Questions persist about the longevity of other top White House aides, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has had his security clearance downgraded.

Josh Raffel, who was the deputy communications director and a press official condiered to be Kushner and Ivanka Trump's spokesman, resigned a day before Hicks.

A number of aides have expressed worry about the legal implications - and steep legal bills - they could face if ensnared in the ongoing Russia probe. The probe has had a chilling effect on an already sluggish White House hiring process, according to officials, and there is wide concern that working for Trump could negatively affect future career prospects.

Meanwhile, the prospects for significant governing achievements in the coming years - like the GOP tax bill passed in December - are growing fleeting, as Republicans face a daunting electoral environment this fall. In a riff Saturday at the Gridiron Dinner, an annual white-tie affair, Trump engaged in a rare bout of self-deprecating humor, comparing the Oval Office job to his past career as the host of the reality-television show "The Apprentice."

"In one job I had to manage a cutthroat cast of characters, desperate for TV time, totally unprepared for their roles and their jobs and each week afraid of having their asses fired - and the other job I was the host of a smash television hit."

In an early morning twitter storm Mr Trump also took a swipe at the Oscars, which recorded a record-low viewership of 26.5 million people.

The Nielsen company said that's a 20 per cent drop from the 33 million who watched the 2017 show, which was also hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

The Academy Awards are often the most-watched television program of the year after the Super Bowl, but this year's Winter Olympics opening ceremony from PyeongChang reached 27.8 million.

Mr Trump that the problem is that "we don't have Stars anymore - except your President (just kidding, of course)!

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Trump: More staff will leave White House

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US President Donald Trump denied Tuesday that his White House is chaotic, but predicted more staff will leave, as allies and observers worry about West Wing brain drain. But he just lost his top economic aide Gary Cohn who has quit today.

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A Coles manager in Western Australia asked his staff to work for four hours for free on Sunday, just three weeks after the Fair Work Commission announced a cut to penalty rates.

The metropolitan supermarket boss offered staff pizza instead of pay, in exchange for helping get through excess stock in the store, a notice read.

However, the request was withdrawn before Sunday's shift, after disgruntled workers made the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers Association (SDA) aware of the proposal.

SDA state secretary Peter O'Keefe told ABC Radio Perth's Geoff Hutchinson the proposal was "unacceptable".

"Obviously this manager has decided for reasons of his own to request people to come and work unpaid," he said.

"As soon as he put that notice on the notice board, SDA members started ringing us and we immediately got in contact with the manager and told him this was unacceptable and it would not be allowed.

"He argued perhaps a little bit, but then took the message down. We also raised it with Coles head office, because this is clearly very concerning.

"Coles at the senior level are aghast that he actually took this step and they have taken steps to make sure not only that it doesn't proceed, but that it doesn't happen again."

The notice, which asked all of the store's 65 team members to work four hours for free on Sunday, was posted "to help the store get on top of this once and for all".

It asked for all employees to work from 5.30pm to 9.30pm on Sunday to help clear six pallets of stock as well as 78 cages of stock as part of a "personal request" from the manager.

"Yes, it is a big ask and I would not be requesting this unless it was absolutely necessary," the notice read.

ABC Radio's Mr Hutchison suggested the store manager might have been overworked and harassed with pressure from above to tidy things up. Mr O'Keefe agreed.

The SDA state secretary said the union believed this was likely a once-off request from an overzealous manager.

Coles responded to the letter, issuing a statement saying the "trainee manager" was out of line.

"Coles values the hard work of all of our team members and the notice in the store is completely out of step with Coles' way of working," a Coles spokesperson said.

"The notice, which was posted by a trainee manger, was quickly removed. Any team members working at the stated time will be paid as normal."

However, according to an "insider" quoted by Mr Hutchison, unpaid work is common practice for the supermarket giant.

"Hours and wages keep getting cut and more is expected to be done with less," they were quoted as saying.

"Everyone is overworked. This store manager would have been under extreme pressure from a regional manager and state operations manager to get the job done without spending any more money."
This article was first published by The New Daily. You can read it here.

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Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work - SmartCompany

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A Coles manager in Western Australia asked his staff to work for four hours for free on Sunday, just three weeks after the Fair Work Commission announced a cut to penalty rates. The metropolitan supermarket boss offered staff pizza instead of pay, in exchange for helping get through excess stock in the store, a notice read.

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Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights.

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Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights.

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explains Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its link to human rights. It begins by giving their definition of the CSR concept saying that corporations have a degree of responsibility to the economic consequences of their actions, but also to recognise the environmental and social implications (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2008). This is where human rights comes in to play, as they are relevant to all economic, social and environmental aspect of corporate activity. It is then said that while the primary responsibility of the enforcement of international human rights standards lies with governments, there is growing pressure for corporations to step up and have more of an impact and involvement in the process. This was an incredibly informative reading exercise as it broadened my knowledge on the cooperative and comparative nature of CSR and human rights, and also the role they both play in organisations.

https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/corporate-social-responsibility-human-rights

Australian Human Rights Commission. (2008). Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights. Retrieved March 2018, from Australian Human Rights Commission: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/corporate-social-responsibility-human-rights

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Do narcissists make the best leaders - or the worst?

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Do narcissists make the best leaders - or the worst?

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This piece of media from the Financial Times is an opinion piece arguing whether or not narcissists make the best or worst leaders. Journalist Oliver James is quite adamant that narcissists that come from wealthy or ‘rich’ backgrounds are more likely to become narcissists and therefore will be bad leaders. He defines narcissism as being an attention seeking attribute, while strongly arguing that it reduces empathy and social conscience, therefore encourage them to act unethically (James, 2017). His research is based off a study of an institution that trains the US Army’s officers. He continues to base his argument around wealth and ‘affluent upbringings’, stating “wealthier narcissistic graduates were significantly worse at listening to the ideas of their subordinates and empathising with them” (James, 2017). This piece was incredibly interesting to read as it offered me a completely different way of approaching narcissism and the role it has to play in ethical practice.

https://www.ft.com/content/360d0e42-c92d-11e7-8536-d321d0d897a3

James, O. (2017, December 1). Do narcissists make the best leaders - or the worst? Retrieved March 2018, from Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/360d0e42-c92d-11e7-8536-d321d0d897a3

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This paper written by two academics from universities in Tennessee and Texas details how extreme narcissistic organisation are unable to behave ethically and they lack moral identity. Organisations have identities similar to people; they have names, are distinguishable, they occupy physical space and have accorded legal rights (Drake & Duchon, 2009, p. 301). Unfortunately these attributes allow an organisation to substantiate claims of uniqueness, often associated with narcissism. This paper spends a lot of time critiquing narcissism and the role it has to play in unethical behaviour, while not addressing the possibility that narcissism and self-praise could have something to do with the success of an organisation. I do however believe that Drake and Duchon have cleverly examined the link between ethical behaviour and organisational narcissism as they begin to give ethics and organisations identities. They also focus their critique on civic responsibility and the importance of one being accountable for their actions, ethical or unethical.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1093&context=managementfacpub

Drake, B., & Duchon, D. (2009). Organizational Narcissism and Virtuous Behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 85, 301 - 308.

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This article published in the New York Times contains an interview with Ken Frazier,  the CEO of Merck, an international pharmaceutical company based in America. Throughout the interview, Frazier details how he has overcome a family history of racial oppression to climb the ladder to CEO of a multinational corporation.

Despite his humble beginnings, Frazier attended Harvard Law School and has been determined to affect positive change ever since.  He travelled to South Africa during Apartheid to assist with lawyers who did not have access to sufficient education. His aim was to empower those who saw themselves as worthless because of how those in power treated them.

Ken Frazier has used his improved circumstance to better the lives of those around him. He has fought to free a death-row inmate and succeeded. He battled a pharmaceutical company who valued profits over the health of consumers. Why? It is more important to act with integrity and stand up for what is right, according to Mr Frazier.

Reference

Gelles, D. (2018, March 9). Merck C.E.O. Ken Frazier on death row cases and the corporate soul. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/business/merck-ceo-ken-frazier-on-death-row-cases-and-the-corporate-soul.html

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The role of the chief executive has never been more complex - or more consequential.

Business leaders today are reshaping the internet, reimagining health care, upending transportation and more. But being a chief executive is no longer just about running a company. It means taking political stands on everything from immigration to gun rights. It means weighing in on tariffs and taxes - all while balancing short-term profits with long-term goals, dealing with activist investors and attracting talented employees.

In an effort to better understand the world's top chief executives - where they're coming from and how they deal with the challenges they face - The New York Times is bringing back Corner Office.

For nearly 10 years, Corner Office featured conversations about leadership and management with some 500 senior executives. The new Corner Office will build on this foundation and also cover the big issues of the day, from climate change to artificial intelligence. We'll be talking to prominent chief executives at big companies, innovators at lesser-known start-ups and organizational leaders in philanthropy, sports and the arts.

We want you to join the conversation. Let us know whom we should interview, and what questions you want answered below. And stay tuned as we bring Corner Office to life with multimedia, how-to guides and live events.

As we considered whom to interview first, Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, was right at the top of the list. Mr. Frazier has a powerful personal story and has built an exceptional career.

Raised in a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia, Mr. Frazier attended Penn State University and Harvard Law School. He joined Merck in 1992, defending the company against major lawsuits while resisting calls to slash research and development budgets.

Last year, Mr. Frazier made headlines as the first chief executive to resign from a presidential advisory council following Mr. Trump's equivocating response to an outburst of white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Va. As perhaps the most prominent black chief executive in the country, his stance carried powerful symbolism.

The Times published an article last month about Mr. Frazier's decision to resign from the advisory role. This interview, which was condensed and edited for clarity, was conducted at Merck's headquarters in Kenilworth, N.J.
You once said that even though your father was a janitor, you believed he could have been a C.E.O.
My father was born in the year 1900 in South Carolina, and he grew up at a time where being an African-American child in the American South was to be deprived of access to anything close to a reasonable education. He only had three years of formal education, but he was self-taught. He read two newspapers a day. He could've done a lot of things had he been born when I was born.
Tell me about his father.
My grandfather on my paternal side, Richard Frazier, was born in the late 1850s, and therefore was born into slavery, but was a sharecropper in South Carolina for his entire life. And one of the great things about my grandfather was that he sent my father north before he reached the age of maturity so that he, too, wouldn't become indebted to the land.
How did your parents raise you?
I had a fantastic upbringing by two parents who cared deeply about their children, but more importantly believed that anything was possible for their children, and in some ways almost brainwashed us to be successful. They believed that despite the history of this country as it related to African-Americans, that for my siblings and I, that there would be tremendous opportunity. They also instilled that it was our responsibility to take advantage of the opportunities that they did not have.
What drew you to the study of law?
I've always admired lawyers who use their power to affect social change, and Thurgood Marshall was always a childhood hero of mine.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, you went to work at Drinker Biddle & Reath. Why there?
I chose that firm in large part because they had a reputation of doing a lot of pro bono work. When I was at the firm, I read about the need in South Africa for law professors and lawyers to come from the U.S., because black law students in South Africa were obviously during apartheid only allowed to go to second-rate law schools.

I lived one whole semester in Soweto. It was completely lawless. There were no streetlights. It was a completely separated area where people were contained, because the South African government's job, as it saw it, was to separate blacks from whites.

But what I remember more than anything else was interacting with people who their entire lives had been told that they were second class, that they were inferior, and how hard it was to get particularly the men to speak up in audible tones, because they had been in many ways told that their voice was not worth listening to. In addition to trying to teach people the substantive legal issues, it was a lot about trying to instill self-confidence.

"The most important role of a leader is to safeguard the heritage and values of the company."

- Ken Frazier
You also represented James Willie "Bo" Cochran, a death row inmate. What was your first impression of his case?
My first reaction was, "I'm much too busy to take on another piece of pro bono litigation." But there were two younger lawyers in the firm who heard about the case, and they came to me and frankly they sort of shamed me into doing it.
You eventually won his freedom. What did that mean to you?
It was the high point of my professional career. This is a man who was facing an execution date for a crime he did not commit. And what I will never forget about Bo was that he had no sense of recrimination whatsoever. He was just thankful for every day that he had as a free man. It sort of reminds me of Nelson Mandela in the sense that he was able to live his life going forward without regard to trying to even scores.
One of the things that defined your early years at Merck was the defense against lawsuits over Vioxx, a painkiller that posed heart risk and was pulled off the market. Are there lessons to be learned from the way you approached that?
The central allegation that was underneath the Vioxx litigation was that this company put profit before patient safety. That went to the core of who we are as a company, and there was no way that we could allow that story to be unchallenged. We did not want Vioxx to become a verbal shorthand, like an Enron or something of that nature, for corporate wrongdoing. The most important role of a leader is to safeguard the heritage and values of the company.
How do you balance the pressure to deliver profits to public shareholders and also to make lifesaving drugs?
I actually don't see that big a conflict between meeting the needs of shareholders and meeting the needs of society.

Very early on in my tenure there was a lot of pressure being put on pharmaceutical C.E.O.s to cut their research budgets. And we value R & D as a company. It's who we are. It's the core of what we do. I made the decision that I wasn't going to cut our R & D budget, and that had some short-term negative consequences in terms of share price. But by taking those actions I think we were able to show that we really did care about what we said we were about as a company.

There are lots of examples of companies that have lost their way because they've sort of lost their soul, which is a funny word to use, but companies do have souls.
Last year, after President Trump's remarks following the violence in Charlottesville, you resigned from one of his advisory councils What did you learn from the whole experience? . What happened?
In that moment the president's response was one that I felt was not in concordance with my views, and I didn't think they were in concordance with the views that we claim to hold as a country. It was my view that to not take a stand on this would be viewed as a tacit endorsement of what had happened and what was said. I think words have consequences, and I think actions have consequences. I just felt that as a matter of my own personal conscience, I could not remain.
"In what ways if any has your representation of prisoners on death row influenced your decisions as C.E.O.?"
C.E.O.s need to be very thoughtful and sober about the positions that they take publicly. Ultimately, if you believe strongly in something, you ought to say it, and you ought to say it in a very clear way.
How do you prioritize your time?
Bill Horne in Newtonville, Mass., asks...
What advice would you give to college graduates?
What drew me to Merck was that the company's ethos had the same feel that pro bono work has, which is that you're really committed to serving your fellow human beings. I worked for 10 years to save one person's life in the context of the death penalty. Here we can make decisions every day with the stroke of the pen that can make lots of people's lives longer and healthier.

There are three things that the C.E.O. should be focused on. Number one is that sense of purpose and direction that the company needs, making sure that that's always clear and people know what we're all about. The second thing is capital allocation. We only have so many resources. Making sure that you're putting those resources where you have the greatest opportunity. And the third, which I think by far is the most important, is to make sure that you have the right people in the most important jobs inside the company.

I think people should seek adventure in life, as opposed to just allowing their ambitions to drive where they want to end up. Lots of people say, "Tell me what are the steps to get from here to the C.E.O.'s office." I can say honestly I never sought to be a C.E.O. But what I've always wanted was a new challenge, what I call an adventure. Seek adventure. Seek excitement in what you do.

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Merck C.E.O. Ken Frazier on Death Row Cases and the Corporate Soul

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The role of the chief executive has never been more complex - or more consequential. Business leaders today are reshaping the internet, reimagining health care, upending transportation and more. But being a chief executive is no longer just about running a company. It means taking political stands on everything from immigration to gun rights.

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Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing

This article highlights the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) usually being nothing more than just for show, typically because of corporations treating CSR as an addition to what they do rather than it being embedded into their operations or core business (the why they do, what they do). Often this is reflected in the corporations reporting, with CSR and sustainability being tabled in a separate document from the annual report.
The reasons for companies to at least appear to have strong CSR practices and culture, usually come from external influences, such as regulation, legislation and social movements. Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley, & Muntean (2013) offer external corporate responsbility audits as a strategy to tie the company’s words closer to their actions.
However whilst accountability and transparency foundations are based on external stakeholders, in order for true and meaningful cultural change to take place internally; Bill McHarg (Melbourne commercial real estate broker) attested “Culture is driven by senior management, and if change is not embraced at the top, then it’s just fluffy words”.
References
Schleimer, S., & Rice, J. (2016, October 4). Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing. Australia.
Shaw, W., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean, D. (2013). Moral issues in business. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

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This article argues that businesses use Corporate Social Responsibility as a way to win back disengaged stakeholders. The author of the opinion article claims that businesses have sacrificed their purpose to win friends and influence people, similar to the church in recent times.

Ken Henry, NAB Chairman, believes that leaders of Australian business are required to present a united front with the Australian politicians and prominent community sector members in order to improve the well-being of the community. With leaders uniting for a common cause, Henry offers the environment as a significant problem to work towards solving, but admits that most parties will have their own agenda.

What this article fails to touch on is the climate change nonbelievers in the government or the vested interest of businesses to promote their own agenda.

(2018, March 8). Business has a social purpose: making money and prosperity. The Financial Review. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/business-has-a-social-purpose-making-money-and-prosperity-20180308-h0x6yo

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If business isn't careful it will go the way of Christianity.

Of course Christianity still exists and people still attend church on Sunday, but the Christian voice in public debate in Australia is now either ignored or non-existent. It's difficult to think of a single policy issue of recent years in which the Christian perspective has prevailed.

There's many reasons for what's happened, not the least of which is the determined effort of secularists to label religious viewpoints as illegitimate and incompatible with modernity. But most of the responsibility for the current position of Christianity in Australia rests with the churches themselves.

When they strayed from their core mission of saving souls to sideline ventures like saving polar bears, the churches became irrelevant. Christianity abandoned the line of business in which it had some expertise and became indistinguishable from every other not-for-profit chasing attention and trying to be popular while saving the world.

The way in which Christianity in Australia cast aside its purpose in search of popularity has been thoughtfully examined by Fr James Grant, a former Anglican minister now a Catholic priest, in his book Let There Be Light: Parish Leadership for the 21st Century.

Lack of trust

The desire to be liked is a theme permeating a speech Ken Henry, the former Treasury secretary and now chairman of NAB, delivered last week and it also runs through the remarks made by a number of business leaders at The Australian Financial Review Business Summit this week.

Henry lamented that business found it "difficult to occupy positions of trust and respect in society". He's right.

According to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer less than half of Australians trust business.

NAB chairman Ken Henry says governments are "acting as if they lack power". Jessica Shapiro

Corporate Australia's leverage with the public is close to zero.
CEOs have failed in their efforts to convince the public of the need for a cut in company tax, and they've given up entirely talking about reducing red tape and industrial relations reform.

Part of the reason why corporate leaders these days seem so eager to talk about social instead of business issues is because when they discuss the latter no one wants to listen.

Henry suggests that if business talks about its broader "social purpose" and engages on issues like the environment it can regain the community's respect. Whether Henry's solution will have business regain the trust of the community is debatable.

Henry suggests that if business talks about its broader "social purpose" and engages on issues like the environment it can regain the community's respect. David Rowe

The "social purpose" of business sounds suspiciously like that 1990s buzz phrase "corporate social responsibility". Three decades of CSR have done nothing for the standing of business.

There's a more fundamental problem with Henry's conception of the "social purpose" of business. He believes it's possible for us to all agree on what the purpose is.

While he acknowledges that different "businesses will articulate their social purpose in different ways" Henry hopes there will be a "common thread" that unites "all of us in business" to improve "the wellbeing of our community".

Once such a shared purpose is agreed upon Henry then wants "leaders in politics" and "leaders in business" and "leaders in the community sector" to agree on a "unifying" narrative for national development.

Own decisions

The narrative Henry wants business to agree to is but one alternative of many.

In his speech he emphasised the importance of a narrative that protects the environment. While Henry prioritises climate change, others might place a higher priority on overcoming unemployment, or reducing the size of government, or something else entirely.

In perhaps the most controversial part of his speech Henry said: "When business commits to improving community wellbeing, it creates room for government to pursue a higher ambition."

Only someone who has spent nearly all their adult life working for the government could utter something like this.

Many small business owners would be surprised to learn the reason they get out of bed every morning at 5.30 is so they can "create room" for government to get bigger.

Hopefully most people in business would say they create community wellbeing by employing people and generating wealth, thereby allowing individuals and families to make their own decisions about how best to lead their lives.

The business of business is to generate profit and wealth. Anyone who forgets their core mission does so at their peril. Just ask any priest or bishop.
John Roskam is executive director of the Institute for Public Affairs

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Business has a social purpose: making money and prosperity

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If business isn't careful it will go the way of Christianity. Of course Christianity still exists and people still attend church on Sunday, but the Christian voice in public debate in Australia is now either ignored or non-existent. It's difficult to think of a single policy issue of recent years in which the Christian perspective has prevailed.

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EU and Japan Seek Exemption From Trump's Trade Tariffs

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The EU and Japan urged the U.S. to exclude them from President Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, in an effort to avoid a trade war with the world's biggest economy.

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Ethical ?

Jennifer Weller
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Call to action for Leaders

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Volkswagen and the failure of corporate social responsibility

Caitlin Nelson
2d
Volkswagen and the failure of corporate social responsibility
Worldwide known car brand Volkswagen have been under fire after exampling unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour. It all started when Volkswagen company came up with and deliberately set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control. According to Forbes Volkswagen did ‘stratagem known at the highest levels, that aimed for giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it the world’s number one car maker, in large part on the basis of its supposedly environmentally friendly cars was actually poisoning the planet.’ Volkswagen did everything they 

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Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled.

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Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled.

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Australia’s Emissions Reduction fund (ERF) of $2.55 billion attempts to reduce greenhouse gasses by up to 30 percent in comparison to 2005 levels.  Businesses can reduce their emissions for a piece of the funding pie.  The scheme has been successful in that it has projected reduced emissions by 191.7 million tonnes costing taxpayers $2.28 billion dollars.  If the government continues to increase the emissions baselines as is currently the case the benefits of the fund will be expunged.  It is in the best interests of future generations that those responsible for polluting the environment should be held accountable.  Should they really be paid to do the right thing?

Today only 16% of the contracted reductions have been realized.

More stringent laws need to be passed that force companies to act ethically in regards to the environment.  With such complex issues at hand it is difficult to be fair to all concerned.

References
McKenzie, I., (2018, February 26). Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/australias-emissions-reduction-fund-is-almost-empty-it-shouldnt-be-refilled-92283

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Australia's flagship climate policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), has come in for fresh questions over whether the emissions allowances offered to big businesses will wipe out much of the progress made elsewhere.

This voluntary scheme - the central plank of Australia's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030 - allows interested parties to reduce pollution in exchange for a proportion of the A$2.55 billion fund.

Read more: The government is miscounting greenhouse emissions reductions

So far, through successive rounds of " reverse auctions", the scheme has secured 191.7 million tonnes of emission reductions, at a price tag of A$2.28 billion.

As the budget for this scheme is nearly exhausted, it is important to ask whether it has been a success, or whether Australia's carbon policy needs a radical rethink. Overall, the answer seems to be the latter.

Safeguards not so safe

Much of the problem stems from the ERF's safeguard mechanism, which puts limits on the greenhouse emissions from around 140 large polluting businesses. Under the mechanism, these firms are not allowed to pollute more than an agreed "baseline", calculated on the basis of their existing operations.

The mechanism is described as a safeguard because it aims to stop big businesses wiping out the emissions reductions delivered by projects funded by the ERF. But it doesn't appear to be working.

The government has already increased the emission baselines for many of these businesses, for arguably specious reasons. Some firms have been given extra leeway to pollute simply because their business has grown, or even just because they blew their original baseline.

Worryingly, on February 21, 2018 the federal government released a consultation document which favours "updating baselines to bring them in line with current circumstances" and suggests that "to help prevent baselines becoming out-of-date in the future, they could be updated for production more often, for example, each year".

It doesn't take a genius to realise that if baselines are continually increased over time, the fixed benefits of the ERF will inevitably be wiped out.

This underlines the importance of having a climate policy that operates throughout the economy, rather than only in certain parts of it. If heavily polluting businesses can so readily be allowed to undo the work of others, this is a recipe for disaster.

Contract problems

Even within the ERF process itself, many emissions reduction contracts have already been revoked. This is worrying but also avoidable if the contracts are written correctly.

It is important to note that these contracts run for around seven years, and thus it is possible that the planned carbon reductions never eventuate. Currently only about 16% of the announced 191.7 million tonnes of emissions reduction have actually been delivered.

For the ERF to work effectively, the government needs to know the "counterfactual" emissions - that is, firms' emissions if they decided not to participate in the ERF. Yet this is completely unknown.

This means that projects that successfully bid for ERF funding (typically the cheapest ones) may not be "additional". In other words, they may have established these emissions reduction projects anyway, with or without funding from the taxpayer.

Another problem with the ERF is that it is skewed towards projects from lower-polluting sectors of the economy, whereas heavily polluting industries are underrepresented. The largest proportion of signed contracts have involved planting trees or reducing emissions from savannah burning.

Meanwhile, the firms covered by the safeguard mechanism are largely absent from the ERF itself, despite these firms accounting for around 50% of Australia's greenhouse emissions.

The bare fact is that Australia's flagship climate policy doesn't target the prominent polluters.

A different way

Australia's climate policy has had a colourful past. Yet the economics of pollution mitigation remain the same.

If we want to reduce pollution in a cost-effective way that actually works, then we must (re-)establish a carbon price.

This would provide the much-needed certainty about the cost of genuine pollution reduction. This in turn would allow all major polluters to make strategic, long-term investments that will progressively reduce emissions.

Instead of spending A$2.55 billion to pay for modest emissions reductions that might be cancelled out elsewhere, creating a carbon price will allow for the generation of tax revenue that can be used for a host of purposes.

For example, distortionary tax rates (such as income and corporation tax) could be lowered, or the revenue could be used to fund better schools and hospitals.

A clear example of such a success can be taken from the northeastern states of the US. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a cap-and-trade market that sells tradeable pollution permits to electricity companies. Estimates have shown that US$2.3 billion of lifetime energy bill savings will occur due to investments made in 2015.

To tax or cap?

If the ERF is to be replaced, what type of carbon price do we want? Do we want a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade market?

While advantages exist for both, most evidence shows that carbon taxes are more efficient at driving down emissions. Moreover, taxation avoids the potential problems of market power, which may exist with a small number of large polluters.

Read more: Australia's biggest emitters opt to 'wait and see' over Emissions Reduction Fund

A carbon price would also remove much of the political rent-seeking that is encouraged by Australia's current policy settings. A simple, economy-wide carbon tax would be more transparent than the safeguard mechanism, under which individual firms can plead for leniency.

With the ERF fund almost empty, the federal government should ask itself a tough question. Should it spend another A$2.55 billion of taxpayers' money while letting major polluters increase their emissions? Or should it embrace a new source of tax revenue that incentivises cleaner technologies in a transparent, cost-effective way?

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Australia's Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn't be refilled

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Australia's flagship climate policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), has come in for fresh questions over whether the emissions allowances offered to big businesses will wipe out much of the progress made elsewhere.

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The article “Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study” states that more than 90% of business students who study about corporate social responsibility said that they would be willing to sacrifice some percentage of their future income in order to work for responsible employers. Even 14% of them said that they are willing to sacrifice more than 40% of their future salary. This shows that business students are committed with respect to working for socially responsibly organisations. Some people insist that the students just said that because they do not have any work experience and are idealistic, which is understandable. However, Such willingness of the students mean a lot in a hopeful way. In order for this to happen in reality, the government should have a good effect on business by setting rules. Unfortunately, it is generally accepted fact that corporations would not change their policy based on ethical considerations. Therefore, the government should strengthen a fair tax policy as well as ethical rules for business.  ReferencesLeventhal, D. H., & Pournader, M. (2017, February 22). Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study. Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: https://theconversation.com/business-students-willing-to-sacrifice-future-salary-for-good-corporate-social-responsibility-study-73122

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The article “Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study” states that more than 90% of business students who study about corporate social responsibility said that they would be willing to sacrifice some percentage of their future income in order to work for responsible employers. Even 14% of them said that they are willing to sacrifice more than 40% of their future salary. This shows that business students are committed with respect to working for socially responsibly organisations. Some people insist that the students just said that because they do not have any work experience and are idealistic, which is understandable. However, Such willingness of the students mean a lot in a hopeful way. In order for this to happen in reality, the government should have a good effect on business by setting rules. Unfortunately, it is generally accepted fact that corporations would not change their policy based on ethical considerations. Therefore, the government should strengthen a fair tax policy as well as ethical rules for business.  ReferencesLeventhal, D. H., & Pournader, M. (2017, February 22). Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study. Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: https://theconversation.com/business-students-willing-to-sacrifice-future-salary-for-good-corporate-social-responsibility-study-73122

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The article “Leadership: what it is (and isn’t)” describes how leadership will look and feel differently depending on different contexts and, in particular, the context of different wicked problems. This explores leadership in regards to politicians.

While some people reckon that politicians in Australia are the ones who do not lead but follow, other people also raise a question of who the politicians follow. I think it is impossible to define leadership without considering its essential prerequisite that is followership. I personally believe that leadership is about how they help and encourage others to solve problems, not about how they solve problems.

However, I reckon that Tony Abbott’s leadership has been forceful when considering the fact that he forced an unpopular and controversial policy. Consequently, I would rather describe his leadership as authority. True leaders do care what other people think and do not impose their authority with use of the power.

References

Wilson, S., & Fien, J. (2014, May 27). Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: https://theconversation.com/leadership-what-it-is-and-isnt-27019

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The current NSW land clearing laws for private land owners established by the Berejikilian Government have failed in their duty to care for the environment and thus sustainability, adding to the devastation of natural resources. The Nature Conservation Council has fought against the laws that allow private land owners to clear their lands without environmental evaluation or sanction.  Many other projects seem to not be meticulously evaluated for environmental impacts.  Australia is still set to clear up to 3 million hectares of native forest by 2030, and more than 1800 plants and animals are listed as threatened.  These are staggering rates which suggests that the current laws are not working.

The laws in this case were overturned and deemed to have been unlawfully made in the absence of the environmental ministers input.

The current government has pledged to make the benefits of this reform a top priority to ensure its obligation to the protection of the environment is met.

References
ABC News: (2018, March 9)

NSW Government's land-clearing law quashed in court, deemed invalid. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-09/nsw-government-land-clearing-law-quashed-in-court-invalid/9531640

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Posted March 09, 2018 12:18:56

In a breakthrough victory, the Land and Environment court today ruled the NSW Government's land-clearing laws were made unlawfully, and were therefore invalid.

The Nature Conservation Council fought the legislation made by the Berejiklian Government, which had permitted private landholders to carry out large-scale clearing of native vegetation without prior approval or environmental assessment.

CEO Kate Smolski said the government "bungled" the introduction of Native Vegetation Code 2017, claiming the process "demonstrates its careless disregard for nature in NSW".

"Today's ruling is an embarrassing admission of failure by the Berejiklian Government and a great victory for the rule of law and the thousands of people who have supported us in taking this action," Ms Smolski said.

"Premier Berejiklian must act now to prevent further plundering of our forests, woodlands and water supplies by scrapping these laws and making new ones that actually protect the environment."

The conservation group argued in court that the codes were invalid because, contrary to legal requirements, Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair did not reach an agreement with Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton before making the codes last August.

A spokeswoman from the office of Minister for Primary Industries said the NSW Government was "moving quickly to respond to (the) court's declaration".

"Its top priority is providing legal and operational certainty to ensure the benefits of the reform continue to be realised".

The statement said the government was "absolutely committed to delivering on this important reform and meeting its obligation to act on the recommendations of the Independent Panel".

Action by the conservationists was launched last November, legally represented by the Environmental Defenders Office.

Topics: law-crime-and-justice, environmental-impact, environmental-policy, states-and-territories, sydney-2000, nsw

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NSW Government's land-clearing law quashed in court, deemed invalid

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Posted March 09, 2018 12:18:56 In a breakthrough victory, the Land and Environment court today ruled the NSW Government's land-clearing laws were made unlawfully, and were therefore invalid. The Nature Conservation Council fought the legislation made by the Berejiklian Government, which had permitted private landholders to carry out large-scale clearing of native vegetation without prior approval or environmental assessment.

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The article “Five traits of an ethical leader” by David Tuffley&Amy Antonio explains about qualities of an ethical leader. This describes the qualities of ethical leaders which are the personality to defy group-think, the ability to set a good example, selflessness, their doors always open, being not afraid to be challenged and being responsible for everything.

From my point of view, this article is only talking about the perfect qualities of the perfect leader whom it is extremely hard to find in reality. Having been working in reality for more than two years in fashion and art, I have met a lot of directors who are basically leader in their organisations and I have never seen any leaders who have all the qualities above, which is not unfortunate. In particular, I do not think, in general, it is impossible for leaders to be able to maintain a permanent door because there are basically too many things to deal with in a limited time.

References

David, T., & Amy, A. (2015, December 30). Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: http://theconversation.com/five-traits-of-
an-ethical-leader-51181

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Authenticity is a key theme for me in ethics and social responsibility

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Authenticity is a key theme for me in ethics and social responsibility

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This core theme of ethics and social responsibility has really made me sit back and think. There a few posts here on the padlet that have shown unethical behaviour by CEO’s of different companies. This article is what sums up ethical leadership for me, authenticity, is of particular importance for me in my personal life because we are all human beings and we make mistakes from time to time and it is how we deal with those setbacks is what defines us as human beings. Being open and honest and owning those mistakes shows transparency which allows open doors for you to engage others and rely on their strengths and skills. Your followers will feel needed and valued by you, and they will be more likely to help and compensate for your weaknesses (Schreyer, 2010).
Reference
Schreyer, E. (2010).

Why Leadership Matters. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/2010/03/08/leader-business-visionary-forbes-woman-leadership-job.html#6c3a1a06408a

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I can't help but laugh when I recall the scene in the movie Old School where Will Farrell's character enthusiastically attempts to lead everyone streaking through the center of campus. Eventually, he looks back and realizes (at the same time he is busted) that nobody has actually followed him. It begs the question: Are you really leading if nobody is following?

As a leader, you should have an element of magnetism to your style. What do I mean by that? I mean that people should be drawn to you; they should want to be around you--by choice, that is, not because it's their job to take your direction. The greatest leaders have a natural following of people that are pointed in the same direction; people that want to accomplish the same goals; people that want to be on your bus!

If you are leading others and you're lonely, then you're not doing it right. Think about it. If you're all alone, that means nobody is following you. And if nobody is following you, then you're not really leading. --John Maxwell

Of course, I'm not suggesting that you need to win a popularity contest. You don't need to be everyone's BFF or the life of the party, but it's certainly beneficial if people want to follow and accomplish your same goals. Here are some tips that will help you increase your magnetic pull:

Tell the Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but The Truth

Consider the closest relationships you have. I'll bet you know those people pretty well--warts, flaws and mistakes included--and yet you still love them. Heck, it's likely that you love them even more because they're human--like you--they're not perfect and sometimes they need help, and they'll admit it.

These relational principals apply across the board. Just because you're in a leadership position doesn't mean that you've attained perfection. You're human. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to have questions, and people will respect you more for owning that. Your transparency and honesty opens the doors for you to engage others and rely on their strengths and expertise. Your team will feel needed and valued by you, and they'll likely jump into help compensate for your weaknesses.

In addition to being authentic about yourself, leaders should realize the importance of being open and honest about the state of their organization, current and future. Leaders should be clear and candid in their communication to give everyone an accurate assessment of what's going on and what's needed to improve. This openness and authenticity creates understanding and direction, and it minimizes the chaos of uncertainty.

The cultures that are most toxic are those where nobody knows the truth--or where nobody is talking about it. --Warren Bennis

Be Inspirational and Visionary

The truth of the matter is that we can't all be the leader in charge. In fact, many people don't even want to be that person! I've often said that I wouldn't be President of the U.S. for all the money in the world! I can't imagine the challenges of that position, and I don't want to!

The end result is that many people want to be led. They need someone who can be visionary and inspirational. I've written before about The Hopeful Leader, and many of those concepts apply here as well. People want, and often need, someone to give them a brighter picture of their future.

In the book Leading at a Higher Level, a study of more than 500 leaders showed that those who demonstrated strong visionary leadership had the highest performing teams. Leaders with good management skills but without vision had average team performance. Leaders who were identified as weak in vision and management skills had poor performing teams. So, why is it so important to have a clear vision? Because...

...leadership is about going somewhere. If you and your people don't know where you're going, your leadership doesn't matter. --Jess Stoner, Ken Blanchard, Drea Zigarmi

CNN compiled a list of the most inspirational leaders of 2008. Consider what they all had in common: a vision, purpose and something they believed in, felt passionate about and could engage others in. Notice that they also had a genuine concern for people as well, which leads me to the next point...

Care For Your People's Needs

At the end of the day, we're all people--and people have basic needs that need to be met. As a leader, do you really need to address some of the "softer" needs? According to Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, coauthors of Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, if you ask followers what they need from leaders, the clear answer is trust, compassion, stability and hope. These four basic needs are the result of Rath, Conchie and a Gallup research team asking more than 10,000 followers what the most influential leaders contribute to their lives.

Perhaps there is some overlap with this and some of the other points already mentioned, but I thought it was important to say it in this particular way. The reason for that is because this puts the focus on understanding what your people need. To do this, you must get to know your people. You have to ask questions, listen and engage. This is a critical component to understanding people and meeting their needs.

In this article from Gallup Management Journal, Rath and Conchie explain through a series of questions and answers why these particular needs are critical.

Share the Wealth

Wealth, in this case, takes on multiple meanings. Magnetic leaders are generous in sharing things that will benefit those around them.

If you're more experienced, you should share the wisdom of that experience with others. Don't ask people to reinvent the wheel. Share knowledge and allow them to benefit from your lessons learned. Give your time to others and build into them. Your investment in them will have great payout in the future.

When a milestone is met, a project completed or an important discovery is made, give credit, praise and accolades to the appropriate people. Not only does this reward them properly for a job well done, but it incents them for future performance.

Of course, when it's possible, be generous with the financial sense of the term wealth. Don't be 'that leader' that takes a huge bonus while your people are getting pay cuts. Be fair and consider how much of your success depends on what other people produce ... then, be as generous as you're able to with promotions, pay increases and bonuses.

Of course, the key to every single one of these recommendations begins with taking that scary look behind you and being honest with yourself. Is anyone following you because they want to?

Erin Schreyer is president of Sagestone Partners, LLC, a leadership and talent management coaching firm, as well as founder/executive director of Authentic Leadership Cincinnati, a nonprofit group for development and support of character-based leadership. She is also a proud mother, wife and community volunteer. Please visit the for more information or feel free to .

Over To You Readers: Are you pulling people toward you as a leader? What benefit do you provide your followers? Hint: It's not enough that they get to keep their jobs!

Share your views in our Comments section or on the ForbesWoman communities on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Become a voice on ForbesWoman Views today.

ForbesWoman Home.

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I can't help but laugh when I recall the scene in the movie Old School where Will Farrell's character enthusiastically attempts to lead everyone streaking through the center of campus. Eventually, he looks back and realizes (at the same time he is busted) that nobody has actually followed him.

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3RD Ceo Leader Appointed at Perth City Council

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3RD Ceo Leader Appointed at Perth City Council

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There is a lot of publicity in the media at present surrounding the City of Perth CEO’s going on personal leave because of claims of an unsafe work environment.

The City of Perth crisis has deepened with the new appointed of acting CEO position, Mr Robert Mianich who after days of being in the role as CEO, has also taken stress leave alleging work place bullying claims in the workplace environment.

The SMH reported a news article called “Line in the Sand drawn as David Templeman calls time on City Perth Circus” that the Minister for Local Government Mr David Templeman intentions to suspend the City of Perth Councillors after learning that they had appointed a new acting CEO Annaliese Battista.

The article talks about how shifts in power and the dysfunctional practices of leadership and the impact this turmoil is having on the whole organisation.

With now two CEO out on work place bullying claims, the environment and culture of this organisation is clearly under sufferance. This new appointment of a short-term leader will be interesting to see if they have the power motive, tenacity, resilience and good workplace ethic to lead this organisation in the short term.

Dubrin (Chapter 2pg 63)

Reference
DuBrin, A.J (2014). Leadership: Research, Findings and Skills. Boston. Cengage Learning.

Barry, H & Prestipino D(2018 February 28) “Line in the sand drawn as David Templeman calls time on City of Perth circus” Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/third-ceo-for-city-of-perth-in-just-over-a-week-20180227-h0wqry.html

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AUSTRALIAN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTS ARE LITTLE BETTER THAN WINDOW DRESSING

Anonymous
5m
AUSTRALIAN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTS ARE LITTLE BETTER THAN WINDOW DRESSING
 This article highlights the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) usually being nothing more than just for show, typically because of corporations treating CSR as an addition to what they do rather than it being embedded into their operations or core business (the why they do, what they do). Often this is reflected in the corporations reporting, with CSR and sustainability being tabled in a separate document from the annual report.
The reasons for companies to at least appear to have strong CSR practices and culture, usually come from external influences, such as regulation, legislation and social movements. Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley, & Muntean (2013) offer external corporate responsbility audits as a strategy to tie the company’s words closer to their actions. 
However whilst accountability and transparency foundations are based on external stakeholders, in order for true and meaningful cultural change to take place internally; Bill McHarg (Melbourne commercial real estate broker) attested “Culture is driven by senior management, and if change is not embraced at the top, then it’s just fluffy words”.

References

Schleimer, S., & Rice, J. (2016, October 4). Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing. Australia.

Shaw, W., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean, D. (2013). Moral issues in business. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

 Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing
Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing
Despite increasing visibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives over the last decade, real change in corporate behaviour has tended to be modest. This is clear from the sections in financial reports from Australian companies listed on the stock exchange that cover social and environmental initiatives.
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Abuse of power

Lauren Gavel
3h
Abuse of power
A manager employed for Coles in Western Australia has attempted to influence his staff in an unethical manner, offering compensation for labour in the form of pizza, rather than legitimate pay. 
The members of staff alerted the SDA union who contacted the manager and informed him that his behaviour was unacceptable. 
The manager's offer was an additional blow to workers in light of the impending penalty rate cut announced by the Fair Work Commission.
 Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work - SmartCompany
Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work - SmartCompany
A Coles manager in Western Australia asked his staff to work for four hours for free on Sunday, just three weeks after the Fair Work Commission announced a cut to penalty rates. The metropolitan supermarket boss offered staff pizza instead of pay, in exchange for helping get through excess stock in the store, a notice read.
smartcompany
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Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson 'covered up' abuse, Royal Commission finds

islam_shifat
12h
Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson 'covered up' abuse, Royal Commission finds
The article about “Knox Grammar headmaster ‘covered up’ the abuse” – is an example of unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour. The Royal Commission conducted an investigation into the matter of child sexual abuse which saw a serious breach of the school’s social responsibility to the student’s welfare.  The investigation found the headmaster of Knox, always fostered the culture and attitude at the school by deliberately covering up the incident in order to maintain their pristine reputation amongst the public eye. The headmaster was dismissive about any allegations made regarding child sexual abuse and intentionally withheld information from the Knox Council, the body responsible for the management of the school,". (Browne, 2016). 

This unethical act demonstrates the negligence of the headmaster shown for his students’ welfare, and the demoralisation of the school upholding values, therefore highlights the misuse of position power placing profitability and the number of enrolments ahead of compassion, respect and responsibility of its students. The lack of remorse shown by the headmaster gives victims a feel of being unsupported and emotionally traumatised - according to Jim Whitehurst, a leader can shape the organisational culture through their behaviour. (Whitehurst, 2016).
A good leader must have display empathetic nature toward others, however also the need to possess the courage to stand out and take accountability if the situation arises. Perhaps the headmaster was trying to protect the school from public backlash and scrutiny and out of fear of potentially losing his position if word got out. However, the damaged that ethical lapses cause may cost far more than letting go of an unethical employee or some inappropriate behaviour. 

References

Browne, R. (2016, September 13). Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson 'covered up' abuse, Royal Commission finds. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/national/former-knox-grammar-headmaster-ian-paterson-covered-up-abuse-royal-commission-finds-20160913-grewhi.html

Gordon, N. (2012). How to Become a Better Leader. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224097

Whitehurst, J. (2016). Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/10/leaders-can-shape-company-culture-through-their-behaviors

 
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Australia's Vehicle Emissions Still Lag Behind Foreign Countries. This piece discusses the impact of Australia’s lag behind international Vehicle Emissions standards; as a result, overseas vehicle manufacturers can dump vehicles which do not comply with local standards into the Australian market for sale. This article investigates the apparent need for Australia to continuously maintain alignment with global standards of Vehicle Emissions regulation, or otherwise face the reality that highly pollutant vehicles will end up on our shores. As of 2016, Australian standards are at Euro 5 (a standard of which Europe had determined by late 2009) and will commit to a more stringent tier (Euro 6) by April/June of this year. However, this article does not mention the fact that Australian Car manufacturing has steadily decreased in the past decades, and overseas importation has increased in relativity. Indeed, Australian standards will reflect the standards allowed by other international regulators (such as the US and Europe), of which the manufacturing and testing of Vehicle emissions in such countries is relatively greater. More to the point, many of the means by which Vehicle emissions are tested can be either faulted, as seen with the notoriety of Volkswagen, or are difficult to measure. Even in the event that Australia was as updated as foreign standards as concerned, the testing of vehicle emissions are susceptible to fraudulent activity or miscalculation. References Ristovski, Z., & Surawskia, N. (2017, October 27). Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/australia-still-lags-behind-in-vehicle-emissions-testing-86217

Dominic Giuliano
23h
Australia's Vehicle Emissions Still Lag Behind Foreign Countries.                                                   This piece discusses the impact of Australia’s lag behind international Vehicle Emissions standards; as a result, overseas vehicle manufacturers can dump vehicles which do not comply with local standards into the Australian market for sale. This article investigates the apparent need for Australia to continuously maintain alignment with global standards of Vehicle Emissions regulation, or otherwise face the reality that highly pollutant vehicles will end up on our shores. As of 2016, Australian standards are at Euro 5 (a standard of which Europe had determined by late 2009) and will commit to a more stringent tier (Euro 6) by April/June of this year. However, this article does not mention the fact that Australian Car manufacturing has steadily decreased in the past decades, and overseas importation has increased in relativity. Indeed, Australian standards will reflect the standards allowed by other international regulators (such as the US and Europe), of which the manufacturing and testing of Vehicle emissions in such countries is relatively greater. More to the point, many of the means by which Vehicle emissions are tested can be either faulted, as seen with the notoriety of Volkswagen, or are difficult to measure. Even in the event that Australia was as updated as foreign standards as concerned, the testing of vehicle emissions are susceptible to fraudulent activity or miscalculation. References Ristovski, Z., & Surawskia, N. (2017, October 27). Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/australia-still-lags-behind-in-vehicle-emissions-testing-86217
 Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing
Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing
Australian cars are using 23% more fuel than advertised, according to a report from the Australian Automobile Association, which also claims that eco-friendly hybrid electric cars emit four times more greenhouse gas than the manufacturers advertise. The report on real-world (that is, on-road) emission testing was commissioned by consultancy firm ABMARC to test 30 cars twice on Melbourne roads.
the conversation
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Empty

Anonymous
23h
Trump: More staff will leave White House
Trump: More staff will leave White House
US President Donald Trump denied Tuesday that his White House is chaotic, but predicted more staff will leave, as allies and observers worry about West Wing brain drain. But he just lost his top economic aide Gary Cohn who has quit today.
newscomau
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Tom

Anonymous
24h
Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work - SmartCompany
Coles head office steps in after manager offered staff pizza, not pay, for Sunday work - SmartCompany
A Coles manager in Western Australia asked his staff to work for four hours for free on Sunday, just three weeks after the Fair Work Commission announced a cut to penalty rates. The metropolitan supermarket boss offered staff pizza instead of pay, in exchange for helping get through excess stock in the store, a notice read.
smartcompany
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Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights.

Claudia Boyce
24h
Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights.
explains Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its link to human rights. It begins by giving their definition of the CSR concept saying that corporations have a degree of responsibility to the economic consequences of their actions, but also to recognise the environmental and social implications (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2008). This is where human rights comes in to play, as they are relevant to all economic, social and environmental aspect of corporate activity. It is then said that while the primary responsibility of the enforcement of international human rights standards lies with governments, there is growing pressure for corporations to step up and have more of an impact and involvement in the process. This was an incredibly informative reading exercise as it broadened my knowledge on the cooperative and comparative nature of CSR and human rights, and also the role they both play in organisations.
 
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/corporate-social-responsibility-human-rights 

Australian Human Rights Commission. (2008). Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights. Retrieved March 2018, from Australian Human Rights Commission: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/corporate-social-responsibility-human-rights
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Do narcissists make the best leaders - or the worst?

Claudia Boyce
24h
Do narcissists make the best leaders - or the worst?
This piece of media from the Financial Times is an opinion piece arguing whether or not narcissists make the best or worst leaders. Journalist Oliver James is quite adamant that narcissists that come from wealthy or ‘rich’ backgrounds are more likely to become narcissists and therefore will be bad leaders. He defines narcissism as being an attention seeking attribute, while strongly arguing that it reduces empathy and social conscience, therefore encourage them to act unethically (James, 2017). His research is based off a study of an institution that trains the US Army’s officers. He continues to base his argument around wealth and ‘affluent upbringings’, stating “wealthier narcissistic graduates were significantly worse at listening to the ideas of their subordinates and empathising with them” (James, 2017). This piece was incredibly interesting to read as it offered me a completely different way of approaching narcissism and the role it has to play in ethical practice.
 
https://www.ft.com/content/360d0e42-c92d-11e7-8536-d321d0d897a3 

 
James, O. (2017, December 1). Do narcissists make the best leaders - or the worst? Retrieved March 2018, from Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/360d0e42-c92d-11e7-8536-d321d0d897a3 
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Organizational Narcissism and Virtuous Behaviour.

Claudia Boyce
24h
Organizational Narcissism and Virtuous Behaviour.
This paper written by two academics from universities in Tennessee and Texas details how extreme narcissistic organisation are unable to behave ethically and they lack moral identity. Organisations have identities similar to people; they have names, are distinguishable, they occupy physical space and have accorded legal rights (Drake & Duchon, 2009, p. 301). Unfortunately these attributes allow an organisation to substantiate claims of uniqueness, often associated with narcissism. This paper spends a lot of time critiquing narcissism and the role it has to play in unethical behaviour, while not addressing the possibility that narcissism and self-praise could have something to do with the success of an organisation. I do however believe that Drake and Duchon have cleverly examined the link between ethical behaviour and organisational narcissism as they begin to give ethics and organisations identities. They also focus their critique on civic responsibility and the importance of one being accountable for their actions, ethical or unethical.
 
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1093&context=managementfacpub 

Drake, B., & Duchon, D. (2009). Organizational Narcissism and Virtuous Behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 85, 301 - 308.


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Australian co

Anonymous
24h
 Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing

This article highlights the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) usually being nothing more than just for show, typically because of corporations treating CSR as an addition to what they do rather than it being embedded into their operations or core business (the why they do, what they do). Often this is reflected in the corporations reporting, with CSR and sustainability being tabled in a separate document from the annual report.
The reasons for companies to at least appear to have strong CSR practices and culture, usually come from external influences, such as regulation, legislation and social movements. Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley, & Muntean (2013) offer external corporate responsbility audits as a strategy to tie the company’s words closer to their actions. 
However whilst accountability and transparency foundations are based on external stakeholders, in order for true and meaningful cultural change to take place internally; Bill McHarg (Melbourne commercial real estate broker) attested “Culture is driven by senior management, and if change is not embraced at the top, then it’s just fluffy words”.
References
Schleimer, S., & Rice, J. (2016, October 4). Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing. Australia.
Shaw, W., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean, D. (2013). Moral issues in business. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.


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📎 Merck C.E.O. Ken Frazier on Death Row Cases and the Corporate Soul

Lauren Gavel
1d
Merck C.E.O. Ken Frazier on Death Row Cases and the Corporate Soul
Merck C.E.O. Ken Frazier on Death Row Cases and the Corporate Soul
The role of the chief executive has never been more complex - or more consequential. Business leaders today are reshaping the internet, reimagining health care, upending transportation and more. But being a chief executive is no longer just about running a company. It means taking political stands on everything from immigration to gun rights.
nytimes
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Vide

Lauren Gavel
1d
Business has a social purpose: making money and prosperity
Business has a social purpose: making money and prosperity
If business isn't careful it will go the way of Christianity. Of course Christianity still exists and people still attend church on Sunday, but the Christian voice in public debate in Australia is now either ignored or non-existent. It's difficult to think of a single policy issue of recent years in which the Christian perspective has prevailed.
financial review
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📎 EU and Japan Seek Exemption From Trump's Trade Tariffs

Lauren Gavel
1d
EU and Japan Seek Exemption From Trump's Trade Tariffs
EU and Japan Seek Exemption From Trump's Trade Tariffs
The EU and Japan urged the U.S. to exclude them from President Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, in an effort to avoid a trade war with the world's biggest economy.
wsj
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Anonymous
1d
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Ethical ?

Jennifer Weller
7mo
Ethical ?
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Add comment
Call to action for Leaders

Jennifer Weller
7mo
Call to action for Leaders 
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Volkswagen and the failure of corporate social responsibility

Caitlin Nelson
2d
Volkswagen and the failure of corporate social responsibility
Worldwide known car brand Volkswagen have been under fire after exampling unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour. It all started when Volkswagen company came up with and deliberately set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control. According to Forbes Volkswagen did ‘stratagem known at the highest levels, that aimed for giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it the world’s number one car maker, in large part on the basis of its supposedly environmentally friendly cars was actually poisoning the planet.’ Volkswagen did everything they 
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Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled.

Toni Morgan
2d
Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled.
Australia’s Emissions Reduction fund (ERF) of $2.55 billion attempts to reduce greenhouse gasses by up to 30 percent in comparison to 2005 levels.  Businesses can reduce their emissions for a piece of the funding pie.  The scheme has been successful in that it has projected reduced emissions by 191.7 million tonnes costing taxpayers $2.28 billion dollars.  If the government continues to increase the emissions baselines as is currently the case the benefits of the fund will be expunged.  It is in the best interests of future generations that those responsible for polluting the environment should be held accountable.  Should they really be paid to do the right thing?  
Today only 16% of the contracted reductions have been realized.  
More stringent laws need to be passed that force companies to act ethically in regards to the environment.  With such complex issues at hand it is difficult to be fair to all concerned.

References
McKenzie, I., (2018, February 26). Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/australias-emissions-reduction-fund-is-almost-empty-it-shouldnt-be-refilled-92283
 Australia's Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn't be refilled
Australia's Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn't be refilled
Australia's flagship climate policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), has come in for fresh questions over whether the emissions allowances offered to big businesses will wipe out much of the progress made elsewhere.
the conversation
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NSW land clearing laws unlawful.

Toni Morgan
2d
NSW land clearing laws unlawful.
The current NSW land clearing laws for private land owners established by the Berejikilian Government have failed in their duty to care for the environment and thus sustainability, adding to the devastation of natural resources. The Nature Conservation Council has fought against the laws that allow private land owners to clear their lands without environmental evaluation or sanction.  Many other projects seem to not be meticulously evaluated for environmental impacts.  Australia is still set to clear up to 3 million hectares of native forest by 2030, and more than 1800 plants and animals are listed as threatened.  These are staggering rates which suggests that the current laws are not working. 
The laws in this case were overturned and deemed to have been unlawfully made in the absence of the environmental ministers input.  
The current government has pledged to make the benefits of this reform a top priority to ensure its obligation to the protection of the environment is met. 
 
References
ABC News: (2018, March 9)
NSW Government's land-clearing law quashed in court, deemed invalid. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-09/nsw-government-land-clearing-law-quashed-in-court-invalid/9531640
 NSW Government's land-clearing law quashed in court, deemed invalid
NSW Government's land-clearing law quashed in court, deemed invalid
Posted March 09, 2018 12:18:56 In a breakthrough victory, the Land and Environment court today ruled the NSW Government's land-clearing laws were made unlawfully, and were therefore invalid. The Nature Conservation Council fought the legislation made by the Berejiklian Government, which had permitted private landholders to carry out large-scale clearing of native vegetation without prior approval or environmental assessment.
abc news
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1 comment

Dominic Giuliano 1d
While the NSW Government Law's may not be entirely reversing the harmful effects of deforestation and land clearing, it does still provide the framework for changes to be realised. It is a difficult task to reverse the effects that human activity has had on the land, particularly after long periods of disregard and unconscious behaviour. It can be said however, that the NSW Government, working alongside private agencies and the EPA are implementing new policies and procedures aimed at the reduction of mismanaged environmental activity. These policies and procedures will take years before they are evaluated and made truly effective; before results are even recognised. Particularly for mining sectors, the EPA and Governments maintain strict regulations and compliance mechanisms to ensure that the integrity of the natural environment is as much replenished as it is stripped. Non-compliance is met with heavy penalties and prosecution.


The article “Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study” states that more than 90% of business students who study about corporate social responsibility said that they would be willing to sacrifice some percentage of their future income in order to work for responsible employers. Even 14% of them said that they are willing to sacrifice more than 40% of their future salary. This shows that business students are committed with respect to working for socially responsibly organisations. Some people insist that the students just said that because they do not have any work experience and are idealistic, which is understandable. However, Such willingness of the students mean a lot in a hopeful way. In order for this to happen in reality, the government should have a good effect on business by setting rules. Unfortunately, it is generally accepted fact that corporations would not change their policy based on ethical considerations. Therefore, the government should strengthen a fair tax policy as well as ethical rules for business. ReferencesLeventhal, D. H., & Pournader, M. (2017, February 22). Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study. Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: https://theconversation.com/business-students-willing-to-sacrifice-future-salary-for-good-corporate-social-responsibility-study-73122

Donghee Kim
2d
The article “Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study” states that more than 90% of business students who study about corporate social responsibility said that they would be willing to sacrifice some percentage of their future income in order to work for responsible employers. Even 14% of them said that they are willing to sacrifice more than 40% of their future salary. This shows that business students are committed with respect to working for socially responsibly organisations. Some people insist that the students just said that because they do not have any work experience and are idealistic, which is understandable. However, Such willingness of the students mean a lot in a hopeful way. In order for this to happen in reality, the government should have a good effect on business by setting rules. Unfortunately, it is generally accepted fact that corporations would not change their policy based on ethical considerations. Therefore, the government should strengthen a fair tax policy as well as ethical rules for business.  ReferencesLeventhal, D. H., & Pournader, M. (2017, February 22). Business students willing to sacrifice future salary for good corporate social responsibility: study. Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: https://theconversation.com/business-students-willing-to-sacrifice-future-salary-for-good-corporate-social-responsibility-study-73122
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Leadership: what it is (and isn't)

Donghee Kim
2d
Leadership: what it is (and isn't)
The article “Leadership: what it is (and isn’t)” describes how leadership will look and feel differently depending on different contexts and, in particular, the context of different wicked problems. This explores leadership in regards to politicians.

While some people reckon that politicians in Australia are the ones who do not lead but follow, other people also raise a question of who the politicians follow. I think it is impossible to define leadership without considering its essential prerequisite that is followership. I personally believe that leadership is about how they help and encourage others to solve problems, not about how they solve problems. 

However, I reckon that Tony Abbott’s leadership has been forceful when considering the fact that he forced an unpopular and controversial policy. Consequently, I would rather describe his leadership as authority. True leaders do care what other people think and do not impose their authority with use of the power. 

References

Wilson, S., & Fien, J. (2014, May 27). Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: https://theconversation.com/leadership-what-it-is-and-isnt-27019

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Authenticity is a key theme for me in ethics and social responsibility

peter lowry
15h
Authenticity is a key theme for me in ethics and social responsibility

This core theme of ethics and social responsibility has really made me sit back and think. There a few posts here on the padlet that have shown unethical behaviour by CEO’s of different companies. This article is what sums up ethical leadership for me, authenticity, is of particular importance for me in my personal life because we are all human beings and we make mistakes from time to time and it is how we deal with those setbacks is what defines us as human beings. Being open and honest and owning those mistakes shows transparency which allows open doors for you to engage others and rely on their strengths and skills. Your followers will feel needed and valued by you, and they will be more likely to help and compensate for your weaknesses (Schreyer, 2010). 
Reference 
Schreyer, E. (2010). 
Why Leadership Matters. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/2010/03/08/leader-business-visionary-forbes-woman-leadership-job.html#6c3a1a06408a
 Why Leadership Matters
Why Leadership Matters
I can't help but laugh when I recall the scene in the movie Old School where Will Farrell's character enthusiastically attempts to lead everyone streaking through the center of campus. Eventually, he looks back and realizes (at the same time he is busted) that nobody has actually followed him.
forbes
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Five traits of an ethical leader

Donghee Kim
2d
Five traits of an ethical leader
The article “Five traits of an ethical leader” by David Tuffley&Amy Antonio explains about qualities of an ethical leader. This describes the qualities of ethical leaders which are the personality to defy group-think, the ability to set a good example, selflessness, their doors always open, being not afraid to be challenged and being responsible for everything. 

From my point of view, this article is only talking about the perfect qualities of the perfect leader whom it is extremely hard to find in reality. Having been working in reality for more than two years in fashion and art, I have met a lot of directors who are basically leader in their organisations and I have never seen any leaders who have all the qualities above, which is not unfortunate. In particular, I do not think, in general, it is impossible for leaders to be able to maintain a permanent door because there are basically too many things to deal with in a limited time. 


References

David, T., & Amy, A. (2015, December 30). Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION: http://theconversation.com/five-traits-of-
an-ethical-leader-51181

 

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Claudia Boyce 24h
I really appreciated you sharing this resource as each individual has their set of characteristics that make a desirable and ethical leader. I 100% agree with Antonio and Tuffley's 5 characteristics of an ethical leader as I believe these also stretch to include those of a successful leader (as not all ethical leaders are successful ones). I also share a similar thought to when you said you had never seen a leader with all those qualities. I have worked under many different leaders in varying industries and while there has been some great leadership, it has not always been 100% ethical. However, the critique that was offered didn't investigate ethical leadership as much as it did 'good leadership'. I do believe the source chosen could have offered a more comprehensive list of qualities and explanations to offer us as researchers and students a better insight into the topic.


3RD Ceo Leader Appointed at Perth City Council

Lizzie Speer
2d
3RD Ceo Leader Appointed at Perth City Council
There is a lot of publicity in the media at present surrounding the City of Perth CEO’s going on personal leave because of claims of an unsafe work environment.

The City of Perth crisis has deepened with the new appointed of acting CEO position, Mr Robert Mianich who after days of being in the role as CEO, has also taken stress leave alleging work place bullying claims in the workplace environment.

The SMH reported a news article called “Line in the Sand drawn as David Templeman calls time on City Perth Circus” that the Minister for Local Government Mr David Templeman intentions to suspend the City of Perth Councillors after learning that they had appointed a new acting CEO Annaliese Battista.

The article talks about how shifts in power and the dysfunctional practices of leadership and the impact this turmoil is having on the whole organisation.

With now two CEO out on work place bullying claims, the environment and culture of this organisation is clearly under sufferance. This new appointment of a short-term leader will be interesting to see if they have the power motive, tenacity, resilience and good workplace ethic to lead this organisation in the short term.

Dubrin (Chapter 2pg 63)

Reference
DuBrin, A.J (2014). Leadership: Research, Findings and Skills. Boston. Cengage Learning.

Barry, H & Prestipino D(2018 February 28) “Line in the sand drawn as David Templeman calls time on City of Perth circus” Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/third-ceo-for-city-of-perth-in-just-over-a-week-20180227-h0wqry.html

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Council Leadership Lacking

Michael Colreavy
3d
Council Leadership Lacking
A culture of petty rivalries, childish behaviour, and self interest were unearthed in several NSW Councils referred to in this article, according to the Local Government Minister. The questionable planning decisions, toxic relationships between councillors and councillors and staff, uncooperative inquiry witnesses, and bullying and harassment were all at odds with ethical and socially responsible behaviour envisaged by DuBrin (2016, Chapter 6) which requires honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and respect. Councillors and senior managers need to be ethical leaders. They need to lead by example. Their behaviour sets the ethical tone for the whole organisation. When ethical behaviour is lacking at the top, the whole organisation will be adversely affected as it appears to be in the three examples in this article. This behaviour will have flow on effects potentially adversely impacting on the wellbeing of all who work in those organisations. They could hardly be described as employers of choice. 
 

 Minister blasts NSW councils for 'childish behaviour and petty antics'
Minister blasts NSW councils for 'childish behaviour and petty antics'
Auburn Council's former Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer is in the spotlight again. Reports into the serious failings at three NSW councils have unearthed a culture of 'petty rivalries, childish behaviour and self-interest', says NSW Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton.
government news
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Perth City Council Suspension

Michael Colreavy
3d
Perth City Council Suspension
Labelled a “basket case” by the WA Premier following many issues including the “Lord Mayor’s failure to declare gift and travel benefits and fueds and threats of law suits between councillors, the leadership of Perth City Council has been controversial for some years culminating in the recent suspension of the governing body by the Minister for Local Government in February 2018, pending an inquiry. Councils have two distinct branches of leadership – the governing body comprising elected councillors, and management comprising the Chief Executive Officer and Directors. Any serious fall out between these two branches of leadership can be at odds with their respective social responsibilities to act in the best interests of the organisation and the local community, and a potential recipe for disaster. The departure on extended stress leave of two CEO’s in quick succession is evidence of dysfunction at the top. In an apparent failure to govern for good, accusations of undermining the majority of the Council had been made against the Mayor since losing her majority in late 2017. The Mayor had also made accusations against the CEO. 

 'Untenable' Perth City Council faces suspension
'Untenable' Perth City Council faces suspension
Updated February 28, 2018 21:35:58 The Perth City Council is set to be suspended and faces the prospect of eventually being sacked, following a prolonged period of turmoil. Local Government Minister David Templeman has confirmed he will announce on Friday exactly which method he will use to suspend the council.
abc news
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Gold Coast Council Inquiry

Michael Colreavy
3d
Gold Coast Council Inquiry
This very recent article announces a Queensland CCC investigation into corruption allegations made by a local community interest group against a number of unnamed Gold Coast councillors, all of which, as yet, are unproven. The article also refers to a complaint to the effect that the Mayor had failed to properly withdraw from dealing as Mayor with a development matter in which he had a significant pecuniary interest, and that he failed to update his interests in the Council’s register when he should have, and that he misused his authority in relation to negotiating a new employment contract for the Council’s CEO.

The inquiry announcement underscores the State Government’s and the community’s expectation that, as community leaders, councillors and council staff, who are bound by a Code of Conduct, must adhere to it and must act ethically putting the interests of the organisation ahead of any private interests.

 Gold Coast Mayor at centre of corruption watchdog investigation
Gold Coast Mayor at centre of corruption watchdog investigation
Queensland's corruption watchdog confirms it is investigating allegations Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate influenced council decision-making for personal benefit, failed to declare possible conflicts of interest, and did not disclose flights and accommodation received from a Chinese developer within the required timeframe.
abc news
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Ethics of the NBA Clippers Owner

Jo Chalker
3d
Ethics of the NBA Clippers Owner
 LA Clippers owner allegedly says: 'Don't bring black people to my games'
LA Clippers owner allegedly says: 'Don't bring black people to my games'
The NBA is investigating a report of an audio recording in which a man purported to be the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, makes racist remarks while speaking to his girlfriend. The NBA spokesman, Mike Bass, said in a statement on Saturday that the league is in the process of authenticating the validity of the recording, which was posted on TMZ's website.
the guardian
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Ethical Behaviour of the Leader of a Community Group

Jo Chalker
3d
Ethical Behaviour of the Leader of a Community Group
Kym is the founder and organiser of a group called Sydney Vegan Club, which his leadership for the group is unethical in the way he influences others and sets an example for others to follow. When leading his group, he has influence on their behaviours to achieve a common goal (such as organising an event). If he is leading the group in an unethical manner, it is most likely influencing his followers behaviour to act unethically. 

His behaviour comes from a place of selfishness, not thinking about his consumers well-being and the impact that is has on external social environments.  His characteristics do not line up with an ethical leader, for example does not have authenticity, integrity, trustworthy, honesty, and courage (Shaw et al. 2016, p 454-455). The lack of two-way communication towards guests that expressed how satisfied with the event led him and his followers to deleted and block people resulting in people feeling disrespected and non inclusive. 

References
Shaw, W. H., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean. (2016). Moral Issues in Business. South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning Australia. 
 Vegans angry over Harbour cruise fail
Vegans angry over Harbour cruise fail
VEGANS were left angry and confused after a "nightmare" cruise on Sydney Harbour on Saturday night. Advertised as a four-hour cruise around Sydney Harbour from Circular Quay from 7pm-11pm, the Sydney Vegan Club event promised live music, stunning views and a seven-course - later changed to a nine-course - dinner of canapes.
newscomau
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The Ethics and Social Responsibility of Doughnut Time.

Jo Chalker
3d
The Ethics and Social Responsibility of Doughnut Time.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the famous store ‘A Doughnut Time’ having 60 employees owed up to $5,000 each in unpaid work and superannuation contributions. One of the employees claims he was locked out of a Manly store 3 weeks after signing a full time contract with Doughnut Time and was forced to collect shifts in other Sydney stores.

With ethics playing a part in standards of behaviour that affect human well-being, we can see that the CEO of Doughnut Time had unethical behaviour leaving his employees outrages, unemployed and owing them everyone up to $70,000 work and superannuation. From the CEO’s perspective, he might believe that expanding the business was an ethical decision because of the amount of jobs he had created around Australia. 
From my point of view his leadership behaviour and strategic management was unethical as he did not think about his employees human well-being and did not manage his businesses to go beyond his financial and economic obligations to include the social impact his business had. 
 About 60 Doughnut Time employees still owed wages
About 60 Doughnut Time employees still owed wages
Dozens of Doughnut Time employees have been left unpaid as the workplace watchdog's investigation into the shrinking business continues.
the sydney morning herald
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Why good leaders make you feel safe

peter lowry
3d
Why good leaders make you feel safe
Sinek (2014) begins by opening with a story of a Captain named William Swenson who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. While rescuing a wounded soldier he gave him a kiss, before he returned back under fire to rescue more people (Sinek, 2014). What has this got to do with ethics in business you might ask? It’s the leader that sets the ethical tone of the organisation. Leadership is about putting the safety and lives of people inside the company first, to sacrifice their own comfort and measured results, so that followers may stay and feel safe and have a sense of belonging (Sinek, 2014). This idea of leaders putting others above themselves is a concept known as servant leadership. Servant leaders primary motivation is to meet the needs of others whilst providing vision are credible and gain trust from followers and influence others (Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004).   Thus, if a leader sets the example of putting the need of others above themselves than ethics will naturally follow.  
Reference 
Gregory Stone, A., Russell, R. F., & Patterson, K. (2004). Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25(4), 349-361.

Sinek, S. (2014). Why good leaders make you feel safe. Video TED, 19.

 Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe
Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe
What makes a great leader? Management theorist Simon Sinek suggests, it's someone who makes their employees feel secure, who draws staffers into a circle of trust. But creating trust and safety - especially in an uneven economy - means taking on big responsibility.
ted
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Leaders play an outsize role in integrity

Nick Leslie
4d
Leaders play an outsize role in integrity
Writing for Melbourne publication, The Mandarin, David Donaldson (2018) presents the reader with a discussion about ethics and integrity in business. The key argument throughout the article, is that leaders play a major role in setting the ethical tone of the organisation.
 
Donaldson quotes Gill Callister, secretary of the Victorian Department of Education and Training, who in turn cites University of Texas research, in order to present that argument that leaders heavily influence other staff members on ethics. Donaldson goes on to quote Adam Canwell, a partner of consulting firm EY, to further substantiate the influence of leaders on ethics; “… you can put a good person into a bad environment and the majority of people will start to behave in a bad way,”. These conclusions are heavily supported by the literature (Hughes, 1993, pp. 204–205; Robbins, 2011, p. 366; Yukl, 1989, p. 214). In summary, the article was convincing and well supported.
 
References
Donaldson, D. (2018). Leaders play an outsize role in integrity. Retrieved March 8, 2018, from https://www.themandarin.com.au/88119-leaders-play-outsize-role-integrity/

Hughes, R. L. (1993). Leadership : enhancing the lessons of experience. (R. C. Ginnett & G. J. Curphy, Eds.). Homewood, IL: Irwin.

Robbins, S. P. (2011). Organisational behaviour. (T. Judge, B. Millett, & M. Boyle, Eds.) (Sixth edition). Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Australia.

Yukl, G. A. (1989). Leadership in organizations (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall.
 Leaders play an outsize role in integrity | The Mandarin
Leaders play an outsize role in integrity | The Mandarin
You don't need a massive corruption scandal to build an ethical leadership culture, says Gill Callister, secretary of the Victorian Department of Education and Training - but it certainly helps. Callister assumed the job at a time when several of the department's old guard leadership had been accused of corruption, and has worked to reform how the organisation runs.
the mandarin
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Rena Plaza Disaster, Volkswagen Scandal and 7-Eleven Under Paying Staff

garthedwards111
4d
Rena Plaza Disaster, Volkswagen Scandal and 7-Eleven Under Paying Staff
Article 1: Rana Plaza Collapse

In April 2013, there was a building collapse in B
angladesh, which claimed over 1000 lives, and resulted in over 2500 injuries, the building was being used as a garment factory. Firstly, this one really hits home for me as due to the amount of deaths, (although any death is terrible), mostly because the building was actually deemed unsafe a few days before, and despite warnings, employees were told to return to work. All these lives could have been saved if the appropriate actions were taken. At this time it does not appear justice has been served, only the building owner has been prosecuted, and from a leadership perspective, you could argue that other parties should be investigated, for example the government authorities that maintain building standards etc. From an ethics perspective, it was completely unethical that the relevant personnel allowed them to return to work, and were thinking about the companies/their own interests, rather than the employees. (Non-people oriented leaders)

Article 2: Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

Around 4 years ago, university students discovered that Volkswagen implemented computer systems into their vehicles, which provide completely inaccurate emission readings. This cost the company billions of dollars in penalties. Initially senior management in the organisation blamed their engineers for the issue, however due the amount of vehicles involved, I believe this is utterly incorrect, they were definitely involved. This ended up being a form of ‘karma’ as clearly senior management were thinking about their own/the companies interests, over the consumers, and then it cost them heaps of money anyway. From an ethics perspective, they were completely the opposite, relevant parties were not thinking about our environment, and ‘the only earth’ we have, and how we should take care of it. I almost cannot talk, as I have 2 old Fords that are 4 litre/6 cylinder/1999, however I would argue that I’m conserving old cars, rather than buying new ones each year, and wasting more resources.

Article 3: 7-Eleven Scandal

Over the past 5 years or so, it has emerged that the convenience store ‘7-Eleven’ has been paying migrant workers, well under the Australian minimum wage. Similar to the above articles, this is completely and utterly unethical, senior management were putting their own/the companies’ interests first, rather than the employees. The most disgusting point about this issue, is that where workers were aware they were being underpaid and asking for a rise, their employers were threatening them with deportation/termination of employment if they spoke up. I believe there needs to be a complete overhaul of the system, where all employee information/wages need to be more thoroughly declared to the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and 7-Eleven investigated at a high level, and physically at all their stores. If this continues, this may possibly make migrants reluctant to move to Australia, ruining our reputation.

 
Reference List:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2016). Rena Plaza collapse: Bangladeshi workers demand justice on factory disaster anniversary. Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-24/bangladesh-workers-demand-justice-on-disaster-anniversary/7354188

Forbes. (2015). Volkswagen And The Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility. Retrieved From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2015/09/27/volkswagen-and-the-failure-of-corporate-social-responsibility/#29cc7dfb4405

Sydney Morning Herald. (2015). 7-Eleven-Revealed. Retrieved from: https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2015/7-eleven-revealed/


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kirstieangel 2d
As mentioned in your analysis the incident highlights seriously unethical behaviour by the factory’s leadership and government inspectors. Another factor to consider is the unethical leaderships of buyers who sourced products from this factory. India is the largest supplier of textiles and its evident that there needs to be an effort by organisations using producers in India to ensure as leaders that there is supply chain transparency and in turn accountability (Kasperkevic, 2017). This would be a step towards taking social responsibility, if brands acknowledged the unethical behaviour and took steps to ensure producers complied with standards. Conditions in factories are not only often appalling for workers and their safety but in addition the textile industry has seriously negative effects on our environment. This is another aspect for consideration for the leaders of organisations sourcing products in India. They should take CSR as leaders in the interest of society by finding a balance between the their profits, worker conditions and the environment (Elliot, Rundle-Thiele, & Waller, 2014). References Elliot, G., Rundle-Thiele, S., & Waller, D. (2014). Marketing including iStudy [John Wiley & Sons Australia, 2014-07-01. VitalBook file. ] (3rd ed.). Kasperkevic, J. (2017, December 2). Rana Plaza collapse: workplace dangers persist three years later, reports find. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/31/rana-plaza-bangladesh-collapse-fashion-working-conditions

islam_shifat 1h
Hi garthedwards, great choice of articles about the ‘Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh’. This is really a striking fact that, how the unethical behaviour of the factory owner has taken a toll of so many lives. The ethics or morality has been undermined and compromised for favouring own profit and business. Moreover, the owner of the Rana Plaza had a link with the corrupted leader of the ruling government party in Bangladesh which shows how unethical leadership impact vigorously on the society. From the ethical stance of leadership it influences subordinates’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) .CSR is linked with ‘doing good’ and ‘avoiding bad’ as violating human rights, cheating with other human being and damaging the environment. (Lin-Hi, Nick, & Müller, 2013). However, from my perspective of social responsibility the situation of Bangladesh garment worker can be improvised by imposing strong regulation in the factories code of conduct. The biggest buyer of the Bangladeshi Garment industries are some renown brand of US and Australia can ensure their sourcing by visiting the working condition of the factory. Upon the implication of strict regulation and secure investigation along with the support of government agencies, the workers might not be exposed to exploitation and sweatshop conditions. References Lin-Hi, Nick, & Müller, K. (2013). The CSR bottom line: Preventing corporate social irresponsibility. Journal of Business Research, 1928.


Apple pledges $350 billion investment in US economy over next five years

islam_shifat
1d
Apple pledges $350 billion investment in US economy over next five years 
This article explores the theme of CSR. As Apple are planning to invest $350 billion dollars into next five years in U.S. which will give an enormous enhancement into U.S economy. Apple plans to build new campus at different location in U.S that will be powered by renewable energy, helping to build a sustainable environment and wanting to leave the world better than what it was and will create hundreds of new jobs in the process. Moreover, Apple plans to expand coding initiatives to helps educate the students for next generation of job. (Miller, 2018).

In relation to Apple’s planned investment, journal article Perceptions and Perspectives: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Media that explores the perceptions and interpretations that CSR has in the media, states: “For opportunists CSR is not a cost but an investment and is an agenda that requires active engagement. Optimists might be driven by community, environmental or pure economic self-interest. They actively seek out opportunities to influence, act on and deliver change.” 
(Tench, Bowd, & Jones, 2007). 

Similar to Steve Jobs, CEO Tim Cook shares similar drive and entrepreneurial leadership qualities who sees this ‘opportunity not as a cost but as an investment.’ 

Apple aims to be the front-runners in CSR and as an investor in regards to US’s energy and job market along with the enhancement of Automation procedures by educating the new generations.

Whilst aiming to become the front-runner in CSR and continues to strive upon, the approach that being socially responsible that would fit well with Apple’s plan of investment and would also be the Thou Shalt Approach. 

References
1. Miller, R. (2018, March 7). Apple pledges $350 billion investment in US economy over next five years. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/apple-pledges-350-billion-investment-in-us-economy-over-next-five-years/

2. Tench, R., Bowd, R., & Jones, B. (2007). Perpections and Perspectives: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Media. Journal of Communication Management, 11(4), 348-370. doi:10.1108/13632540710843940

https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/apple-pledges-350-billion-investment-in-us-economy-over-next-five-years/

 
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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast

kirstieangel
1h
Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast 
This article focuses on Nestle and the topics of ethical and social responsibilities from opposed perspectives. 
 
Firstly Nestle is discussed as a leader demonstrating corporate social responsibility as they publically admitted to modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking taking place within Seafood supply chains. This admission of discovering unethical production and taking supply chain accountable can be taken as ground-breaking in terms of leadership. Furthermore the company claims to be moving into a new era working with suppliers to actively make positive different and be socially responsible when sourcing of ingredients. 
 
 
Following this the article then challenges Nestlé’s leadership for being unethical as the same time as going public about the supply chains in Thailand Nestles is conversely fighting a lawsuit which seeks to hold them liable for the alleged use of child slaves in cocoa farming in the Ivory Coast. Coco farming is notable a more profitable section of the business and if true is highly unethical. This is stark contrast from leadership within the organisation seeking to enhance their CSR as in this instance they are not accepting whistle blowers or taking supply chain accountability (Dubrin, 2016).
 
References
 
Dubrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills [Cengage Learning, 20150101. VitalBook file.] (8th ed.). 
 Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast
Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast
It's hard to think of an issue that you would less like your company to be associated with than modern slavery. Yet last November Nestlé, the world's largest foodmaker and one of the most recognisable household brands, went public with the news it had found forced labour in its supply chains in Thailand and that its customers were buying products tainted with the blood and sweat of poor, unpaid and abused migrant workers.
the guardian
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1 comment

peter lowry 15h
To be honest I do not find this article surprising at all! Personally I and my family have boycotted Nestle products for years. Ever since I saw a exposé by DW-TV a German news channel while I was living in Kenya, exposing Nestlé’s water extraction in Africa and in South American counties at the expense of the townsfolk. I could not find that certain video, but simple type in Nestle in Google and the company is all over the web for its unethically business. I know at this stage I am just ranting about Nestle and letting my personal feeling get in the way and cloud my judgement but here are some facts. CEO of Nestle believes water should not be treated as a human right but as a “foodstuff” and as such should be privatized and sold off. This video was uploaded a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_KXZZc13U. Nestles unethical actions in regards to how its views water and how it has harvested water in the past strongly reflects the CEO’s view. Stead, Worrell, & Stead (1990) propose that the philosophies of senior and middle management represent a critical influencing factor of the ethical behaviour of employees. They also note that when managers acting or behaving contrary to their ethical philosophies represents a serious limit to ethical reasoning (Stead, Worrell, & Stead, 1990). This is the point in case of ex CEO of Nestle Brabeck-Letmathe, when he denied his statements about his claims that water rights are extreme and water should be a privilege (Nestle, 2018). Reference Nestle. (2018). Does Peter Brabeck-Letmathe believe that water is a human right? Retrieved from https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle-chairman-peter-brabeck-letmathe-believes-water-is-a-human-right Stead, W. E., Worrell, D. L., & Stead, J. G. (1990). An integrative model for understanding and managing ethical behavior in business organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(3), 233-242.


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Courage in E

peter lowry
2d
 Courage in Ethical leadership!
Even the most ethical person can subjected to situational pressures in work and in everyday life. However, in the organisational context immoral and unethical leadership behaviours can be influenced by the culture of the organisation. If top management take irresponsible, pseudo-legal risks than others leaders in the organisation may be to behave in a similar fashion (Dubrin, 2015). Psychologist Zimbardo conducted the famous 1971 Stanford prison experiment that showed t after “Decades of evidence that situations can persuade even the most ethical and compassionate person to betray their own values.” There is a natural human tendency to be a bystander to follow a leader or a group that we know is a doing something wrong for a sense of security or acceptance. People can have a choice, but in an organisational setting it becomes a lot harder to do the right thing. Situational pressures in business lead to ethical fading. Ethical fading is when people are focused on operational objectives along with pressure to meet those deadlines, all ethical implications of our acts fades from our thinking.  However, Deterline (2012) proposed that social fitness training is a method of stopping and pausing in tough situation to reconnect to our values, hearts and wisdom to act courageously. This method with practice enables one to override our natural fear response and act on our values when tough situations arise. Through recognition of patterns of behaviour where you stand up easily and where you do not, practice those situations that scare you.  When you practice under fear it creates muscle memory so when the actual moment arises it becomes a trigger to act ethically in those areas (Deterline, 2012).
Reference
Deterline, B. (2012). 
Creating ethical cultures in business. Video TED.
DuBrin, A. J. (2015). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.




 Creating ethical cultures in business: Brooke Deterline at TEDxPresidio
Creating ethical cultures in business: Brooke Deterline at TEDxPresidio
As Corporate Director for the Heroic Imagination Project (HIP), Brooke helps boards, executives, and teams at all levels develop the skills to act with courage and ingenuity in the face of challenging situations. This fosters leadership credibility and candor, builds trust, engagement and reduces risk.
youtube
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Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?

Nick Leslie
5d
Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?
Writing for the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit publication, Dr Claire Loughnan (2018) argues that if you are in public office, the community expects a certain level of behaviour from you, both in your public and private life. The author uses recent controversial events to frame her argument. 
 
Providing a brief history of the nobility of office, and using strong references, the author convinces the reader that the populace expects particular “virtues of office". The author then appears to lose focus and broaden the article to a discussion on unrelated ethical issues. Ultimately, resolving that those in office are not entitled to a private life, at least, in the eyes of the public. What the author fails to do, however, is to present an argument in favour of office holders having a private life, and to explain why that is either valid or invalid, based on her research. This raises questions about her motives for the article.
 
References
Loughnan, C. (2018). Is there such a thing as a “private life” if you’re in public office? Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-private-life-if-you-re-in-public-office
 Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?
Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?
Unethical behaviour by people in office, and the public outcries that follow, are a familiar part of our daily news diet. Recently, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin's racist comments and former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce's affair with a former staffer, have prompted discussions about what we expect in the workplace and our institutions.
pursuit
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Ethics be damned

Nick Leslie
5d
Ethics be damned
In a recent article, journalist Tom Scheck (2018), of APM Reports, argues that the Trump administration is ethically unsound; APM Reports presents itself as a non-partisan, independent organisation. The report was convincing and highlighted cause for concern. However, less convincing was the claim by APM Reports of unbais.
 
In typical journalist style, Scheck presents the story he wants the reader to take-away in the first portion of his article; that the Trump administration is unethical, comparing it to the previous administration. It is only toward the end of the article that the author begins to reveal that the ethical problems facing the United States government are not isolated to one party. Glaringly, the author made no mention of the fact that the Clinton Foundation, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity, is under investigation for political favours. A fact that would be relevant to a discussion on ethics in US politics. Therefore, I question the author’s independence.

References
Jarrett, L., & Perez, E. (2018). Feds actively investigating Clinton Foundation -. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/05/politics/clinton-foundation-arkansas-probe/

Scheck, T. (2018). Ethics Be Damned. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://www.apmreports.org/ethics
 Ethics Be Damned | APM Reports
Ethics Be Damned | APM Reports
A growing chorus of ethics officials, including the acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, warns that President Trump's conduct related to his business interests is causing a dangerously negative public perception of the nation's ethics system. "These are perilous times," said David Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics.
apmreports
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1 comment

Michael Colreavy 3d
(Mike Colreavy) Nick Leslie refers to an investigation of the Clinton Foundation over “political favours” (when Hillary was Secretary of State)as demonstrating that the ethical problems faced by the United States Government are not isolated to one party. To date, none of that has been substantiated. Needless to say, it’s very easy to smear a party that is the subject of any investigation without providing any evidence and before the investigation is completed. Just look at how Donald Trump did that by constantly lashing out at Hillary to demean and insult her (he's still doing it). Notwithstanding that the Clintons had made public the Clinton Foundation’s tax returns and donors ahead of the 2016 US Presidential election, and that claims that indictments were coming relating to the Foundation were eventually debunked, and that Wikileaks’ 6th November 2016 false tweet that the Foundation paid for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding was immediately debunked in Glenn Kessler’s Washington Post Fact Checker column, and that claims by Russian propaganda networks, RT and Sputnik that 100% of the Clintons’ ’Charity’ went to themselves were all unproven, enough mud was thrown by Trump, Wikileaks, and the Russians, and then rehashed ad-nauseam in mainstream and social that some of it was bound to stick - and now there’s some mud on the MGT367 Padlet !


CEO in talks for contract release from Council job

kirstieangel
3d
CEO in talks for contract release from Council job
This article draws attention to the negotiations between Councillors at Northern Beaches Council and the Chief Executive Officer, Mark Ferguson regarding early release from his contract. This article relates to leaderships as there are some ethical issues raised due to the unconfirmed details surrounding his early release from contract occurring at the Tuesday 6 March meeting. The Counsellors have legitimate position power to reach a decision regarding his control however some Councillors have voiced concerns about lack of information they received in the lead up to the council meeting in which they were to vote and make an informed ethical decision. This could be perceived as the Mayor and CEO as not being honest and trustworthy or demonstrating integrity with others or paying attention to stakeholders to effectively build a community (Dubrin, 2016).
 
In addition the exodus impact could seriously affect leadership, the inspiration and motivation towards a common goal. Effective leadership and a positive organisational culture are essential for developing and maintaining an organisation’s integrity Shaw, Barry, Issa, & Catley, 2013). The Northern Beaches Council has gone through significant change after forming from amalgamation in May 2016 therefore is the decision socially responsible to leave the organisation and in turn the community without an organisational leader in one of the most important stages of development.
 
The article appears in newspaper Local to the area, which would be affected therefore it is portrayed quite dramatically. Further information is yet to be released.
 
References
 
Dubrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills [Cengage Learning, 20150101. VitalBook file.] (8th ed.). 
Shaw, W. H., Barry, V., Issa, T., & Catley, B. (2013). Moral issues in business: 2nd Asia Pacific edition [Cengage Learning AUS, 2015. VitalBook file.] (2nd ed.).
 
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Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors

Jessica Kane
3d
Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors
This article discusses the notion of corporate culture and the ways in which leader’s actions and behaviours within the workplace can impact upon it.

It describes corporate culture as being a learnt behaviour which is typically transcended from superiors or individuals of influence. These leaders are responsible for making decisions, taking action and enforcing attitudes which reflect the key values and morals of the organisation to its employees and the public (Whitehurst, 2016).  It also outlines that communication between key leaders within the organisation and its employees is essential to transcend this culture.

 Whilst I partly agree with this, I also believe that in order for a positive corporate culture to be developed all members of the organisation need to act as leaders. Regardless of their position, organisations need em

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A culture of petty rivalries, childish behaviour, and self interest were unearthed in several NSW Councils referred to in this article, according to the Local Government Minister. The questionable planning decisions, toxic relationships between councillors and councillors and staff, uncooperative inquiry witnesses, and bullying and harassment were all at odds with ethical and socially responsible behaviour envisaged by DuBrin (2016, Chapter 6) which requires honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and respect. Councillors and senior managers need to be ethical leaders. They need to lead by example. Their behaviour sets the ethical tone for the whole organisation. When ethical behaviour is lacking at the top, the whole organisation will be adversely affected as it appears to be in the three examples in this article. This behaviour will have flow on effects potentially adversely impacting on the wellbeing of all who work in those organisations. They could hardly be described as employers of choice.

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Auburn Council's former Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer is in the spotlight again.

Reports into the serious failings at three NSW councils have unearthed a culture of 'petty rivalries, childish behaviour and self-interest', says NSW Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton.

The three independent public inquiries by the Office of Local Government investigated the goings on at North Sydney Council and the former Auburn and Murray Shire councils and were tabled in NSW Parliament last week.

Two of the investigations involve councils which no longer exist. Auburn was fractured during forced council mergers in May last year and is now part of Cumberland Council and Parramatta Council. Murray Shire Council merged with Wakool Shire to form Murray River Council.

The inquiries were set in motion by former NSW Local Government Minister Paul Toole and uncovered questionable planning decisions; toxic relationships between councillors and councillors and staff, unco-operative witnesses and allegations of bullying and harassment.

Ms Upton said the three reports showed that some councils, mayors, councillors and staff were failing to deliver for their communities.

"For a few - it is about them - instead of what is in the community's best interests," Ms Upton said. "Petty rivalries, unruly and childish behaviour in council meetings and shoddy practices must be banished from our councils forever."

Ms Upton said that the government would consider the reports' recommendations in greater detail and refer them to the Independent Commission against Corruption.

Auburn Council
Auburn Council found itself under the spotlight after its former Deputy Mayor, Salim Mehajer, held a lavish wedding with four helicopters and a procession of luxury cars and persuaded the council to close local streets but it was the council's planning decisions that kept it in the public eye.

Richard Beasley SC was tasked with finding out if some Auburn councillors, including Mr Mehajer, had made dodgy planning decision for their own financial benefit and broken the councillors' code of conduct.

Mr Beasley made no adverse findings against any councillors but expressed his frustration that his hands were tied because he could not compel witnesses to answer questions, particularly Auburn Council's former Executive Manager of Planning Glenn Francis, who he said played a central role in three of the planning proposals being investigated.

"One witness (possibly the most important witness summonsed to give evidence at the public hearings) extensively claimed the privilege against self-incrimination, and I ruled that he could not be compelled to answer many questions," Mr Beasley said. "The fact that an important witness could not be compelled to answer questions about three of the four planning proposals being inquired into was unhelpful."

Mr Beasley recommended that commissioners overseeing public inquiries be given the power to compel witnesses to answer questions.

Ms Upton said the Auburn Council inquiry found that former Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer may have breached Local Government Act disclosure provisions, over the sale of council owned property to a company associated with him.

She said that another recommendation was made to review road closing procedures across all councils so residents could understand whether they should lodge objections.

"This is important because of the unauthorised road closures that occurred for Mr Mehajer's over-the-top wedding reception," said Ms Upton.

North Sydney Council
The North Sydney Council investigation centred on toxic relationships between Mayor Jilly Gibson and some of the seven other councillors and her strained relationship with the former General Manager, which left Ms Gibson isolated and council meetings fraught and unruly.

North Sydney Mayor Jilly Gibson.

The popularly elected mayor lost the confidence of most of the other councillors early on in her four-year term and this caused problems because Ms Gibson chaired every council meeting.

"This has had the effect of locking in the conflict between the chair and the floor of meetings for the whole term," said Tom Howard SC, conducting the inquiry.

If the mayor had been elected by councillors and the chairing of meetings rotated this would have avoided or lessened 'significant elements of dysfunction' on the council, he said.

During his investigation, Mr Howard uncovered "a degree of conflict and personal antipathy" which he said exceeded "ordinary robust political engagement."

Constant conflict at the council led to 'excessive use' of code of conduct complaints, which cost North Sydney ratepayers and sucked up resources from the Office of Local Government.

Further conflict ensued after the mayor's car was abandoned for three days with a flat tyre in the car park of a Crows Nest bottle shop, after which councillors voted to take away her mayoral car. Ms Gibson, who has knee problems, found it difficult to carry out her official duties after this.

He added: "conflict has, from time to time, clouded the judgment of the protagonists, diminishing their objectivity and causing them to make some poor decisions."

Mr Howard recommended that the Local Government Act be reviewed so that when a popularly elected mayor lost confidence of the majority of councillors early on the mayor did not necessarily chair council meetings for the next four years.

While Mr Howard found that some councillors and the mayor had broken rules on council meeting procedures and breached parts of the code of conduct, he did not recommend Ms Upton suspend or dismiss the council.

Instead he recommended that the minister slap a performance improvement order on the council to ensure conduct at council meetings was acceptable, although he warned, "It is not to be expected that the underlying conflict between the mayor and some of the councillors will be resolved."

He said there were signs that the worst conflict was over, partly after the resignation of the former General Manager, and that conduct had improved during council meetings.
Murray Shire Council
A similar situation was going on at Murray Shire before the council merged with Wakool Shire in May last year, with councillors at war with each other and some of them with the general manager.

Commissioner Anthony Hudson found constant code of conduct complaints, leaking to the press and secrecy around the General Manager's contract. He said some councillors had neglected council service delivery, policy and resource allocation too.

Murray Shire recorded the highest code of conduct complaints of any NSW council between September 1 2014 and August 31 2015 and the 111 complaints cost the council $125,000. The General Manager also complained of being bullied and harassed by some of the councillors.

Mr Hudson uncovered 'deep division' and a high level of acrimony between minority and majority councillors and between minority councillors and the General Manager and he concluded that the situation was not likely to be improved.

He noted that ex-Mayor Tom Weyrich called it "a giant clash of personalities" and "a train wreck waiting to happen" and Mr Hudson did not argue with his assessment.

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Minister blasts NSW councils for 'childish behaviour and petty antics'

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Auburn Council's former Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer is in the spotlight again. Reports into the serious failings at three NSW councils have unearthed a culture of 'petty rivalries, childish behaviour and self-interest', says NSW Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton.

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Labelled a “basket case” by the WA Premier following many issues including the “Lord Mayor’s failure to declare gift and travel benefits and fueds and threats of law suits between councillors, the leadership of Perth City Council has been controversial for some years culminating in the recent suspension of the governing body by the Minister for Local Government in February 2018, pending an inquiry. Councils have two distinct branches of leadership – the governing body comprising elected councillors, and management comprising the Chief Executive Officer and Directors. Any serious fall out between these two branches of leadership can be at odds with their respective social responsibilities to act in the best interests of the organisation and the local community, and a potential recipe for disaster. The departure on extended stress leave of two CEO’s in quick succession is evidence of dysfunction at the top. In an apparent failure to govern for good, accusations of undermining the majority of the Council had been made against the Mayor since losing her majority in late 2017. The Mayor had also made accusations against the CEO.

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Updated February 28, 2018 21:35:58

The Perth City Council is set to be suspended and faces the prospect of eventually being sacked, following a prolonged period of turmoil.

Local Government Minister David Templeman has confirmed he will announce on Friday exactly which method he will use to suspend the council.

Once this happens, a Government-appointed commissioner will step in to lead the city.

"In my view it is now untenable for the council to continue," Mr Templeman said.

"They have not acted in the best interests of the ratepayers of Perth and a line needs to be drawn in the sand now.

"Therefore I have informed them that it is my intention to suspend that council."

Immediate suspension an option

Mr Templeman said he would announce how the suspension would work later this week, after he and other officials weighed up how to make it happen.

One option would be the issuing of a show cause notice, giving the city 21 days to explain why it should not be suspended for six months.

The other would be an immediate suspension and the commissioning of a government-appointed panel to conduct an inquiry into the Council.

That panel would have the powers of a Royal Commission and would be tasked with making recommendations about what action should be taken - with one option being a call for the Council to be dismissed.

The move follows years of threats by Labor to take action in relation to the Council, after a lengthy period of controversy.

The city has been heavily divided between loyal backers of Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi and a group of her opponents - with the latter making up the majority of the current Council.

Premier Mark McGowan has previously labelled the Council a "basket case" and of having a "Stalinist culture" following a string of issues that have included Mrs Scaffidi's failure to declare gift and travel benefits, and feuds and threats of lawsuits between councillors.

More recently, the city has churned through leaders after chief executive Martin Mileham took prolonged leave - citing an "unsafe workplace - and acting CEO Robert Mianich also asked for time off after councillors moved to appoint a different senior staffer to that role.

Whichever option the Minister chooses, he cautioned there would be a long process before the issue was resolved.

Scaffidi sought to 'bring the council down'

Deputy Lord Mayor Jemma Green spoke after Mr Templeman's announcement, clearly unhappy with the outcome - and Mrs Scaffidi's reaction in particular.

"The Lord Mayor has just told the Minister that she is satisfied with the Government's intention," Ms Green said.

"This is exactly the outcome that the Lord Mayor wanted, the majority of Council do not believe that the Lord Mayor should get the outcome she wants.

"Since the election in October last year the Lord Mayor lost her majority on Council ... and so she's sought to undermine the majority of Council and bring the Council down."

Ms Green urged Mr Templeman to reconsider his decision to suspend the Council.

"We call on the Minister to provide the majority of Council the opportunity to demonstrate that we can manage this city and meet the expectations of ratepayers."

Lord Mayor labels accusations 'spin'

Mrs Scaffidi strongly rejected the allegation she wanted to take down the Council.

"No that is absolutely a spin and is not correct," she said.

"The bottom line to the whole thing is that there are some very serious issues that I only found out about when I returned to work.

"I'm not therefore surprised at all that the Minister is now considering two options, a show cause or suspension, for which we will be notified more fully of on Friday."

Mrs Scaffidi returned to her role this year after challenging a disqualification from holding office over a travel and expenses scandal.

"My issue has nothing to do with this matter - as you would appreciate I have abided by a very long process that has been very protracted," she said.

"I have been going through a judicial process that should be able to complete its time and, you know, we will see what the outcome of that ultimately is."

She said she hoped the issues that had led to Mr Templeman suspending the Council would become public knowledge.

Topics: local-government, perth-6000

First posted February 28, 2018 19:46:58

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'Untenable' Perth City Council faces suspension

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Updated February 28, 2018 21:35:58 The Perth City Council is set to be suspended and faces the prospect of eventually being sacked, following a prolonged period of turmoil. Local Government Minister David Templeman has confirmed he will announce on Friday exactly which method he will use to suspend the council.

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This very recent article announces a Queensland CCC investigation into corruption allegations made by a local community interest group against a number of unnamed Gold Coast councillors, all of which, as yet, are unproven. The article also refers to a complaint to the effect that the Mayor had failed to properly withdraw from dealing as Mayor with a development matter in which he had a significant pecuniary interest, and that he failed to update his interests in the Council’s register when he should have, and that he misused his authority in relation to negotiating a new employment contract for the Council’s CEO.

The inquiry announcement underscores the State Government’s and the community’s expectation that, as community leaders, councillors and council staff, who are bound by a Code of Conduct, must adhere to it and must act ethically putting the interests of the organisation ahead of any private interests.

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Updated March 09, 2018 06:20:42

Queensland's corruption watchdog has confirmed it is investigating allegations Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate influenced council decision-making for personal benefit, failed to declare possible conflicts of interest, and did not disclose flights and accommodation received from a Chinese developer within the required timeframe.

Last week, the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) announced a new investigation, "into allegations of corrupt conduct relating to decision-making by some Gold Coast City Council councillors".

"The allegations broadly involve possible conflicts of interest relating to decisions on a range of development matters on the Gold Coast," the CCC said.

"The allegations, which raise a reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct, will now be investigated by the CCC."

No councillors were named in the announcement of the probe.

The ABC can reveal the corruption watchdog is investigating eight complaints lodged by the community group Save Surfers Paradise, including the decision-making surrounding a development proposed by a company the Mayor has a 50 per cent stake in.

The group alleged to the CCC, "Councillor Tate did not fully disclose his material personal interest" in the "Waterglow" development during a 2013 meeting of council that considered an application for the project.

The 56-level apartment tower would be built on the site of the old Surfers Paradise bowling club greens and is being proposed by Crestden Pty Ltd.

At the 2013 meeting, Cr Tate declared a material personal interest because he was a shareholder of Crestden, and he left the chamber.

However, the complaint to the CCC said the Mayor failed to reveal his shareholding in Crestden amounted to 50 per cent, which they claim is a violation of the Local Government Act.

Mayor says he respects CCC's confidentiality

The complainants also allege Cr Tate failed to declare his interests in two land lots on which the development would be built, and that he was a director of Crestden as well as the company that owned the land.

Save Surfers Paradise also claimed the Mayor failed to update his Register of Interests within the required 30-day timeframe to, "properly disclose the receipt of hospitality benefits he received from the representative of a Chinese developer, being Councillor Tate's lawyer Mr Tony Hickey".

Last September, the ABC's Four Corners program revealed the Mayor had travelled to Beijing, where he spoke at the launch of an 88-storey tower being built on the Gold Coast by Chinese-owned developer Forise Holdings.

Cr Tate later updated his council Register of Interests to disclose he received, "return flight and accommodation to China" from Hickey Management, which was acting as an agent for Forise.

The complaints to the CCC now being investigated also include a claim the Mayor misused his authority "in nominating himself" to negotiate a new employment contract with the Council's CEO, Dale Dickson.

The complaint said the Mayor did this, "in circumstances where he was aware that [CEO] Mr Dickson had been delegated by Council the sole responsibility for negotiating the sale of 72 Remembrance Drive to a business in which Councillor Tate held a material personal interest".

The site of the old bowling greens at 72 Remembrance Drive is where Crestden is proposing to build the Waterglow apartment tower.

One of the blocks on the site is owned by Council, and Crestden needs to purchase it for the development to go ahead.

In response to questions from the ABC, the Mayor said he respected the confidentiality of the CCC.

Of the 10 complaints lodged by Save Surfers Paradise, the CCC said it would investigate eight, including those detailed above.

"You should be contacted in due course by an investigator from the CCC's Corruption Operations area," the CCC wrote to the co-ordinator of Save Surfers Paradise.

It is understood the CCC will also investigate a council decision to fill in a Gold Coast lake and to hand control of the reclaimed land to the Gold Coast Turf Club.

At the time, a number of councillors declared real or perceived conflicts of interest due to their membership of the turf club, but remained in the chamber to vote on the issue.

Under the Act, a councillor can vote on matters after declaring a conflict of interest.

Topics: local-government, government-and-politics, corruption, law-crime-and-justice, surfers-paradise-4217, australia, qld

First posted March 09, 2018 06:17:08

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Gold Coast Mayor at centre of corruption watchdog investigation

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Queensland's corruption watchdog confirms it is investigating allegations Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate influenced council decision-making for personal benefit, failed to declare possible conflicts of interest, and did not disclose flights and accommodation received from a Chinese developer within the required timeframe.

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Donald Sterling was the owner of the Clippers Los Angeles Basketball Team, when he was talking to his girlfriend and making racist remarks. Donald asked that his girlfriend to not broadcast her association with black people or bring black people to his basketball games.

Sterling has also been involved with lawsuits regarding discrimination; in 2006 the Justice Department sued him for allegations of housing discrimination in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles; in 2009 he agreed to pay $2.73 million to settle allegations by the government that he had refused to rent his properties to hispanics, black people and families with children; in 2011 he won a lawsuit against Elgin Baylor (former Clippers general manager) of the claim of age discrimination and harassment.

Donald’s actions and behaviour show unethical leadership, as he degrads the moral value of people that are not his own race. His behaviour set an example, as many young individuals look up to him, and sets the ethical guidelines of the organisation he owns. Because of this, the NBA banned him for life and fined him $2.5 million dollars for his unethical actions, to show that they will not tolerate unethical and discrimination behaviour from their leaders in the organisation.

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The NBA is investigating a report of an audio recording in which a man purported to be the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, makes racist remarks while speaking to his girlfriend.

The NBA spokesman, Mike Bass, said in a statement on Saturday that the league is in the process of authenticating the validity of the recording, which was posted on TMZ's website. Bass called the comments "disturbing and offensive" and said the league would have no further comment at this time.

Messages seeking comment from the Clippers were not immediately returned.

The Clippers were practising in San Francisco ahead of game four of their first-round play-off series against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday. Los Angeles leads 2-1. The Clippers coach, Doc Rivers, and players were scheduled to speak to reporters.

In the recording posted on TMZ, the man questions his girlfriend's association with minorities. TMZ reported the woman, V Stiviano, who is of black and Mexican descent, posted a picture of herself with Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson on Instagram - which has since been removed.

The man asked that Stiviano not broadcast her association with black people or bring black people to games.

"I will never go to a Clippers game again as long as Donald Sterling is the owner," Magic Johnson said on Twitter. He also said the alleged comments were "a black eye for the NBA" and said he felt bad that friends such as Rivers and Clippers point guard Chris Paul had to work for Sterling.

The former Clippers guard Baron Davis wrote on Twitter that Sterling's discrimination has been "going on for a long time".

Sterling, a real estate mogul, bought the Clippers in 1981. He is the longest-tenured owner in the NBA since the Lakers owner Jerry Buss died last year.

He has been frequently criticised for his frugal operation of the Clippers, although in recent years he has spent heavily to add stars such as Paul and Rivers, who led the team back to the play-offs in his first year as coach.

Sterling has been involved in several lawsuits over the years, including ones with discrimination accusations.

In November 2009, Sterling agreed to pay $2.73m (£1.62m) to settle allegations by the government that he refused to rent apartments to hispanics and black people and to families with children. The Justice Department sued Sterling in August 2006, for allegations of housing discrimination in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles.

In March 2011, Sterling won a lawsuit against the former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor when a jury rejected the Hall of Famer's claim of age discrimination and harassment. Baylor, who was 76 at the time, had sought about $2m after claiming he was forced out of the job he had held for 22 years. The team said Baylor left on his own and a jury awarded him nothing.

Sterling is a courtside fixture at Clippers home games. He rarely visits the team's locker room at Staples Centre, although he made an appearance in December 2012 after they had won their 11th straight game, when he led an awkward locker room cheer.
Topics

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LA Clippers owner allegedly says: 'Don't bring black people to my games'

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The NBA is investigating a report of an audio recording in which a man purported to be the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, makes racist remarks while speaking to his girlfriend. The NBA spokesman, Mike Bass, said in a statement on Saturday that the league is in the process of authenticating the validity of the recording, which was posted on TMZ's website.

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Ethical Behaviour of the Leader of a Community Group

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Ethical Behaviour of the Leader of a Community Group

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Kym is the founder and organiser of a group called Sydney Vegan Club, which his leadership for the group is unethical in the way he influences others and sets an example for others to follow. When leading his group, he has influence on their behaviours to achieve a common goal (such as organising an event). If he is leading the group in an unethical manner, it is most likely influencing his followers behaviour to act unethically.

His behaviour comes from a place of selfishness, not thinking about his consumers well-being and the impact that is has on external social environments.  His characteristics do not line up with an ethical leader, for example does not have authenticity, integrity, trustworthy, honesty, and courage (Shaw et al. 2016, p 454-455). The lack of two-way communication towards guests that expressed how satisfied with the event led him and his followers to deleted and block people resulting in people feeling disrespected and non inclusive.

References
Shaw, W. H., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B., & Muntean. (2016). Moral Issues in Business. South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning Australia.

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VEGANS were left angry and confused after a "nightmare" cruise on Sydney Harbour on Saturday night.

Advertised as a four-hour cruise around Sydney Harbour from Circular Quay from 7pm-11pm, the Sydney Vegan Club event promised live music, stunning views and a seven-course - later changed to a nine-course - dinner of canapes.

Patrons were told to "prepare for a feast", but the reality was anything but, with hundreds of disgruntled attendees taking their complaints to social media.

"It felt like I was on the Hunger Games or vegan Survivor, " said one disappointed attendee.

"I hadn't eaten properly the whole day and was saving my appetite for the cruise."

"I didn't have huge expectations, and knew food might not be abundant, but never to that extent."

The woman said there were huge mobs of people standing outside the kitchen, waiting for any sign of food. After four hours, she had only eaten three tiny falafels and felt "trapped, dizzy and starving".

Nicole Madden and her partner attended the cruise as part of a Valentine's Day gift, and were angered by the so-called nine-course meal.

"We are feeling extremely disappointed," Ms Madden said.

Her partner contacted the event organisers and received a "half-hearted apology full of contradictions and blame".

The organisers posted a public apology in the group later that day, thanking all those who had attended and left positive feedback, referring to the night as a "success".

They apologised for guests who felt they didn't receive enough food on the night by stating that "25 per cent of the guests ate 50 per cent of the food".

Ms Madden said event-goers were only allowed one appetiser per person, and if a guest reached for two, the staff, who were volunteers, would tell them only one.

Another attendee, Natalie Earl, also expressed her dissatisfaction with the evening, and was angered that certain wines on the night were not actually vegan, despite the cruise being advertised as 100 per cent vegan.

"I was so angry. I really didn't think I would have to check labels on a vegan cruise."

She said during the entire night she was only able to snag two small bites of food and along with many other guests flooded local food establishments after the cruise.

"We didn't get what was promised," she said.

"Definitely not a nine-course meal. A total lack of communication and no apologies whatsoever."

Tickets for the event were $60 each and an estimated 400 people took part, totalling about $24,000 in ticket sales. Most of the staff were volunteers and the bulk of the food was sponsored by a natural food company.

One of four musicians on the night said she was paid $150 for her performance.

"It's a shame the volunteers weren't given some kind of pay as they worked really, really hard," she said.

Organisers did not respond to questions about the complaints from news.com.au.

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VEGANS were left angry and confused after a "nightmare" cruise on Sydney Harbour on Saturday night. Advertised as a four-hour cruise around Sydney Harbour from Circular Quay from 7pm-11pm, the Sydney Vegan Club event promised live music, stunning views and a seven-course - later changed to a nine-course - dinner of canapes.

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Apple pledges $350 billion investment in US economy over next five years 

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Apple pledges $350 billion investment in US economy over next five years 

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This article explores the theme of CSR. As Apple are planning to invest $350 billion dollars into next five years in U.S. which will give an enormous enhancement into U.S economy. Apple plans to build new campus at different location in U.S that will be powered by renewable energy, helping to build a sustainable environment and wanting to leave the world better than what it was and will create hundreds of new jobs in the process. Moreover, Apple plans to expand coding initiatives to helps educate the students for next generation of job. (Miller, 2018).

In relation to Apple’s planned investment, journal article Perceptions and Perspectives: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Media that explores the perceptions and interpretations that CSR has in the media, states: “For opportunists CSR is not a cost but an investment and is an agenda that requires active engagement. Optimists might be driven by community, environmental or pure economic self-interest. They actively seek out opportunities to influence, act on and deliver change.”
(Tench, Bowd, & Jones, 2007).

Similar to Steve Jobs, CEO Tim Cook shares similar drive and entrepreneurial leadership qualities who sees this ‘opportunity not as a cost but as an investment.’

Apple aims to be the front-runners in CSR and as an investor in regards to US’s energy and job market along with the enhancement of Automation procedures by educating the new generations.

Whilst aiming to become the front-runner in CSR and continues to strive upon, the approach that being socially responsible that would fit well with Apple’s plan of investment and would also be the Thou Shalt Approach.

References

1. Miller, R. (2018, March 7). Apple pledges $350 billion investment in US economy over next five years. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/apple-pledges-350-billion-investment-in-us-economy-over-next-five-years/

2. Tench, R., Bowd, R., & Jones, B. (2007). Perpections and Perspectives: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Media. Journal of Communication Management, 11(4), 348-370. doi:10.1108/13632540710843940

https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/apple-pledges-350-billion-investment-in-us-economy-over-next-five-years/

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The Ethics and Social Responsibility of Doughnut Time.

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The Ethics and Social Responsibility of Doughnut Time.

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the famous store ‘A Doughnut Time’ having 60 employees owed up to $5,000 each in unpaid work and superannuation contributions. One of the employees claims he was locked out of a Manly store 3 weeks after signing a full time contract with Doughnut Time and was forced to collect shifts in other Sydney stores.

With ethics playing a part in standards of behaviour that affect human well-being, we can see that the CEO of Doughnut Time had unethical behaviour leaving his employees outrages, unemployed and owing them everyone up to $70,000 work and superannuation. From the CEO’s perspective, he might believe that expanding the business was an ethical decision because of the amount of jobs he had created around Australia.

From my point of view his leadership behaviour and strategic management was unethical as he did not think about his employees human well-being and did not manage his businesses to go beyond his financial and economic obligations to include the social impact his business had.

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About 60 Doughnut Time employees still owed wages

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Dozens of Doughnut Time employees have been left unpaid as the workplace watchdog's investigation into the shrinking business continues.

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Leaders play an outsize role in integrity

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Leaders play an outsize role in integrity

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Writing for Melbourne publication, The Mandarin, David Donaldson (2018) presents the reader with a discussion about ethics and integrity in business. The key argument throughout the article, is that leaders play a major role in setting the ethical tone of the organisation.

Donaldson quotes Gill Callister, secretary of the Victorian Department of Education and Training, who in turn cites University of Texas research, in order to present that argument that leaders heavily influence other staff members on ethics. Donaldson goes on to quote Adam Canwell, a partner of consulting firm EY, to further substantiate the influence of leaders on ethics; “… you can put a good person into a bad environment and the majority of people will start to behave in a bad way,”. These conclusions are heavily supported by the literature (Hughes, 1993, pp. 204–205; Robbins, 2011, p. 366; Yukl, 1989, p. 214). In summary, the article was convincing and well supported.

References

Donaldson, D. (2018). Leaders play an outsize role in integrity. Retrieved March 8, 2018, from https://www.themandarin.com.au/88119-leaders-play-outsize-role-integrity/

Hughes, R. L. (1993). Leadership : enhancing the lessons of experience. (R. C. Ginnett & G. J. Curphy, Eds.). Homewood, IL: Irwin.

Robbins, S. P. (2011). Organisational behaviour. (T. Judge, B. Millett, & M. Boyle, Eds.) (Sixth edition). Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Australia.

Yukl, G. A. (1989). Leadership in organizations (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall.

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You don't need a massive corruption scandal to build an ethical leadership culture, says Gill Callister, secretary of the Victorian Department of Education and Training - but it certainly helps.

Callister assumed the job at a time when several of the department's old guard leadership had been accused of corruption, and has worked to reform how the organisation runs.

Leaders act as a kind of lynchpin when it comes to integrity, Callister points out.

"Research tells us that most people, rather than relying on their own moral compass, will look to others when dealing with ethical dilemmas. They particularly look to leaders, which means that good conduct can be an inspiration.

"But it also means - and this was certainly the experience a number of years ago in our department - that unethical conduct can rub off on staff and rub off on culture. We all know the phrase 'this is how things happen around here'. Unethical actions by leaders are often copied much more readily than ethical ones, which makes our job harder, but also more important."

But it isn't just their ability to influence others that presents a corruption risk - the discretion afforded those in positions of power makes it easier to do the wrong thing.

"According to Ethics Unwrapped, which is a research project by the University of Texas, most people unsurprisingly like to think of themselves as ethical," says Callister.

"The research found that leaders are particularly overconfident, despite being the most vulnerable to ethical breaches. After all, leaders hold the purse strings, employ the staff, purchase the goods and services, and often make a number of the decisions with government that affect our community."

And while big corruption cases make the loudest headlines, integrity is about more than whether you have your hand in the till.

"You don't need a massive fraud and corruption scandal to help build a stronger, ethical leadership culture that combines and connects the systems and controls and compliance processes with your behaviour and practices and culture in your organisation. It isn't enough for leaders to think that they're ethical just because they don't commit fraud or pocket the petty cash. Ethical leadership is a much higher bar than that, and it's not always easy and it's fraught with dilemmas."

A bad environment can change a good person

Now the Victorian Public Sector hopes to reform how its leaders behave, with the launch of IPAA Victoria's integrity and ethical leadership program on Monday.

The syllabus will include mentoring, case studies and a focus on responses to 'integrity moments', to be delivered across six days over the next several months. The course's first cohort will include 21 of the state's top public sector leaders, who will help test and refine the approach.

Adam Canwell, a partner at consulting firm EY who helped put together the program, looked at some of the key drivers of bad behaviour in the public sector.

"All the evidence shows that you can put a good person into a bad environment and the majority of people will start to behave in a bad way," he said at the launch. "The system and the culture drive behaviour as much as individual preference."

Leaders who had dealt with such problems in the past told him that oversight was a key factor. "It's the places where there are gaps where issues happen. The gaps could be a lack of respect between parts of the organisation, or a black hole where there's no data coming out."

Catching the 'frequent flyers'

Tony Bates, deputy secretary governance policy and coordination at the Department of Premier and Cabinet, noted the role judgement plays. The Integrity and Corporate Deputy Secretaries Committee, which he chairs, had spent a "breathtaking" amount of time discussing gifts and benefits policies over the last 12 months, he said - but for good reason.

"These answers are not obvious. We've got intelligent, well-meaning people and you can still have quite different opinions on a lot of these things."

It's clear that not everyone is on the same page at the moment - or as well-meaning.

The committee has been doing some work on what he refers to as "frequent flyers" - people who resign just as an investigative process is complete and then pop up again in another department some time later.

It can also be a slippery slope, even with good intentions. This makes shared understandings of the meaning of integrity important.

In the current environment of stretched public service organisations and ministers anxious to get quick results, the temptation to ignore the red tape proves too strong for some. These "can-do coconuts", as Bates calls them, can present a risk for the public sector in the long term.

"The IBAC lessons show us that it's often the 'can-do coconuts' who can go off-reservation," says Bates.

"It's the people who get things done, but get things done by sometimes working around the system, and it often starts with good intentions. What we saw at PTV and Education is that they learn tricks, often originally with an intention that was good, they learn methods that create risk and danger for them."

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Leaders play an outsize role in integrity | The Mandarin

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You don't need a massive corruption scandal to build an ethical leadership culture, says Gill Callister, secretary of the Victorian Department of Education and Training - but it certainly helps. Callister assumed the job at a time when several of the department's old guard leadership had been accused of corruption, and has worked to reform how the organisation runs.

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Sinek (2014) begins by opening with a story of a Captain named William Swenson who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. While rescuing a wounded soldier he gave him a kiss, before he returned back under fire to rescue more people (Sinek, 2014). What has this got to do with ethics in business you might ask? It’s the leader that sets the ethical tone of the organisation. Leadership is about putting the safety and lives of people inside the company first, to sacrifice their own comfort and measured results, so that followers may stay and feel safe and have a sense of belonging (Sinek, 2014). This idea of leaders putting others above themselves is a concept known as servant leadership. Servant leaders primary motivation is to meet the needs of others whilst providing vision are credible and gain trust from followers and influence others (Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004).   Thus, if a leader sets the example of putting the need of others above themselves than ethics will naturally follow.
Reference
Gregory Stone, A., Russell, R. F., & Patterson, K. (2004). Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25(4), 349-361.

Sinek, S. (2014). Why good leaders make you feel safe. Video TED, 19.

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What makes a great leader? Management theorist Simon Sinek suggests, it’s someone who makes their employees feel secure, who draws staffers into a circle of trust. But creating trust and safety -- especially in an uneven economy -- means taking on big responsibility.

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Rena Plaza Disaster, Volkswagen Scandal and 7-Eleven Under Paying Staff

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Rena Plaza Disaster, Volkswagen Scandal and 7-Eleven Under Paying Staff

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Article 1: Rana Plaza Collapse

In April 2013, there was a building collapse in B
angladesh, which claimed over 1000 lives, and resulted in over 2500 injuries, the building was being used as a garment factory. Firstly, this one really hits home for me as due to the amount of deaths, (although any death is terrible), mostly because the building was actually deemed unsafe a few days before, and despite warnings, employees were told to return to work. All these lives could have been saved if the appropriate actions were taken. At this time it does not appear justice has been served, only the building owner has been prosecuted, and from a leadership perspective, you could argue that other parties should be investigated, for example the government authorities that maintain building standards etc. From an ethics perspective, it was completely unethical that the relevant personnel allowed them to return to work, and were thinking about the companies/their own interests, rather than the employees. (Non-people oriented leaders)

Article 2: Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

Around 4 years ago, university students discovered that Volkswagen implemented computer systems into their vehicles, which provide completely inaccurate emission readings. This cost the company billions of dollars in penalties. Initially senior management in the organisation blamed their engineers for the issue, however due the amount of vehicles involved, I believe this is utterly incorrect, they were definitely involved. This ended up being a form of ‘karma’ as clearly senior management were thinking about their own/the companies interests, over the consumers, and then it cost them heaps of money anyway. From an ethics perspective, they were completely the opposite, relevant parties were not thinking about our environment, and ‘the only earth’ we have, and how we should take care of it. I almost cannot talk, as I have 2 old Fords that are 4 litre/6 cylinder/1999, however I would argue that I’m conserving old cars, rather than buying new ones each year, and wasting more resources.

Article 3: 7-Eleven Scandal

Over the past 5 years or so, it has emerged that the convenience store ‘7-Eleven’ has been paying migrant workers, well under the Australian minimum wage. Similar to the above articles, this is completely and utterly unethical, senior management were putting their own/the companies’ interests first, rather than the employees. The most disgusting point about this issue, is that where workers were aware they were being underpaid and asking for a rise, their employers were threatening them with deportation/termination of employment if they spoke up. I believe there needs to be a complete overhaul of the system, where all employee information/wages need to be more thoroughly declared to the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and 7-Eleven investigated at a high level, and physically at all their stores. If this continues, this may possibly make migrants reluctant to move to Australia, ruining our reputation.

Reference List:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2016). Rena Plaza collapse: Bangladeshi workers demand justice on factory disaster anniversary. Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-24/bangladesh-workers-demand-justice-on-disaster-anniversary/7354188

Forbes. (2015). Volkswagen And The Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility. Retrieved From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2015/09/27/volkswagen-and-the-failure-of-corporate-social-responsibility/#29cc7dfb4405

Sydney Morning Herald. (2015). 7-Eleven-Revealed. Retrieved from: https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2015/7-eleven-revealed/

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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast 

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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast 

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This article focuses on Nestle and the topics of ethical and social responsibilities from opposed perspectives.

Firstly Nestle is discussed as a leader demonstrating corporate social responsibility as they publically admitted to modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking taking place within Seafood supply chains. This admission of discovering unethical production and taking supply chain accountable can be taken as ground-breaking in terms of leadership. Furthermore the company claims to be moving into a new era working with suppliers to actively make positive different and be socially responsible when sourcing of ingredients.

Following this the article then challenges Nestlé’s leadership for being unethical as the same time as going public about the supply chains in Thailand Nestles is conversely fighting a lawsuit which seeks to hold them liable for the alleged use of child slaves in cocoa farming in the Ivory Coast. Coco farming is notable a more profitable section of the business and if true is highly unethical. This is stark contrast from leadership within the organisation seeking to enhance their CSR as in this instance they are not accepting whistle blowers or taking supply chain accountability (Dubrin, 2016).

References

Dubrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills [Cengage Learning, 20150101. VitalBook file.] (8th ed.).

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It's hard to think of an issue that you would less like your company to be associated with than modern slavery. Yet last November Nestlé, the world's largest foodmaker and one of the most recognisable household brands, went public with the news it had found forced labour in its supply chains in Thailand and that its customers were buying products tainted with the blood and sweat of poor, unpaid and abused migrant workers.

By independently disclosing that Nestlé customers had unwittingly bought products contaminated by the very worst labour abuses, the company said it was moving into a new era of self-policing of its own supply chains. A year-long investigation by the company confirmed media reports that the seafood industry in Thailand is riddled with forced labour and human trafficking and that slave labour was involved in the production of its Fancy Feast catfood brand.

Nestlé also made sure to make it clear that no other company sourcing seafood from Thailand, the world's third-largest seafood exporter, could have avoided being exposed to the same risks.

"As we've said consistently, forced labour and human rights abuses have no place in our supply chain," said Magdi Batato, Nestlé's executive vice-president in charge of operations, in a written statement. "Nestlé believes that by working with suppliers we can make a positive difference to the sourcing of ingredients."

Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK
The disclosure was considered by many to be ground-breaking. Nick Grono, the chief executive of NGO the Freedom Fund, which has invested heavily in anti-trafficking initiatives in Thailand, believes Nestlé's admission could be a considerable force in shifting the parameters of what can be expected of businesses when it comes to supply chain accountability.

"Nestlé's decision to conduct this investigation is to be applauded," he says. "If you've got one of the biggest brands in the world proactively coming out and admitting that they have found slavery in their business operations, then it's potentially a huge game-changer and could lead to real and sustained change in how supply chains are managed."

The research (pdf) for Nestlé's report was conducted by US corporate accountability business Verité, which works closely with organisations trying to help improve their supply chain transparency.

Last year Verité was involved in another exercise in self-disclosure by outdoor clothing company Patagonia, which announced that it had discovered several points in its supply chain in Taiwan where forced labour and unethical recruitment practices were flourishing.

Verite's chief executive, Dan Viederman, said: "In the last six months Verité has been involved in two high-profile disclosures from major brands and one of the most important lessons for us to recognise is that in neither case did the companies suffer greatly in terms of being associated with these labour conditions. Instead, they received some credit [for] being bold enough to be associated with this."

"I really hope that the recent examples help mobilise companies to be bolder and investigate more deeply because soon the reputational damage in not doing so could be considerable"

For Viederman, the biggest issue is working out how to manage the disclosures into actual change for vulnerable people trapped at the bottom of global commodity chains.

The UK's new slavery laws explained: what do they mean for business?
Cleaning up the supply chain

There is also a growing legal imperative for many large multinationals to start seriously engaging with labour abuses in their business operations. Legislation in both the US and the UK requires larger companies to publish annual reports on their efforts to keep their businesses slavery-free.

The success of the 2010 California Transparency in Supply Chains Act has been patchy but it has spawned a series of civil litigation suits, with consumers or workers using the legislation to launch legal actions against companies they accuse of making misleading public statements on their anti-slavery efforts.

Nestlé is one of the companies facing legal action in the US. Last week the company, along with Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, failed in its bid to get the US Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit seeking to hold them liable for the alleged use of child slaves in cocoa farming in the Ivory Coast.

This puts the company in the unfortunate position of disclosing slavery in one part of its operations, while at the same time fighting through the courts to fend off accusations that it exists in another - more profitable - part of its business.

Andrew Wallis, chief executive of Unseen UK, an anti-trafficking charity advocating for more supply chain accountability, said: "For me there is a big issue with one part of Nestlé saying, 'OK we have been dragged along with everyone else to face the issue of slavery in Thailand and so let's take the initiative and do something about it', and at the same time fighting tooth and nail through the courts to avoid charges of child slavery in its core operations in the Ivory Coast."

By the time Nestlé owned up to slavery in the Thai seafood industry it was accepted knowledge

Andrew Wallis

He argues that Nestlé's self-reporting could also be seen as a tactic to head off or deflate other pending civil litigation suits.

"It's easy to own up to something that has already been uncovered," he says. "By the time Nestlé owned up to slavery in the Thai seafood industry it was accepted knowledge. It'll be a brave new world when companies are actually doing the real investigation to probe into part of their supply chains that have remained outside the public domain.

"We need to move into a space where we say, 'We're all guilty; let's get past that to a place where we can properly address the problem' - and I don't think we're there yet."

Topics Sign up for the Guardian sustainable business newsletter to receive more stories like this in your inbox.

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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast

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It's hard to think of an issue that you would less like your company to be associated with than modern slavery. Yet last November Nestlé, the world's largest foodmaker and one of the most recognisable household brands, went public with the news it had found forced labour in its supply chains in Thailand and that its customers were buying products tainted with the blood and sweat of poor, unpaid and abused migrant workers.

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Courage in Ethical leadership!
Even the most ethical person can subjected to situational pressures in work and in everyday life. However, in the organisational context immoral and unethical leadership behaviours can be influenced by the culture of the organisation. If top management take irresponsible, pseudo-legal risks than others leaders in the organisation may be to behave in a similar fashion (Dubrin, 2015). Psychologist Zimbardo conducted the famous 1971 Stanford prison experiment that showed t after “Decades of evidence that situations can persuade even the most ethical and compassionate person to betray their own values.” There is a natural human tendency to be a bystander to follow a leader or a group that we know is a doing something wrong for a sense of security or acceptance. People can have a choice, but in an organisational setting it becomes a lot harder to do the right thing. Situational pressures in business lead to ethical fading. Ethical fading is when people are focused on operational objectives along with pressure to meet those deadlines, all ethical implications of our acts fades from our thinking.  However, Deterline (2012) proposed that social fitness training is a method of stopping and pausing in tough situation to reconnect to our values, hearts and wisdom to act courageously. This method with practice enables one to override our natural fear response and act on our values when tough situations arise. Through recognition of patterns of behaviour where you stand up easily and where you do not, practice those situations that scare you.  When you practice under fear it creates muscle memory so when the actual moment arises it becomes a trigger to act ethically in those areas (Deterline, 2012).
Reference
Deterline, B. (2012).

Creating ethical cultures in business. Video TED.

DuBrin, A. J. (2015). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.

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Creating ethical cultures in business: Brooke Deterline at TEDxPresidio

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Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?

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Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?

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Writing for the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit publication, Dr Claire Loughnan (2018) argues that if you are in public office, the community expects a certain level of behaviour from you, both in your public and private life. The author uses recent controversial events to frame her argument.

Providing a brief history of the nobility of office, and using strong references, the author convinces the reader that the populace expects particular “virtues of office". The author then appears to lose focus and broaden the article to a discussion on unrelated ethical issues. Ultimately, resolving that those in office are not entitled to a private life, at least, in the eyes of the public. What the author fails to do, however, is to present an argument in favour of office holders having a private life, and to explain why that is either valid or invalid, based on her research. This raises questions about her motives for the article.

References

Loughnan, C. (2018). Is there such a thing as a “private life” if you’re in public office? Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-private-life-if-you-re-in-public-office

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Unethical behaviour by people in office, and the public outcries that follow, are a familiar part of our daily news diet.

Recently, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin's racist comments and former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce's affair with a former staffer, have prompted discussions about what we expect in the workplace and our institutions.

Holding public office, like being a police officer, comes with certain expectations about appropriate conduct. Picture: Getty Images

The public responses in both cases go to the heart of our expectations of those serving us and our institutional values. When someone takes up an 'office' - whether as a political leader, detention guard, migration officer or member of a police force - we have certain expectations about how they conduct themselves in that role.

And while both men have argued their actions were undertaken in private, they run counter to the standards and virtues expected of them as public officers.

5 modern philosophical dilemmas

Early conceptions of 'holding office'

The expectations of office were clearly marked out a few hundred years ago in early modern history when office holders were expected to display attributes appropriate to their particular office. Holding office entailed a rejection of the pursuit of self-interest and partiality, and ordered our relationships with others. But office also 'humanised' us. Holding office was a source of "dignity... civility and conscience".

This entailed more than simple compliance to a rule. Particular human virtues were central to the performance of office obligations: for the Ancient Greeks, the persona of office also had a moral dimension. Among some accounts from Seventeenth Century England, charity, self-restraint, duty, love, learning, humility and disinterest, were qualities identified as the virtues of office. Office was about conducting oneself well, in accordance with limits and duties.

Moreover, in the continual practice of their duties, those in office were expected to develop competence and expertise. For example, "learning and disinterest" were specifically required of the office of the j udge.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Effects of Good Government in the City (1338 - 1339) is part of a series of frescoes by the Italian artist in the Sala della Pace in Siena. The opposite wall depicts bad government. Picture: Wikimedia

Bribery and self-interest would demean or diminish the office. It was therefore important to make sure office holders were fit and proper persons to fulfil the 'persona' of their office.

Failure to meet the obligations of office, whether through 'neglect' or inappropriate conduct, was a regarded as serious matter. Holding individuals accountable could lead to the loss of their office, or worse.

putting ethics First

Challenging harmful ideologies in belief and practice

But that transformation from private individual to public persona in the role of office no longer seems to occur in the same way. As philosopher Raymond Gaita has remarked, contemporary approaches to professional life seem to be marked by a "steadily diminishing understanding that standards may be partly constitutive rather than merely regulative of an activity".

So while office holders should be defined by how they serve, the idea of service to others seems diminished.

Introducing new codes of practice, like the Prime Minister's change to the ministerial code of conduct, which now bans sex with staff members, new policies and allocating more money to public facilities only go part of the way towards redressing this ethical deficit.

The treatment of refugees in offshore detention has prompted mass protests in Australia. Picture: Getty Images

The torture and humiliation of children at Don Dale detention centre, the demeaning 'care' in nursing homes like Oakden in Adelaide and the degrading treatment of refugees in offshore detention, are examples where the convergence of virtue and expertise in office has diminished. This isn't to suggest a 'golden age' of public conduct. However something is deeply amiss in the conduct of 'office' today.

How did it come to this?

Of course, when spaces communicate a message of punishment or brutality, as in the case of the Don Dale detention centre and our immigration detention centres, this can affect how staff in these settings see their roles. It can also shape how staff regard those they are 'caring for', often leading to acts of brutality and inhumanity that degrade both the office and those who occupy it.

While putting funds into designing more humane spaces, such as in the Northern Territory Youth Justice system, has been shown to be important, the ethical deficit cannot be solved simply with new buildings or better procedural manuals. It requires an appreciation of the historical and ethical origins of office as service to the public and to others.

Those who behave badly in office typically do so while knowing it's inappropriate, whether detention centre guards or our police or political leaders. Addressing this requires a reaffirmation of the ethical foundations of office. Office holding must rest on foundations which can productively contribute to human dignity, and not to its demise.

This is about how we live with others in the world, and not simply something which can be captured in a code or manual for behaviour. It's a question of character, of what we do and how we conduct ourselves towards others.

The public response to the behaviours of Barnaby Joyce and Brett Guerin suggest there is little distinction between public and private when it comes to our expectations of ethical conduct among people holding public office.

Banner image: Getty Images

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Dr Claire LoughnanTeaching Specialist, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne

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Is there such a thing as a 'private life' if you're in public office?

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Unethical behaviour by people in office, and the public outcries that follow, are a familiar part of our daily news diet. Recently, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin's racist comments and former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce's affair with a former staffer, have prompted discussions about what we expect in the workplace and our institutions.

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In a recent article, journalist Tom Scheck (2018), of APM Reports, argues that the Trump administration is ethically unsound; APM Reports presents itself as a non-partisan, independent organisation. The report was convincing and highlighted cause for concern. However, less convincing was the claim by APM Reports of unbais.

In typical journalist style, Scheck presents the story he wants the reader to take-away in the first portion of his article; that the Trump administration is unethical, comparing it to the previous administration. It is only toward the end of the article that the author begins to reveal that the ethical problems facing the United States government are not isolated to one party. Glaringly, the author made no mention of the fact that the Clinton Foundation, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity, is under investigation for political favours. A fact that would be relevant to a discussion on ethics in US politics. Therefore, I question the author’s independence.

References
Jarrett, L., & Perez, E. (2018). Feds actively investigating Clinton Foundation -. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/05/politics/clinton-foundation-arkansas-probe/

Scheck, T. (2018). Ethics Be Damned. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://www.apmreports.org/ethics

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A growing chorus of ethics officials, including the acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, warns that President Trump's conduct related to his business interests is causing a dangerously negative public perception of the nation's ethics system.

"These are perilous times," said David Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics. His comments came in a rare interview earlier this month that happened to be the same day President Trump nominated someone to replace him.

Apol worries that the president's decision to not divest from his sprawling business holdings and the scandals involving Trump's Cabinet are causing public distrust in the federal government.

"When the head of your organization, the head of your government says these rules aren't important enough for me to comply with, that makes the program challenging. And that changes the relationship, the way people view the ethics program," he said.

A national survey by Transparency International shows Apol has it right: The majority of the Americans polled believe public corruption is getting worse.

In the year since Trump took office, he has criticized the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department for how it is handling a special counsel's investigation into whether there was Russian interference in the 2016 election. He's also repeatedly visited his golf resorts in Florida and New Jersey. And more than half the members of Trump's Cabinet have engaged in questionable or unethical conduct.

The conduct comes despite Trump's campaign pledge that he would "drain the swamp" if elected. During the presidential campaign, he took dead aim at the lobbyists and industry executives who have joined past administrations.

Instead, Trump appointed the wealthiest Cabinet members in history and hired scores of people in lower-level agency jobs who now regulate the industries they used to work in. At a campaign rally in Iowa in June, Trump praised the wealth in his administration. "I love all people, rich or poor, but in those particular positions, I just don't want a poor person," he said.
'I just don't want a poor person'
Said Norm Eisen of the Brookings Institution: "The president said, 'I'm going to drain the swamp' when he got here, and he threw the floodgates open to the alligators." Eisen, who served as the ethics czar under President Obama, chairs Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit government watchdog group. The organization's vice chair is Richard Painter, who served as the White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.

Despite their political differences, they don't believe the ethics system is equipped to handle Trump's presidency.

A district court judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by the organization in December that alleged Trump's businesses accepted gifts from foreign governments. The judge dismissed the case because he said it was up to Congress to act, not citizens. Similar challenges are also moving through the courts.

But the criticism of how the Trump administration views ethics goes beyond one group. Ethics experts serving multiple administrations say Trump is sending a message that his political appointees can also engage in questionable conduct.

"I think it clearly sets the tone for their appointees," said Don Fox, who worked in the Office of Government Ethics during the Bush and Obama Administrations. "If the boss doesn't care, why should you, then?"

An APM Reports review of news coverage, ethics agreements and government financial disclosure forms has found that more than half of Trump's 20-person Cabinet has engaged in questionable or unethical conduct.

An inspector general found that Secretary for Veterans Affairs David Shulkin improperly accepted tickets to a Wimbledon championship tennis match, and his chief of staff altered an email and made false statements that eventually led to taxpayer money being spent on travel for Shulkin.

At least five Cabinet members are alleged to have used taxpayer money for private travel.

At least four have kept their ties to business groups that they may regulate.

One received help navigating the Senate confirmation process from a lobbyist who was seeking federal contracts from the department.

Others failed to report ownership in a gun company, and continued investment in a company despite calls that the company presented a conflict of interest.

There have been some resignations from the Trump Administration. Key among them is Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who resigned after reports found he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money on private air travel for public business.

However, contrary to past administrations, Trump has not fired or asked for resignations from other appointees who crossed ethical lines.

"People tend to focus on the president and his family, but this is like a cancer that has spread throughout the administration," Eisen said. "When I was in the White House I worked with other individuals that came into the Cabinet, very high-net-worth individuals; you never saw anything like this."
Richard Painter on Trump's ethics
Trump has been unabashed about his rebellious approach. He's bragged about appointing a Cabinet of wealthy people, he broke with public tradition and refused to release his tax returns and he didn't flinch when the head of his own ethics office openly criticized his plan to hold on to his businesses.

Instead of putting his business empire and real estate holdings in a blind trust or selling it completely, the president set up a system that allows him to maintain control of the businesses: His two sons and a business partner run the daily operations.

Soon after Trump won the presidency and questions rained down about his myriad conflicts, he rightly claimed that he was exempt from federal conflict-of-interest laws. "I understand they don't want presidents getting tangled up in minutiae. They want a president to run the country," Trump said before taking office. "I could actually run my business and run government at the same time. I don't like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to."

His stance shocked ethics experts who say Trump should have sold off his interests and put the holdings into a blind trust. "This is an administration that views ethics as an inconvenience that they've got to manage around," said Robert Weissman, executive director of Public Citizen, a watchdog consumer advocacy group.

Trump is facing several lawsuits that he's violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution that forbids him from receiving payments from foreign governments.

Despite a pledge to donate to the U.S. Treasury any foreign money generated by his resorts, hotels or other businesses, there is no evidence Trump has taken such an action.

The White House and the Trump Organization say the president's plan to shield himself from his business decisions ensures that no lines get crossed between the business and government. But Trump has spent more than 100 days of his presidency at one of his resorts, which include fundraising events at his Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida. The Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., also features events by special interest groups, political parties and lobbyists.

Those disclosures have mostly come after media organizations and government watchdog groups have revealed the information through dogged reporting or lengthy public records requests.

But there are also influential ethics watchers who say the nation's ethics system needs an update. They say that the "shame and blame" system that encouraged past administrations to curtail questionable behavior has had little effect on Trump and many of his appointees.

Instead they want an ethics office with stronger enforcement capabilities and updates to a financial disclosure system that hasn't been able to handle Cabinet officials with complicated financial holdings.

"What we have learned in the last year is we cannot rely on presidents abiding by the spirit of these rules on their own," said Kathleen Clark, who teaches legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis.

What we know that we still don't know

"There are so many types of financial investment vehicles and instruments that just didn't exist in 1978. It probably does not provide the degree of transparency that the public should have with the most senior people in administration."Don Fox

More than one year into Trump's presidency, at least three Cabinet secretaries haven't fully disclosed assets that could create conflicts of interest. Ethics experts say they can't recall another administration that has allowed its appointees to keep relevant portions of their personal wealth and potential conflicts secret.

We still don't know the full extent of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' shipping holdings. Ross said in October that he sold his investment in two of his larger shipping companies, Navigator Holdings and Diamond S. Shipping, but there's no proof that the sale occurred, and his office didn't return comment or provide documents. Ross pledged to recuse himself from any matters involving his shipping interests, but he negotiates trade deals that could benefit some of his shipping interests.

We don't know where U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin does his banking, a significant question for any treasury secretary. Mnuchin also pledged to not hold cash in any bank accounts above the federally insured threshold of $250,000. His disclosure form has four accounts above the threshold but we're not sure how he reallocated the money. Mnuchin filed a form with the ethics office in June confirming he is in full compliance with his ethics agreement but the form doesn't list what specific actions he's taken.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has a trust fund labeled "Education" but there are no specifics as to what holdings belong in that fund. And despite criticism of a potential conflict of interest, DeVos increased by as much as $10.5 million her investment in Neurocore, a company that offers brain performance training to children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, autism and depression. DeVos' investment in Neurocore prior to confirmation was valued between $5 million and $25 million.
A record of DeVos' financial stake in Neurocore

1/17/17

DeVos nomination hearing

1/19/17

Initial disclosure of investment in Neurocore ($5,000,001-$25,000,000)

2/7/17

DeVos confirmed as education secretary

4/7/17

Additional investment in Neurocore ($1,000,001-$5,000,000)

6/13/17

Additional investment in Neurocore ($250,001-$500,000)

7/6/17

Additional investment in Neurocore ($1,000,001-$5,000,000)

The education secretary has not spoken about her investment in Neurocore and the Education Department did not respond to questions about her investment. During her confirmation hearing, DeVos pledged to recuse herself from any matters that could benefit her personally. "Where conflicts are identified, they will be resolved. I will not be conflicted. Period. I commit that to you all," she said.
'Where conflicts are identified, they will be resolved'
DeVos, Ross and Mnuchin signed ethics agreements promising they would step away from any matters involving a company that would affect their personal wealth.

That step - known as recusal - is allowed under law. Though it doesn't require a government official to sell specific holdings, it only makes it a crime to participate in any government action that would affect their financial interests. Distrust sets in because it's difficult to know whether officials are properly avoiding those decisions.

Apol says he encourages nominees to sell anything that could be perceived as a conflict because there's a greater likelihood of making mistakes by keeping certain assets.

"I would like to have Cabinet officials be in areas where they don't have to worry about that, and that's where we try to get them," he said. "But I recognize that sometimes that's not possible and sometimes that creates a huge economic hit."

Another problem is some of the federal disclosure forms are long and difficult to understand.

DeVos' form is 107 pages, Ross' 57 pages and Mnuchin's 42 pages. They're incredibly complicated because the nominees don't just own stocks, bonds and mutual funds. They run businesses and have complicated trusts, limited liability corporations, partnerships, investment funds and offshore accounts. The complexity of the forms could flummox the savviest of financial experts trying to understand the divestments.
'I am not promoting any product ... but you should send all your kids to Lego Batman'
Fox says the disclosure requirements need to be updated. The 1978 law has not kept pace with the explosion of new financial instruments created in the past 40 years, he said.

"There are so many types of financial investment vehicles and instruments that just didn't exist in 1978," he said. "It probably does not provide the degree of transparency that the public should have with the most senior people in administration."

It's also difficult to determine business partners and creditors for anyone who owns a private business. The rules require public officials to disclose personal loans and liabilities on their disclosure forms but not loans and liabilities for any private business.

For example, Ross has several shipping holdings through funds indexed with names like WLR/TRF Shipping S.à r.l. and WLR/TRF Shipping II S.à r.l. Both are established in Luxembourg. Financial documents list board members of the business but don't list partners or creditors.
Wilbur Ross' complicated investments
That means it's difficult to know if a public official is making an administrative decision that could benefit a business relationship.

Clark says that deepens uncertainty about several Cabinet members and President Trump. "Many of them do have significant relationships with these privately held companies, and the forms don't give us information about who their business partners are and who their key customers are."

Another problem with the lack of disclosure is the secrecy across the Trump Administration. The White House declined interview requests to discuss its ethics policies, and officials with the Departments of Commerce, Treasury and Education did not return messages for this story.

It's also difficult to get an idea of lower-level personnel since it sometimes takes months for some departments and agencies to release financial disclosure forms and ethics agreements of lower-level appointees.

Some of those lower-level appointees have conflicts, too.

Brenda Fitzgerald, for example, resigned her position in early February as Director of the Centers for Disease Control after reports found that she was buying tobacco-related stock and investments related to pharmaceuticals and health insurance.
Conflicts of interest among Trump's team
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

TRANSPORTATION

WHITE HOUSE AIDE

How America landed in an ethical no-man's land

Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, said he's not confident the Trump administration is providing ethics officials with the necessary paperwork.

He said he left in July because he wasn't getting answers from the White House about financial disclosures of staff, and that put him in a no-win situation: He worried he'd be seen as being political by not signing off on the forms despite not getting all of his answers.

"I'm 100 percent sure that the oversight is not 100 percent complete right now," Shaub said in January.

For Schaub, the lack of information started early. He said Trump and his transition team ignored him immediately after the election despite Schaub's staff standing at the ready to process paperwork for Trump's nominees requiring Senate confirmation.

"It just started out as chaos and stayed chaos all the way through," he said. "It led to (the Trump team) essentially signaling to their own nominees intentionally or unintentionally that ethics doesn't matter."

Shaub, who served at the pleasure of the president, also took the extraordinary step of criticizing Trump for failing to fully separate himself from his businesses.

Shaub held a news conference just hours after the president-elect announced how he'd handle his business interests as president. "By the time the inauguration came around I'd already been spending more than two months with these individuals," he said. "And I remember saying to my wife, the rest of the world's about to find out what I had been dealing with the past couple of months."
'You don't hear about ethics when things are going well'
In September, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report saying the White House and Vice President Mike Pence refused to cooperate with an audit of the transition. It also found that no designated officials were hired to provide ethical oversight of the transition, a break with the precedent set by past presidential transition teams.

Trump continues to earn money from his businesses. The Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., has become a fundraising mecca for special interest groups, foreign governments, Republicans and GOP-aligned groups. Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort doubled its initiation fee after Trump's election.

Trump has also visited his properties more than 100 times since he was elected, according to news organizations that have tracked his travels.

The Office of Government Ethics continues to oversee nearly every employee in the federal government. The legal exemption for the president and vice president started in 1989 after President George H.W. Bush's administration argued a president cannot step away from tough decisions and allow another government official to act. Past presidents, however, have sold their assets or put them in a blind trust that is run by an independent investment manager.

As the chief ethics officer, Shaub was responsible for signing off on the disclosure forms and ethics agreements of Trump's political appointees who require Senate confirmation.

The hearings for the Cabinet members were mostly a formality. Republicans control the U.S. Senate and hastily moved many of Trump's nominees through the confirmation process with little time for the Senate to properly vet the forms.

A hearing on Ross was held just one day after the ethics office released his disclosure form. And the Senate Education and Workforce Committee hearing involving DeVos was held even before the ethics office her 107-page financial disclosure form.

The decision to push through the nominees frustrated Democrats who say Republicans were protecting vulnerable appointees. "There's a little bit of the fox guarding the henhouse," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said in an interview.

Some Democrats are also pushing for an inspector general's investigation into Ross' financial ties to a shipping firm that does business with Russian President Vladimir Putin's son-in-law.

The Senate will also have a say on Trump's nominee to replace Shaub. Trump has named Emory Rounds as the next director of the Office of Government Ethics. If confirmed by the Senate, Rounds will serve a five-year term.

Rounds will then have to determine what tone to take regarding President Trump, his business interests and the problems within his administration.
History of U.S. government ethics laws
Lack of ethics breeds political cynicism

During a speech in October, Apol urged government workers to act ethically and responsibly to increase trust in government. He made the comments after several Cabinet secretaries were found using taxpayer money to fly in private aircraft.

"What determines whether democracies survive is not the clash of armies, but whether the government maintains the trust of its people. That, my fellow public servants, is on us."
'Maintain impartiality and don't use public office for private gain'
The nation has faced ethics scandals and public corruption in the past, Clark said. But the Trump administration has broken several sacred standards set by past government officials, she said. Clark said Trump's decision to hold on to his businesses and his misleading and false statements have undermined public trust in government.

"It's not that this is the first time we've faced corruption, but it is the first time I think we have faced an administration that attempts to systematically lie in a kind of bald-faced way so that people can't trust what their government says," she said.

There is also growing cynicism that ethics fights are becoming more partisan, possibly numbing a collective outrage.

Painter worries that ethics scandals are exacerbated or downplayed depending on whether Congress is controlled by the same political party as the president. "The danger is that ethics is going to be viewed as simply a matter of politics," he said.

Independent groups have also seized on government distrust by pushing for increased government transparency.

The federal government is subject to open records laws, but agencies can take months, if not years, to produce any records. Media organizations have pushed for a quicker turnaround, but financial cutbacks have forced fewer resources to fight legal battles to pry loose public records. As a result, politically aligned groups have been more forceful in their quest for government data.

American Oversight, a group formed by several staffers who worked in President Obama's administration, has relied on Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits to force the Trump administration to release public information. By mid-January, the group filed more than 600 open records requests and more than 20 lawsuits, said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight.

"We had a tool and we had a target that we thought was under-scrutinized," he said. "We've extracted thousands of pages of material. And I think it's really contributed to the public's understanding" of how the Trump administration operates.

American Oversight's efforts include lawsuits for the personal calendars of DeVos and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and records from the Justice Department, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Interior.

Once American Oversight obtains the documents, it posts the information on its website and shares it with media organizations like Politico, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Evers acknowledges that many of his staff worked for a president of a different party but discounted any suggestion that his organization is making such requests on a partisan basis.

"It's about cutting through the arguments about fake news and partisanship and bias by using the primary source evidence that these officials create every day," he said. "You don't have to listen to the talking heads on TV. You don't have to pick a favorite op-ed writer. Just look at the emails. Look at the calendars. Look at the contracts."

It isn't known who is backing Evers' group. He admits that he gleaned some knowledge of the FOIA process by handling requests as a legal staffer in the State Department under John Kerry.

At the time, the conservative-aligned Judicial Watch convinced a judge to force the State Department to release Hillary Clinton's email records that she kept on a personal computer server. The records contributed to a Republican narrative that Clinton was hiding information from the public.

While both groups are pushing for increased transparency from the government, Robert Roberts, political science professor at James Madison University in Virginia, characterizes their efforts as "legal warfare" and is concerned that it will only increase political cynicism.

"We would hope this would be nonpartisan, but it isn't. And because it's not nonpartisan, it's not treated as objectively by the public," he said.

That cynicism is growing.

In a recent poll by Transparency International, 44 percent of respondents said they believe that most or all of the officials in the Office of the President are corrupt - an 8 percent increase from 2016. The poll also found that 58 percent of Americans polled believe corruption is getting worse.
Poll: How corrupt are different U.S. institutions and groups?
Other polling finds that public trust in government remains near historic lows under President Trump. Only 18 percent of Americans say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right, according to polling by the Pew Research Center.
Public trust in government
But the dissatisfaction goes beyond Trump's first year in office. Trust in government has significantly declined since the 1960s when nearly three quarters of those polled said they trusted their government.

Government competence is at risk, too

Trump's conflicts, his hiring decisions and his consistent departure from historical ethical standards have government watchdog groups worried that Americans will not regain their faith in the federal government and the office of the presidency.

"It's going to be hard to get back to baseline after the devolution of standards in the Trump administration," said Weissman of Public Citizen.

One of his biggest worries, Weissman said, is that Trump's appointees could undermine the federal government by pushing an industry agenda over technical, independent decision-making.

A loss of the so-called "neutral competence" standard in government creates a circular problem: Voters no longer believe government employees are objective, and independent experts leave government because they're not trusted.

Roberts said he's worried Trump's decision not to trust independent experts on topics such as climate change, health care and tax policy could mean the public will trust the government less.

Moreover, said Roberts, if you lose those experts, the quality and effectiveness of government will seriously decline and return the United States to a time of poor public administration. "The implications of all of this go far beyond whether someone selling off stock and complying with disclosure rules," he said.

If that's the case, the nation could go back to the "spoils system," established under Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. At the time, Jackson gave civil service jobs to his supporters, which Roberts said was disastrous.

"It took over a century to basically weaken and another century to restore the effectiveness of the modern public administration. So, I think that's the most serious problem facing the electorate."

But some, like Tom Davis, the former Republican congressman from Virginia, are warning against overreaction. Davis, who chaired the House Government Oversight Committee, worries ethics requirements are already discouraging qualified people from joining the government. "Ethics are an important issue but you have a lot of watchdog groups looking over these things," he said. "The public will ultimately decide what they want. If they don't like the way a person has conducted themselves in office, they'll throw them out."

Any changes to the ethics system need to start in a Congress that appears unlikely to challenge the president on many policy matters, let alone issues that could affect his personal wealth.

Republicans control Congress and have not held hearings on Trump's business ties or the ethical lapses within his administration. That upsets ethics officials who say Congress is abdicating its oversight role. "I look at Congress and I think they're acting like a potted plant," said Painter.

In addition to calling for Congressional oversight, Painter is one of several ethics officials who wants updates to the ethics system, including disclosure of any business partners and liabilities that government officials have from private businesses.

Shaub is also pushing for changes to the law. He proposed 13 policy recommendations that could help improve the system.

Key among Shaub's suggestions is giving the Office of Government Ethics greater independence. Today the agency is a part of the executive branch, making the director vulnerable to White House interference.

Shaub wants to change the law so the president is forbidden from firing the executive director unless there's cause. He also wants greater disclosure of a public official's interests in family trust funds and to strengthen the office's collection of records and oversight of the entire executive branch.

A bigger budget is needed, too. Shaub said the Office of Government Ethics agency is staffed at 70 people when it really needs 100.

Others, like Eisen, say the Office of Government Ethics should have subpoena power and the ability to sanction employees who don't comply with the law. "We need to have more power for the ethics authorities as other parts of government do," he said.

But Apol suggests that giving his office greater enforcement power would duplicate the responsibilities of inspectors general in the federal government.

"The reason that OGE is not investigating and enforcing is because that authority was not given to us," he said. "That was given to someone else. We're an agency of 70 employees. There are 14,000 inspector generals out there."

While there is some disagreement over the appropriate level of enforcement and oversight of the government ethics system, ethics officials are nearly uniform in their desire to put a greater level of enforcement on the office of the president.

Weissman wants a law requiring every presidential candidate to release personal tax returns, which Trump has refused to do. Weismann also wants a law requiring presidential candidates to sell their business interests once elected.
'These papers are all just a piece'
"You can say on the one hand we're not likely to have another billionaire president anytime soon but on the other hand maybe we are," he said. "We can't have a functioning democracy and any kind of accountable government with these kinds of problems," he said.

There is also a call for Congress to update the anti-nepotism statute to make it clear that it applies to the White House. Trump hired his daughter Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to work in the White House after the Office of Legal Counsel issued a ruling allowing it, despite an existing law forbidding the hiring of a direct relative.

The worry, according to Clark, is that relatives may not be the best candidates for the job, and it may be difficult to fire bad employees.

While every ethics professional interviewed for this story thinks the Trump administration has significantly undermined decades of ethical norms and standards, they say they're encouraged by the explosion of interest in the system itself.

Painter, Shaub, Eisen and Clark have become common figures on cable TV news shows, on social media platforms like Twitter and on the speaking circuit.

They all hope the system corrects itself either through an election or with Trump reversing course and opting to comply with the standards of his predecessors.

"I'm looking forward to the day when the ethics practice is a quieter lifestyle again," Eisen said. "That will be a good thing for the country, even if it will be a little less exciting for me."
Maria Curi, Jacob Steinberg and Katie Long contributed to this report.
[*] Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the name of the secretary of state at the time Austin Evers - the executive director of American Oversight - worked in the State Department and a judge ordered the release of Hillary Clinton's emails. It was John Kerry.
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A growing chorus of ethics officials, including the acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, warns that President Trump's conduct related to his business interests is causing a dangerously negative public perception of the nation's ethics system. "These are perilous times," said David Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics.

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CEO in talks for contract release from Council job

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CEO in talks for contract release from Council job

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This article draws attention to the negotiations between Councillors at Northern Beaches Council and the Chief Executive Officer, Mark Ferguson regarding early release from his contract. This article relates to leaderships as there are some ethical issues raised due to the unconfirmed details surrounding his early release from contract occurring at the Tuesday 6 March meeting. The Counsellors have legitimate position power to reach a decision regarding his control however some Councillors have voiced concerns about lack of information they received in the lead up to the council meeting in which they were to vote and make an informed ethical decision. This could be perceived as the Mayor and CEO as not being honest and trustworthy or demonstrating integrity with others or paying attention to stakeholders to effectively build a community (Dubrin, 2016).

In addition the exodus impact could seriously affect leadership, the inspiration and motivation towards a common goal. Effective leadership and a positive organisational culture are essential for developing and maintaining an organisation’s integrity Shaw, Barry, Issa, & Catley, 2013). The Northern Beaches Council has gone through significant change after forming from amalgamation in May 2016 therefore is the decision socially responsible to leave the organisation and in turn the community without an organisational leader in one of the most important stages of development.

The article appears in newspaper Local to the area, which would be affected therefore it is portrayed quite dramatically. Further information is yet to be released.

References

Dubrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills [Cengage Learning, 20150101. VitalBook file.] (8th ed.).

Shaw, W. H., Barry, V., Issa, T., & Catley, B. (2013). Moral issues in business: 2nd Asia Pacific edition [Cengage Learning AUS, 2015. VitalBook file.] (2nd ed.).

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Reformation Is Leading Fashion’s Shift Toward Sustainability

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Reformation Is Leading Fashion’s Shift Toward Sustainability

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The fashion industry is one of the world’s top five polluters. Reformation is a leading organisation in the fashion industry as discussed in this article. They launched in 2009 by Yael Aflalo, an entrepreneur and former model who provides strategic leadership of ethics and social responsible (Dubrin, 2016). This article highlights the organisations and their mission to lead and inspire a sustainable way to be fashionable and discusses their VP attending a conference to share their success (Reformation, n.d.).

It discussed how the company are leaders, they take into account the labour and social impacts with majority of their garments being produced ethically in their LA based factory using deadstock fabric and sustainable practices. The organisation is socially responsible utilising technology to help build a sustainable environment (Dubrin, 2016) . Furthermore Reformation produces a RefScale report including statistics statistics regarding the impact of each of their garments.

The articles emphasises Reformation’s way of doing things aims to help other brands build towards a sustainable environment and that they implore big business in the fashion industry to use their research and development dollars to figure out new sustainable technologies. This demonstrates Reformation’s commitment to influence others to be more ethically and socially responsible.

As this article is published by a site focused on fashion and beauty there is little criticism to the industry as a whole. The article is very supportive of Reformations sustainable practise efforts however as a whole the rise of "fast fashion" industry and the ethics behind promotion and marketing of fashionable clothing items is a greater issue that must be considered by the leaders at Reformation (Minter, 2018).

References

Dubrin, A. J. (2016). Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills [Cengage Learning, 20150101. VitalBook file.] (8th ed.).

Minter, A. (2018, January 17). No one wants your used clothes anymore as fast fashion floods the bins. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/no-one-wants-your-used-clothes-anymore-as-fast-fashion-floods-the-bins-20180117-h0ji8c.html

Reformation.Retrieved March 6, 2018, from https://www.thereformation.com/

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Fashion is one of the world's top five worst polluters-though it's hard to know exactly how bad the industry is for the environment, since numbers are scarce -but in the past decade, brands big and small have slowly started to take notice of that impact.

H&M, for example, has the Conscious Collection, a recycling program and has pledged to close the loop, using only recycled fabrics throughout the entire brand by 2030. Closer to home, Canadian labels like KOTN, Laura Siegel, Peggy Sue Collection, Nicole Bridger and Triarchy are all making the case for well-designed, sustainable clothing.

But the one brand these retailers often look to when designing their green-focussed businesses? That would be Reformation. Launched in 2009 by Yael Aflalo, an entrepreneur and former model, the LA-based label was cool girl clothing first, but always done sustainably.

"You have to really take into account the labour and social impacts. It's [about] the human element and how we make clothes around the world," Reformation's Kathleen Talbot said recently when asked what sustainable fashion means to the brand. "Our responsibility is to really understand the resources and the demands we have on environmental systems as a brand, minimize those, and focus on restoring our impact."

Talbot, who is the brand's VP of operations and sustainability, was in Toronto this November to speak at Fashion Takes Action 's WEAR (World Ethical Apparel Roundtable) conference. An alum of Arizona State University's School of Sustainability, she oversees the day-to-day operations of their Los Angeles factory, as well as building the business, heading up customer service and, perhaps most importantly, seeing that each area meets the brand's eco ethos. Those practices include using vintage and deadstock fabric (fabric that was otherwise headed to the landfill), as well as recycled wools, cottons, and nylons, and working with Tencel, flax or hemp fabric.

The brand also helps offset their CO2 emissions by working with conservation projects to help clean up and restore waterways in the U.S.A. In the name of transparency, they publish the RefScale report online so consumers can see how the brand is working from the inside, as well as the impact each garment they purchase has on the planet.

Since joining Reformation almost four years ago, Talbot has seen a shift in the status quo in fashion. "I am excited at the prospect and the landscape shift, that we are not alone at the front anymore," she said. But, that's not to say there isn't a lot more work to do. "It sometimes feels a little naive to say it's on the consumer. I think we need to make more change faster than the consumer is necessarily going to require of us as brands," she said when asked if big companies and government have a role to play in the sustainable fashion game.

Talbot admits that some established labels may have a hard time pivoting their brand, but it's not impossible. "A lot of the things we are talking about [at the conference] are just better practices and in some cases, things you can plug into your existing operations," she said. "You don't necessarily need to reengineer your entire value chain. You are just plugging in different types of materials, sourcing different standards for some of those partners. And you've made it 70 per cent of the way there."

The way forward, and part of Reformation's modus operandi, is one of inclusion-helping other brands reach their eco potential, while imploring big business to use their research and development dollars to figure out new sustainable technologies. Because as Talbot noted during her keynote address at WEAR, "if you want to start a revolution, you have to invite everybody."

Related:
Your Sparkly Makeup Might Be Wreaking Havoc on the Environment
18 Ways To Master The Pajama Dressing Trend Just In Time For All Your Holiday Parties
Celebs-like Meghan Markle-can't Get Enough of Canadian Designers

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How Cool-Girl Clothing Brand Reformation Is Leading Fashion's Shift Toward Sustainability

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Fashion is one of the world's top five worst polluters-though it's hard to know exactly how bad the industry is for the environment, since numbers are scarce -but in the past decade, brands big and small have slowly started to take notice of that impact.

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Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors

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Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors

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This article discusses the notion of corporate culture and the ways in which leader’s actions and behaviours within the workplace can impact upon it.

It describes corporate culture as being a learnt behaviour which is typically transcended from superiors or individuals of influence. These leaders are responsible for making decisions, taking action and enforcing attitudes which reflect the key values and morals of the organisation to its employees and the public (Whitehurst, 2016).  It also outlines that communication between key leaders within the organisation and its employees is essential to transcend this culture.

Whilst I partly agree with this, I also believe that in order for a positive corporate culture to be developed all members of the organisation need to act as leaders. Regardless of their position, organisations need employees to be lead their peers and speaking up when they see unethical acts that do not align with the businesses corporate culture (DuBrin, 2014, p. 198).

References
DuBrin, A. J. (2014). Leadership: Research, Findings and Skills. Boston: Cengage Learning

Whitehurst, J. (2016, October 13). Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2016/10/leaders-can-shape-company-culture-through-their-behaviors

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One business buzzword we hear almost everyday is "culture," as in, our organization has a "strong" or "innovative" or even a "toxic" culture. But what do we really mean when we say this?

For me, an organizational culture is defined by how people inside the organization interact with each other. Culture is learned behavior - it's not a by-product of operations. It's not an overlay. We create our organizational culture by the actions we take; not the other way around.

For example, I sit on the board of United Airlines. At the start of every board meeting, the first topic of discussion is about where the fire exits are, how to access the stairs, and where we will meet up afterward. Why would we bother starting every meeting that way? Because United's culture is built on safety. And the best way to cultivate and reinforce that culture is to lead with behaviors and take actions that promote the importance of safety.

Another element of United's culture is timeliness. I am a punctual person by nature, but I recall dialing in to one board meeting a few seconds late. The other participants started a few minutes before I joined. They saw a chance to start early, so they did.

I share these stories as a way to show that how we behave as leaders drives the kind of culture we end up with. But this is also why changing an existing culture can be so difficult.

This is a topic fellow executives ask me about a lot. It's not easy to change a culture, because it involves changing how we behave. If you're running a company that has been doing something a certain way for a long time, it can be hard to get everyone on board with doing it differently. And that includes your organizational leaders.

Picture the following scenario. A group of executives decides that their organizational culture needs to become more "customer focused." But when you look at the agenda of their meetings, there's no time devoted to discussing how they can improve their customers' experience. And how much time do those executives actually spend out in the field, visiting customers, let alone fielding calls from them? If these executives prioritize something other than customers in their behavior, don't you think the rest of the organization will follow suit?

It's easy to think that building a culture is about other people's behaviors, not how you act as a leader. But I believe that culture change begins when leaders start to model the behavior they want the organization to emulate.

Case in point: A lot of executives come to me for advice about how they can build a more innovative culture, like the one we have at Red Hat. Well, it's not as simple as telling everyone to "go out there and innovate!"

Our innovative culture is a product of the behaviors that we embrace throughout our organization. One of those elements is a willingness to have open and frank discussions about what separates great ideas from bad ones. If you want to be innovative, you also need to accept failure. If our associates aren't pushing boundaries and sometimes failing along the way, we probably aren't pushing hard enough. But by accepting and even celebrating a failed effort, we promote innovation. We will reward someone who tries to climb the tallest mountain, even if they fall short of the summit, because they have created an experience we can learn from and build upon. That's what innovation is all about.

Consider an example from Amazon, one of the world's most valuable companies. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, has said that if his people have a one-in-10 chance of making a 100x return on an investment, he wants them to make that bet every time. But that means that to reap the reward Amazon needs to be willing to tolerate someone failing nine out of 10 times.

That can be a hard concept for traditionally run companies to wrap their heads around. They are used to measuring objective outcomes and results. They might think that failing is not something to celebrate; it's to be punished. So, why would anyone be surprised when innovation stalls as a result? After all, who would be willing to stick their neck out to try something new if there wasn't any upside to doing so?

The point is that building an innovative culture starts by looking at how you behave as a leader toward those trying to innovate. The same is true about any kind of culture: It all begins with the behavior of your leaders. To say that another way, if you are interested in changing the culture of your organization, your first step should be to look in the mirror and make sure you are setting the kind of behavioral example you want everyone else to follow.

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Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors

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One business buzzword we hear almost everyday is "culture," as in, our organization has a "strong" or "innovative" or even a "toxic" culture. But what do we really mean when we say this?

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Dick’s Sporting Goods took a stand on gun sales — and made a big statement

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Dick’s Sporting Goods took a stand on gun sales — and made a big statement

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This article provides a great example for how businesses are choosing to be more socially responsible, in acting to serve their consumers best interests. Furthermore, it demonstrates how essential leaders are creating this culture within their organisations.

This article discusses the American organisation ‘Dicks Sporting Goods’ and the actions its CEO Edward Stack taken following the Parkland Florida school Massacre. The business and its leadership made the decision ‘no longer sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and no longer sell guns to customers under age 21’ (McGregor, 2018). This decision aligns with the common ideology that businesses have a ‘managerial obligation to take actions that protect and improve both the welfare of society as a whole  (Asehmah, Okpanachi, & Edgeoh, 2013, p. 1) which is what ‘Dicks Sporting Goods’ has done. In making this decision the leadership group has also projected an example for its employees about the morals and ethics of the organisation.

References

Asehmah, E., Okpanachi, R., & Edgeoh, L. (2013). Business Advantages of Corporate Social Responsibility Practice: A Critical Review. New Media and Mass Communication. Retrieved from

http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/NMMC/article/viewFile/8414/8513

McGregor, J. (2018, March 6). Dick’s Sporting Goods took a stand on gun sales — and made a big statement. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2018/03/06/dicks-sporting-goods-took-a-stand-on-gun-sales-and-made-a-big-statement/?utm_term=.d96904057eb2

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When Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Edward Stack took a stance after the Parkland, Fla., school massacre, most of the attention was on what his retail chain would stop doing: It would no longer sell assault weapons, no longer sell high-capacity magazines and no longer sell guns to customers under age 21.

But Stack's statement also was notable for what he said he wanted to see done, according to those who study how companies engage on social issues. His memo didn't just make a vague statement about the need for leaders in Washington to address the problem. Instead, he outlined specific measures that he thought gun legislation should cover, with a bulleted list that outlined several commonly cited measures for gun control reform.

"We implore our elected officials to enact common sense gun reform and pass the following regulations," Stack wrote. The memo called for banning assault-style firearms; raising the minimum age for gun purchases; banning high-capacity magazines and bump stocks; requiring universal background checks that include relevant mental health data and "previous interactions with the law" requiring a database of prohibited buyers and closing the private sale and gun show loophole.
[ What millennials want from their CEOs: Activism ]
Stack runs a sporting goods business that sells firearms, so some of those measures, were they to become law, would put his store's decisions in line with other retailers. But advisers on corporate brand issues said his explicit call for legislation also turned a page in the recent chapter of CEO activism, thanks to the particular nature of the gun control debate and the evolution of corporate America's increasingly inextricable role on social issues.

"You don't normally hear a company articulate these things -- they usually do it through lobbying support," said Anthony Johndrow, a New York-based adviser to companies on corporate reputation.

He said that even if the suggestions directly mirror policy requests from some gun control advocacy groups, the list of policy request feels like the next step for companies to take as more and more wade in on social issues, tying their brands to causes or issues that can be political hot-buttons. "The first phase is just to state an opinion, the second phase is to take action at the company, and the third phase is maybe to call on the government to do something," he said.

Companies, of course, have long had their say on specific policies through lobbying, and have weighed in publicly when they disagree on legislation or other action, such as President Trump's plan to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement or his position on young undocumented immigrants. More than 200 companies signed letters against North Carolina's HB2 law, often known as the state's "bathroom bill" for its policy about restroom use for transgender people in government buildings and public schools. They have at times signed an amicus brief in support of certain issues, such as same-sex marriage.

Still, those who follow the interaction between social issues and corporate activism said Stack's memo was notable for its inclusion of distinct solutions. While some of his suggestions are part of current bills or have even been mentioned by President Trump, lawmakers are yet to come together around a single bill.

"In the past, the advocacy around an issue by the CEO or their leadership team may have been limited to participation in an amicus brief or inclusive HR policies," said Chris Allieri, principal of communications and brand consultancy Mulberry & Astor. "This is not a time for companies to split hairs and craft carefully worded press statements."
[ Why 'buycotts' could overtake boycotts among consumer activists ]
Advisers and researchers who study the issue cite a couple reasons CEOs may be more willing to follow Stack and make more explicit proposals. One has to do with the issue of gun control itself, and the students who've kept it in the news. With so much criticism about leaders issuing platitudes rather than making changes of substance, with the public following the issue so closely, and with gun violence becoming a disturbingly serial, repeated focus of headlines, speaking out on the issue in general terms could come off as inauthentic.

"It's not enough to just release a statement -- you have to be very specific, otherwise it could be like greenwashing," said Aaron Chatterji, an associate professor of business and public policy at Duke University, using the term that describes when brands present themselves as environmentally responsible when they're not.

Meanwhile, as CEOs increasingly speak out on social issues, people may be expecting more from them than a simple tweet about an issue or a vaguely worded statement. Chatterji recently penned an op-ed in the New York Times where he wrote that "there is no going back" and brands are likely to segment even more into being identified with conservative or liberal demographics. As a result, he thinks an evolution could be happening where people expect more from what's in those corporate statements, too. "That specificity is going to raise the bar for future CEO activists," he said. "People are going to ask the follow-up questions."

Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic and an instructor at Harvard Business School, said more could follow Stack's lead.

"This is very different than sending your lobbyists in to get favorable treatment -- this is about their mission and their purpose; I see it as a totally different approach," he said. "What's happening is CEOs today are recognizing that Congress is stalemated over many issues. They're doing it on behalf of their employees and their customers and that's a big statement."
Read also: 'I don't think they fear this president': CEOs blast Trump's 'dreamers' decision Like On Leadership? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

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Analysis | Dick's Sporting Goods took a stand on gun sales - and made a big statement

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When Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Edward Stack took a stance after the Parkland, Fla., school massacre, most of the attention was on what his retail chain would stop doing: It would no longer sell assault weapons, no longer sell high-capacity magazines and no longer sell guns to customers under age 21.

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Uber pays a $26 billion price for its toxic corporate culture

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Uber pays a $26 billion price for its toxic corporate culture

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This article discusses the impacts of poor leadership on the global organisation Uber. It provides a great example for how poor ‘governance’ by executives within the business has created an unethical culture within the organisation, whereby inappropriate and unethical acts are becoming prevalent. Countless claims of assault, bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination have been made against Uber on all levels of the organisation. It has been determined that these behaviours are common amongst employees and even the founder, Travis Kalanick who was videoed yelling at an employee (Knight, 2017).

This demonstrates the heavily engrained toxic culture that exists within Uber. Furthermore, it reflects the impact that poor leadership or a lack of leadership can have in creating an unhealthy working environment which does not place ethics or social responsibility as a priority (DuBrin, 2014, p. 190). This is emphasised by the significant financial impact to the organisation as well as the detrimental impact it has had on its reputation.

References
DuBrin, A. J. (2014). Leadership: Research, Findings and Skills. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Knight, E. (2017, July 1). Uber pays a $26 billion price for its toxic corporate culture. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from

https://www.smh.com.au/business/uber-pays-a-26-billion-price-for-its-toxic-corporate-culture-20170630-gx1x3w.html

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This is no regular instance of 'a few bad apples' or even one that's confined to a single department.

Nor does the Uber tale appear to involve financial misdeeds, serious breaches of accounting or theft.

This is a cultural disease and it appears to be riddled throughout the organisation. Left unchecked, it is threatening to become existential.

Financial markets are now questioning whether this company, which has revolutionised markets around the world with its ride-hailing service, could now succumb to newer competitors.

Poor corporate culture has traditionally been an issue difficult to quantify or regulate. But that doesn't mean it doesn't come at a cost to organisations.

The problematic culture in Australia's banking sector, which has been beset with scandals in the areas of financial advice, insurance and foreign exchange, gave the federal government the excuse to to hit the major banks with a $6.2 billion tax.

This was a far bigger than expected fine for the banks, which previously thought that the financial penalties would be confined to compensating customers that had been victims.

Uber, meanwhile, fired more than 20 employees after a company investigation into sexual harassment claims and workplace culture.

This was the result for a former Uber engineer, Susan Fowler, going public with allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination, which in turn prompted the company to hire former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the claims.

The story sparked plenty of debate about sexism and misconduct across Silicon Valley startups and was a salutary tale for other entrepreneurial companies whose governance structures had not keep pace with their corporate growth.

Rot starting from the top

In Uber's case, there was clearly a belief from its major investors that the rot started at the top of the organisation and with its founder, Travis Kalanick. He resigned in mid-June, having earlier announced he would take an indefinite leave of absence. Shareholders didn't think that had gone far enough.

And it was difficult to ignore Kalanick's contribution to Uber's culture rot when he was caught on video yelling at an Uber driver who had been complaining about falling rates.

"Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit.," he railed. "They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!"

An avalanche of senior executives, including the chief financial officer, have departed the company over recent weeks and months in the wake of the various scandals, leaving a business scrambling to fill various vital management positions.

Whether Kalanick's departure is significant enough to sever his influence on management remains to be seen. He is still on the board and says he will be available to help.

Assault allegations

Meanwhile, the lack of governance can also blamed for another major problem that has besieged Uber - the behaviour of its drivers.

Apart from the accusations of rape of which there are many (The Independent newspaper reported that there were 32 cases of sexual assaults by Uber drivers in the UK last year), there are many other assault claims.

While not all complaints will be valid, the rising tide of negative publicity is clearly scaring off investors.

Because Uber is not sharemarket listed, its valuation is set when shares are privately traded or fresh capital is raised.

The markets have been waiting for Uber to float on the US stock exchange this year in what was previously billed to be a major IPO. They may need to wait a bit longer.

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Uber pays a $26 billion price for its toxic corporate culture

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This is no regular instance of 'a few bad apples' or even one that's confined to a single department. Nor does the Uber tale appear to involve financial misdeeds, serious breaches of accounting or theft. This is a cultural disease and it appears to be riddled throughout the organisation.

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This article focuses on a group study that was conducted by demonstrating how saboteurs are among all peer groups and how the saboteurs’ main focus is removing supposed threats due to jealously of other colleagues’ skills. This article shows in the research that this issue isn’t acceptable to social responsibility. In some cases, leaders aren’t supported from their hierarchies, which often leads to pointing the blame for issues on operational staff or inheriting all the recognition from team projects. Each individual is however responsible for their own behaviour and not all leaders ‘sabotage’ their teams.

Staff including leaders must help one another in building on strengths and weakness to allow the team to grow into a dynamic and diverse group to achieve the organisations objectives. Understanding each staff members potential, fit in the team, their role in the organisational community and ensuring that best practice is used to continue to maintain great leaders as outlined in the text, Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (J. DuBrin,2016). By enforcing values and behaviours that should be practiced by all staff including selected ‘champions’ from senior executives will allow future generations to thrive in a sustainable and ethical workplace.

Reference
J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 2). Cengage Learning.

Kellogg insight. (2015). Why Bad Bosses Sabotage Their Teams. Retrieved from http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/why-bad-bosses-sabotage-their-teams

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The dreaded Bad Boss comes in many varieties. There are the incompetent ones, the lazy or defensive ones, the ones who claim your work as their own, or those who prefer to rule through intimidation.

Jon Maner, a professor of management and organizations at Kellogg School of Management, has studied a specific breed of bad boss-those who intentionally sabotage their teams' cohesion in order to protect their own status as leader.

Maner's research shows that leaders will intentionally sideline high-performing team members, limit communication and social bonding among team members, or compile ill-matched teams if they think it will help ensure their own place at the top.

The danger of this type of bad boss is significant.

"It can cause the group to fall apart at a basic level," Maner says. "If you have people who don't like each other and aren't allowed to communicate effectively with one another, then really, you don't have a group at all anymore."

Maner and collaborator Charleen Case, a doctoral student at the Kellogg School, found that leaders who were driven by a desire for power (or dominance motivated) were more likely to undermine a group's communication and cohesion than those who were motivated by a desire for respect (or prestige motivated). Those power-hungry leaders were most inclined to behave this way when they were told that the power hierarchy in the group was unstable and they may lose their position at the top. And they were most likely to undermine group cohesion by isolating the one highly skilled member of the group.

The irony, of course, is that this behavior is being perpetrated by the person who should be most invested in and most skilled at getting his or her team to work together in order to be productive.

Beware the Threatened, Power-Hungry Boss

Maner and Case led undergraduate students in one study to believe that they would be leading a group in performing a verbal task. The better the group scored, the more prizes it would win.

Participants were told that one of their group members in particular was very highly skilled at the task. Participants were then assigned to one of three experimental conditions. In the first, they were told that as the leader, they would be responsible for supervising the task and dividing the prizes among the group. In the second, they were told that they would supervise the task and allot prizes, but also that the hierarchy was malleable and someone else could become leader. The third condition was an egalitarian control group where there was no leader and all group members would share the prizes equally.

The researchers sought to answer two main questions: Which leaders under what scenarios are most likely to sabotage their groups' communication and cohesion-even knowing that cohesion can improve a group's performance? And will they be more likely to do so by isolating the highly skilled group member?

They found that, as predicted, participants in the malleable hierarchy who had previously scored highly on a test assessing their desire for power were the most likely saboteurs. And they were most likely to go after that one highly skilled group member.

"It's surprising to me just how willing leaders are to really undermine group success in favor of their own power."

In one experiment these leaders paired the highly skilled person with a work partner who the leaders knew would not like or get along well with his skilled colleague. In another experiment they made this individual work alone in a room, even after being told that working closely with teammates would improve performance.

"It's surprising to me just how willing leaders are to really undermine group success in favor of their own power," Maner says. "These talented, highly skilled group members are in one of the best positions to help the group succeed. But rather than being seen as a valuable ally, they're instead seen as a threat by leaders who are afraid of losing their power."

Curtailing These Bad Behaviors at Work

These types of interactions are more than just theoretical; they happen in offices every day. In fact, Maner's research initially grew out of complaints from a friend about her boss's bad behavior.

So how do organizations, which want teams to function as cohesively as possible, prevent this sort of sabotage from above?

One key is making sure that leaders' job security is contingent upon the success of their group and ensuring those leaders know that they will be held accountable for their actions, Maner says.

"If leaders knew that their decisions were public and could have ramifications for the support they receive, I think that might undercut some of this corrupt behavior," Maner says.

Organizations could also institutionalize lines of communication and collaboration among teams, which would make it harder for a bad boss to interfere with them, Maner suggests.

The question of how to ensure that bosses feel their power is stable is trickier, since organizations need to balance creating an environment where bosses feel secure with the ability to change leaders when the situation calls for it.

Maner suggests having periods of stability, perhaps two or three years, where bosses know their jobs are secure, interspersed with times when leadership can change if warranted, kind of like the system of having presidential elections every four years.

"What might help leaders perform at their best is knowing that they're not going to lose their job today or tomorrow, that they can really follow through on whatever vision it is they have and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out," he says. "But at least they've really had a chance to put their vision into action."

Finding the Best Leaders

There is also the question of finding leaders who are more interested in receiving prestige and respect than having power. This is a particular challenge since many people who desire power tend to self-select into positions of leadership, while prestige-motivated workers may be happier working in less flashy positions.

"A real trick for organizations is to identify who those people are and raise them up into positions of leadership, whether or not they ask for it, because they might not always be as inclined as power-hungry people are to seek high-status positions in their organization," Maner says.

But Maner cautions against seeing these prestige-motivated leaders as a cure-all."Our work has painted a pretty magnanimous portrait of prestige-oriented leaders," Maner says, "but I think that's probably an oversimplification."

In future research, he hopes to explore how prestige-motivated leaders make decisions when forced to choose between what will make the group happy and what is best for the organization.

"We have some preliminary evidence that they will undermine the goals of the group if it means maintaining prestige within the eyes of their subordinates," he says.

In the end, the goal of his research is to help organizations function smoothly and productively.

"The ultimate goal here is to figure out how to help groups perform better," he says. "That means selecting better leaders and bringing out the best in leaders. By understanding the motives that might drive leaders to behave in ways that hurt their organization, we're better armed to combat those behaviors."

About the Featured Faculty

Member of the department of management and operations from 2014-2017.

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The dreaded Bad Boss comes in many varieties. There are the incompetent ones, the lazy or defensive ones, the ones who claim your work as their own, or those who prefer to rule through intimidation.

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Graduates unwilling to work for big oil.

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Graduates unwilling to work for big oil.

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In the face of massive environmental concerns and the likely declining prospects of future generations we are  compelled to adopt a new way of thinking about leadership (Redekop & Olson, 2010).  96% of  current students think that businesses should be leading efforts to address climate change.  These results indicate a generational shift where enhancing environmental protective measures is seen as being competitive and not as a cost as with past generations.
A global study conducted by the Yale Centre of business and the environment of 3700 students from 29 top business schools strongly supports the notion that there is a carbon tax on talent. 84% of business students are opting to work for companies with good environmental practices and roughly 20% are flat out refusing to work for companies that have poor environmental sustainability performance. 44% of top students would accept a lower pay packet to ensure they worked for an environmentally responsible company. These statistics further suggest that low performing companies will have to pay higher salaries to employ and retain talent thus there is good reason to focus on environmental sustainability as a positive factor of attracting such employees.

References

Redekop, B. W., & Olson, S. (Eds.). (2010). Leadership for environmental sustainability.  Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au

Graduates Unwilling to Work for Big Oil [Video file]. (2016, January 14). Retrieved from
https://www.msnbc.com/greenhouse/watch/graduates-unwilling-to-work-for-big-oil-601781315558

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Stuart DeCew, program director at Yale's Center for Business and the Environment, discusses why 44% of business students would prefer to get a smaller paycheck in order to work for an environmentally friendly company.

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CommInsure: Doctors pressured to help CBA's insurance arm avoid payouts to sick and dying, whistleblower says

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CommInsure: Doctors pressured to help CBA's insurance arm avoid payouts to sick and dying, whistleblower says

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This articles corelate with the theme of ethics and social responsibility that explores the unethical and unscrupulous act of CommInsure. Dr Koh the former chief medical officer at commonwealth Banks insurance arm , revealed the fact that – the doctors are been urged to change their opinion, outdated medical definition were used to deny the payout , medical files has been disappeared from the internal filing system where profit comes above the customer and the legitimate claims are denied. (Ferguson, Klaus, & Christodoulou, 2016). This unethical act of commonwealth bank is an example of being socially irresponsible where humanity and compassion toward another human being is being compromised for favouring own business interest and profitability. It gives a profound sense of unease and sadness to those who has been suffering from the sickness and their claim has been denied for the unethical reason. “Business ethics imply as a system of moral principles and rules of conduct applied to business so that the business should be conducted according to certain self-recognised moral standards, where as Corporate social responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model”. (Pimple, 2012)The community expects the business to preserve the environment and to make the community a better place to live and to work through .The misconduct of CommInsure is not only disintegrating the company’s reputation but also reveals the social irresponsibility where the ethical value has been demoralised.

References

1.      Ferguson, A., Klaus, T., & Christodoulou, M. (2016, March 7). CommInsure: Doctors pressured to help CBA's insurance arm avoid payouts to sick and dying, whistleblower says. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-07/comminsure-whistleblowersays-doctors-pressured-change-opinions/7226910

2.       Pimple, M. M. (2012). BUSINESS ETHICS AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. International Journal of Management Research and Reviews, 761-765.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-07/comminsure-whistleblowersays-doctors-pressured-change-opinions/7226910

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This article explores the theory that people in organisations tend to act less ethically than they would otherwise and that leaders need to be more pragmatic to influence an ethical culture in organisations and ensure that the decisions they make are for the common good of society (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 2011). The view that the world of business has its own set of rules and it’s okay as long as outside regulators don’t find out is outdated. Nonaka & Takeuchi (2011) argue that organisations need to create social value as well as economic to survive, which I definitely agree with as our society becomes more invested and interested in the impact company’s are having on our society and the environment. It is no longer financially viable to be unethical, as the financial and reputation impacts of misconduct can be extensive. Organisations that invest in socially responsible initiatives will be favoured by consumers in the future and wise leaders need to be the catalyst to inspire and influence the change.
Reference
Nonaka, I & Takeuchi, H. (2011, May). The Big Idea: The Wise Leader. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-big-idea-the-wise-leader

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In an era when discontinuity is the only constant, the ability to lead wisely has nearly vanished. All the knowledge in the world did not prevent the collapse of the global financial system three years ago or stop institutions like Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual from failing.

No one could slow down the recession as it sped across the world, or ensure that market leaders like General Motors and Circuit City didn't go bankrupt. No one realized that despite enormous government stimuli, the road to recovery would be torturous, with so few jobs created in the U.S. and Japan. Never did we expect more of leadership-and never have we been so disappointed.

It isn't uncertainty alone that has paralyzed CEOs today. Many find it difficult to reinvent their corporations rapidly enough to cope with new technologies, demographic shifts, and consumption trends. They're unable to develop truly global organizations that can operate effortlessly across borders. Above all, leaders find it tough to ensure that their people adhere to values and ethics. The prevailing principles in business make employees ask, "What's in it for me?" Missing are those that would make them think, "What's good, right, and just for everyone?" The purpose of business, executives still believe, is business, and greed is good so long as the SEC doesn't find out.

The gulf between the theory and practice of ethics exists in business for several reasons: There is a big difference between what top management preaches and what frontline people do. There's a philosophical tendency in the West, following Plato, to conclude that if a theory isn't working, there must be something wrong with reality. People behave less ethically when they are part of organizations or groups. Individuals who may do the right thing in normal situations behave differently under stress. And common rationalizations, such as that you are acting in the company's best interest, or justifications, such as that you will never be found out, lead to misconduct.

Hit by fraud, deceit, and greed, people are angry about the visible lack of values and ethics in business. There's something wrong with the way B-schools, companies, and leaders are developing managers. As Bent Flyvbjerg pointed out in Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge, 2001), instead of trying to emulate the natural sciences, we should have ensured that management asked questions such as "Where are we going?" "Who gains, who loses, and by which mechanisms of power?" "Is this development desirable?" "What should we do about it?"

For leaders to cope with these myriad pressures, knowledge is more critical than ever before. Sixteen years ago we published The Knowledge-Creating Company. Since then executives have come to recognize that knowledge can yield sustainable competitive advantage. Companies have learned to capture, store, and distribute knowledge, so it continually catalyzes innovation. However, as we have seen, leading a knowledge-creating company is difficult.

Why doesn't knowledge result in wise leadership? The problem, we find, is twofold. Many leaders use knowledge improperly, and most don't cultivate the right kinds. The types of knowledge we discussed in our book are now well known: explicit and tacit. Managers tend to rely on explicit knowledge, because it can be codified, measured, and generalized. Wall Street firms thought they could manage greater risk by using numbers, data, and scientific formulas instead of making judgments about loans one at a time. The same holds for the U.S. automobile industry, which relies on offering financial incentives rather than understanding customer needs.

Dependence only on explicit knowledge prevents leaders from coping with change. The scientific, deductive, theory-first approach assumes a world independent of context and seeks answers that are universal and predictive. However, all social phenomena-including business-are context dependent, and analyzing them is meaningless unless you consider people's goals, values, and interests along with the power relationships among them. Yet executives fail to do just that.

Leaders will continue to rely on new scientific discoveries to deal with the environmental, energy, and biodiversity issues facing the globe and on technological advances to develop smarter systems. Creating the future, however, must extend beyond the company; it must be about pursuing the common good. CEOs need to ask if decisions are good for society as well as for their companies; management must serve a higher purpose. Companies will then start thinking of themselves as social entities charged with a mission to create lasting benefits for society. Unless companies create social as well as economic value, they will not survive in the long run.

In addition, the world needs leaders who will make judgments knowing that everything is contextual, make decisions knowing that everything is changing, and take actions knowing that everything depends on doing so in a timely fashion. They will have to see what is good, right, and just for society while being grounded in the details of the ever-changing front line. Thus they must pair micromanagement with big-picture aspirations about the future.

Over the past two decades we have been studying leadership in different kinds of organizations; teaching business leaders, especially in Japan; and interviewing generations of leaders in some of the best companies in the world. Our goal has been to identify how leaders can systematically make decisions that will allow companies to live in harmony with society rather than clash with it. Our studies show that the use of explicit and tacit knowledge isn't enough; CEOs must also draw on a third, often forgotten kind of knowledge, called practical wisdom. Practical wisdom is tacit knowledge acquired from experience that enables people to make prudent judgments and take actions based on the actual situation, guided by values and morals. When leaders cultivate such knowledge throughout the organization, they will be able not only to create fresh knowledge but also to make enlightened decisions.

From Knowledge to Wisdom

The origin of practical wisdom lies in the concept of phronesis, one of the three forms of knowledge that Aristotle identified. In Nicomachean Ethics VI.6, he wrote that phronesis is "a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man." He identified two types of wisdom: esoteric or metaphysical wisdom, and practical wisdom, which Samuel Coleridge later wryly interpreted as "common sense in an uncommon degree."

Practical wisdom, according to our studies, is experiential knowledge that enables people to make ethically sound judgments. It is similar to the Japanese concept of toku -a virtue that leads a person to pursue the common good and moral excellence as a way of life. It is also akin to the Indian concept of yukta, which connotes "just right" or "appropriate." For instance, executives who believe that the purpose of a business-and even of making profits-is to serve people and enhance society's well-being observe yukta and shy away from excess and greed.

Aristotle also identified episteme, or universally valid scientific knowledge, and techne, or skill-based technical know-how. If episteme is know-why and techne is know-how, phronesis is know-what-should-be-done. For instance, because no universal notion of a good car exists, episteme cannot answer the question "What is a good car?" That will depend on who is using the car and why, and it will change over time. Techne is knowing how to make a car well; phronesis is knowing both what a good car is and how to build it. Thus phronesis enables managers to determine what is good in specific times and situations and to undertake the best actions at those times to serve the common good.

To make the right decisions, managers need to understand why a company exists-its raison d'être. Companies often behave as though they're willing to do anything to survive, even if that means destroying the world in which they operate. They would do better to pursue the common good-not because it's right or fashionable but to ensure their sustainability. No company will survive over the long run if it doesn't offer value to customers, create a future that rivals can't, and maintain the common good.

We have observed the use of phronesis most often in Japan, although it isn't specific to any country or culture. Governments in Japan may have come under fire for the mistakes they have made, but people still respect Japanese companies even though they haven't proved to be world-beaters in recent times. Before the devastating earthquake and tsunami, there was no crisis of confidence in Japan's corporate world as there is in America's, partly because what happened on Wall Street did not happen in Japan. Japanese companies have often been criticized for not being sufficiently capitalistic-that is, not returning enough capital to investors, not maximizing shareholder value in the short term, not moving quickly with offshoring, not laying off employees to reduce costs, not paying compensation that will incentivize top management. But the flip side is a continuing belief that the best Japanese companies live in harmony with society, have a social purpose in earning profits, pursue the common good as a way of life, have a moral purpose in running a business, and practice distributed phronesis.

These beliefs will influence tomorrow's management theory and practice. Indeed, they are the very essence of what Gary Hamel described in his article "Moon Shots for Management" (HBR February 2009). In contrast to the old notion of capitalism, which pitted business and society against each other, the best Japanese companies, we believe, can become the exemplars of a new, communitarian approach to capitalism, as long as their leaders continue to imbue it with a social purpose.

Wise leaders make decisions only after they figure out what is good for the organization and society.

They can quickly grasp the essence of any situation or problem and intuitively fathom the nature and meaning of people, things, and events.

They constantly create informal as well as formal shared contexts for senior executives and employees to construct new meaning through their interactions.

They know how to use metaphors and stories to convert the essence of their actual experiences into tacit knowledge for individuals and groups.

They exercise political power to bring together people with conflicting goals and spur them to action.

They encourage the development of practical wisdom in others, especially employees on the front lines, through apprenticeship and mentoring.

The Six Abilities of Phronetic Leaders

It isn't easy to lead with practical wisdom. A phronetic leader must make judgments and take actions amid constant flux. And he or she must do so while taking a higher point of view-what's good for society-even though that view stems from individual values and principles. Our research over the past decade shows that to lead in this fashion, six abilities are essential. We will describe them in the following pages and offer suggestions on how to develop those skills.

1. Wise Leaders Can Judge Goodness

Phronetic leaders practice moral discernment about what's good and act on it in every situation. Don't get us wrong-maximizing shareholder wealth can lead to goodness, as can making a profit. But these leaders set their sights higher: They believe that their actions should have a moral purpose akin to what Max Weber had in mind when he linked Protestantism to capitalism.

According to Akio Matsubara, the former head of human resources at Toyota, Eiji Toyoda, the company's former president, always said, "To do what you believe is right. To do what you believe is good. Doing the right things, when required, is a calling from on high. Do it boldly, do as you believe, do as you are."

Judgments must be guided by the individual's values and ethics. Without a foundation of values, executives can't decide what is good or bad. His values spur Shoei Utsuda, the chairman of Mitsui & Co., to ask before making any decision, "Is what I am attempting to do good quality work ( yoi shigoto) for the company and society?" Values have to be one's own; they can't be borrowed. That's why the question most frequently asked at Honda is "What do you think?" It encourages employees to reflect deeply about their own values in relation to those of Honda and society.

Managers must make judgments for the common good, not for profits or competitive advantage. Says Tadashi Yanai, the CEO of Fast Retailing, which owns Japan's fastest-growing apparel brand, Uniqlo, "Not only does a company have to live in harmony with society, but to be accepted, it must contribute to society. The majority of companies that have failed did not maintain that balance. Everyone is, first, a member of society before one of the company. Thinking only about the company will undoubtedly result in failure."

There are four ways of cultivating the ability to make judgments about goodness. One is experience, particularly that gained by facing adversity or failure. Yanai constantly reminds himself and others of the challenges he overcame-operating a single store way out in the country, being refused a bank loan, being pushed around by powerful wholesalers, facing near bankruptcy on numerous occasions. Yanai is so proud of having made mistakes that he called his first book One Win, Nine Losses.

Another way is to write down principles drawn from life experiences and share them. Over the years, Yanai has developed 23 principles, which he calls the "soul" of his company. "Without a soul, a company or a person is nothing more than an empty shell," he says. Several of his canons address goodness head-on: Put good ideas into practice, move the world, change society, and contribute to society. Reward good conduct and punish evildoing. Demand the highest level of ethics in your business and work.

A third method is the relentless pursuit of excellence. That helps CEOs realize what's worthwhile-what's worth desiring and striving for-in a specific situation. Utsuda told us that he once served as an assistant to Mitsui's former president Tatsuzo Mizukami, who revived the company after World War II: "He had already turned 80 when I worked for him. I was amazed at the standards of excellence he pursued. Never once did he cut corners."

Finally, judgment can be cultivated by becoming well versed in the liberal arts, such as philosophy, history, literature, and the fine arts. Management is a liberal art, as Peter Drucker said; liberal because it deals with the fundamentals of knowledge, self-knowledge, wisdom, and leadership; art because it is also about practice and application. To follow through on what we preach, a few years ago we launched a senior executive program in Tokyo (see the sidebar "Teaching Integrity in the Classroom") whose core curriculum consists of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Heidegger, and other classics.

Since 2008 we have been developing a program to help create leaders who apply practical wisdom in Japanese companies. The Knowledge Forum, as we call it, takes place primarily at Hitotsubashi University's downtown Tokyo campus and is essentially a ba ("shared context") where executives can build character and integrity.

The program kicks off by assembling 30 senior executives at Mt. Takao, a 90-minute drive from central Tokyo, for a day of physical exercises intended to build teamwork. During the intense 15-month program, executives share their most compelling life experiences and defining moments of failure and success, both on and off the job. That helps them empathize with one another.

Executives share their most compelling life experiences and defining moments of failure and success.

The CEOs interact with scholars of philosophy, history, literature, political science, military strategy, and economics to deepen their understanding of the liberal arts. They discuss the work of Peter Drucker and meet 12 B-school faculty members at weekly coaching sessions. The Knowledge Forum requires a substantial time commitment from executives as well as from the faculty.

Over the next nine months participants meet frequently to discuss issues and to socialize over drinks, golf, and karaoke. Full-day sessions, held once a month, end in a publike atmosphere to stimulate more discussion. The executives also come together in a formal ba for three days to kick off a project that involves writing an article, ostensibly for Harvard Business Review, on a Japanese management practice that has global impact.

There are other such programs in Japan. Twenty years ago Yotaro Kobayashi, the former CEO of Fuji Xerox, started Camp Nidom, which is held at Fuji Xerox's center in Karuizawa, Nagano. An annual gathering of 20 or so influential Japanese CEOs and their spouses, it combines the study of business and the liberal arts. For the past 20 years we have both taught at Camp Nidom.

2. Wise Leaders Can Grasp the Essence

Before making judgment calls, wise leaders quickly sense what lies behind a situation, project a vision of the future or the consequences, and decide on the action needed to realize that vision. Practical wisdom enables them to see the essence and intuitively fathom the nature and meaning of people, things, and events.

A telling example of how Soichiro Honda, the founder of the company that bears his name, did that is visible in a photograph hanging at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan. It shows him at a motorcycle-racing track, crouching down low to put himself at eye level with a rider passing at full speed. Honda has his hands on the ground to feel the vibration and his ears cocked to absorb the sound of the engine. That's how he captured the essence of the motorcycle. "When I look at a motorcycle, I see many things," he used to tell his successors. "I see I should do such and such to maneuver past the curve. I think about the next-generation machine. I think, if I do this, it will have more speed. I move naturally into the next process." Grasping the essence requires attention to detail and persistence. "If you are going to do something, you must do it relentlessly," Yanai says. "Do what is 100% right, concentrate on small things, and continue going back to basics. Unless you do that, you cannot move to the next stage. The secret to success is doing the basics day in and day out."

It's also important that leaders grasp universal truths from the particulars and the details. Expanding particulars into universals requires continual interaction between subjective intuition and objective knowledge. Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata Group, conceived the idea of a $2,500 car in this way. In the now famous story, he noticed an entire family-father, mother, and children-on a scooter, snaking dangerously around cars on a rainy day in Mumbai. He knew that the cheapest car cost five times as much as a scooter did and that families near the bottom of the income pyramid couldn't afford one. Tata realized, right there and then, that those people would buy cars if his company produced them at a price they could afford.

To cultivate their ability to grasp the essence of a problem, executives should practice three mind-stretching routines. The first is relentlessly asking what the basis of a problem or a situation is. At Toyota employees ask "Why?" five times to get to the root cause. At Honda they ask the "A, A0, and A00" questions. A questions are about specifications-such as "What should the horsepower of this engine be?" A0 questions are about concepts-such as "What is the idea behind this engine?" A00 questions are about the essential goals of the project-such as "What is this engine for?"

The second routine is learning to see the trees and the forest at the same time. In the words of Toshifumi Suzuki, Seven-Eleven Japan's chairman, "It isn't good if you just see a tree, not the forest. Many wrongly think that single-item management means managing a single item. But it's necessary to place the item in the store as a whole." God may live in the details, but leaders should never forget the big picture.

The third entails constructing and testing hypotheses. For example, the employees in every Seven-Eleven Japan store-including high school students and homemakers who work part-time-decide what merchandise to order. Because each store caters to different customers and faces different situations at different times, employees cannot rely on rules set by headquarters. Nor can they mechanically fill shelves by ordering the same amounts of the same things each day. Every time a staff member places an order, she is encouraged to build a hypothesis about what customers want. When ordering beverages, for example, she must rely on her knowledge of local customers' needs and also take into account factors such as the weather, school schedules, local festivals, power shutdowns, and so on.

3. Wise Leaders Create Shared Contexts

Phronetic leaders constantly create opportunities for senior executives and employees to learn from one another. In Japan a ba (place, space, or field) refers to the context in which relationships are forged and interactions occur. Those participating in a ba share information, build short-term relationships, and try to create new meaning. For example, an informal ba may take place at a bar or a pub, where strangers talk casually about their immediate concerns or problems, sometimes triggering insights or solutions.

In a more formal or organizational setting, a ba permits participants with a shared sense of purpose to interact closely. Each member sees himself in relation to others and tries to understand their views and values subjectively. Membership is voluntary. In that sense, a ba is a shared context in motion, with participants coming and going, relationships changing, and contexts shifting over time.

Honda's waigaya (short for the onomatopoeic waiwai-gayagaya, which imitates the hum created by people's voices when they meet) is also a ba. As many as 30 members of a project team will get together for three days and nights at a hotel or ryokan (inn) with a hot springs. In the evenings they drink sake and visit the communal bath. Although there is no agenda, people typically begin by bad-mouthing their bosses and sharing frustrations. As the members start spilling their guts over sake, it isn't unusual for fights, verbal or even physical, to break out. On the second day, barriers start to melt as people begin to understand one another's motivations and feelings. They become more willing to listen and empathize. By the third day, they've often made an inductive leap, overcoming their personal issues and arriving at a team-based view about how to solve a problem.

Companies can set up a ba in any number of ways: in project meetings, training programs, ad hoc study groups, informal hobby groups, conferences, company-sponsored family or sports events, smoking rooms, cafés and canteens, virtual meetings, intranet systems, and blogs. A ba can be top-down or bottom-up. The CEO should initiate the former kind. Five months after Utsuda became Mitsui's president, in 2002, he started a kurumaza (sitting in a circle) meeting that took place once or twice a month during lunch or after work. It was open to any employee who registered on the company intranet and wanted to discuss the meaning of good-quality work for employees, the company, and society. Over six years, 117 meetings involving 2,000 employees took place. The participants reviewed Mitsui's past business practices-some of which were controversial, owing to compliance issues in foreign countries-and future aspirations.

A bottom-up ba, which companies outside Japan may find easier to use, gives employees firsthand experience of how consumers use products and services. Eisai, known for having developed medicines to treat dementia, sends all its researchers to take care of patients. The employees learn how patients behave, take medicines, bathe, and communicate with caregivers. They gain a deeper understanding of the needs of patients and their families-and of the company's mission of human health care as articulated by Haruo Naito, Eisai's president. One employee told us, "I was completely focused on the development of medicines, but at the hospital, the focus was not on medicines. Drugs are only useful in certain situations. The training gave me fresh awareness of the purpose of drugs and how we should develop them."

4. Wise Leaders Communicate the Essence

Phronetic leaders must be able to communicate in a way that everyone can understand. The essence of a situation is often hard to express, so they must use stories, metaphors, and other figurative language. That allows individuals grounded in different contexts and with different experiences to grasp things intuitively.

A metaphor provides a way of understanding one thing by envisioning another. Yanai is fond of using sports metaphors and analogies to get his point across. One of his favorites is "In baseball, teams with a large number of stolen bases have a high number of attempted steals. You can't run if you're thinking only about not being tagged. The same could be said of management." Metaphors also convey messages in ways that capture the imagination. For example, Toyota likens the automobile industry-and, by extension, the company itself-to a green tomato, incomplete and growing.

A story can help us gain self-knowledge through the experiences of the protagonist or the antagonist. It can also explain the historical context ("How has this come to be?") and communicate future scenarios ("What is it going to look like?"). At Mitsui, storytelling became an important part of the review process under Utsuda. In 2002 he changed the corporate performance criteria, putting much more emphasis (80%) on qualitative than on quantitative results. The process for achieving results thus became more important than revenues or profits. Utsuda encouraged all employees to tell a story at their annual review about why a goal was important to them and the company, how it aligned with their values as well as the company's, and what good it would do them and the company in the future. The process of creating, telling, and sharing stories was instrumental in changing Mitsui's culture. It led employees to sell their ideas more persuasively and made them think about the quality of the work they would do before calculating the profits.

Fujio Mitarai, Canon's chairman, has institutionalized a similar process. He asks everyone to submit an annual business plan with a story. He kicks off the process by writing a story about how the company can achieve the numerical goals he has established. That trickles down through senior managers and middle managers to all employees. Everyone at Canon has to back up the numbers with a narrative. "That's how skills are cultivated and our people grow," Mitarai explains. "It forms the foundation of Canon's strength."

To use metaphors and stories effectively, leaders must learn to see the relationship between one thing and another, between themselves and someone else, or between the present and either the past or the future. The best way to do that is to read as many novels as possible in all genres, including romance, satire, comedy, and tragedy, and to attend the theater.

Rhetoric counts, because effective communicators touch people's hearts and minds. Think of speeches that have done both, such as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and Steve Jobs's "Stay hungry, stay foolish" commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. Both were based on personal experience; had a beginning, a middle, and an end; and repeated the key message several times. King said "I have a dream" eight times and "Let freedom ring" 10 times in the last five minutes of his 17-minute speech. Jobs repeated the phrase "Stay hungry, stay foolish" three times in the last 20 seconds of his 15-minute address.

Wise leaders engage in conversation with as many people as possible and display a high degree of commitment to communication. Yanai articulated his "dream" for 2020 on January 1, 2009: to become the world's number one apparel retailer in terms of sales and profitability, surpassing Gap, Zara, and H&M. Over the next three months he engaged in a weekly 90-minute dialogue with half a dozen of his top executives in Tokyo to discuss the people, organization, and systems needed to realize that dream. He spent the same amount of time in similar meetings with another group of top executives from Shanghai, Seoul, Paris, London, and New York. He plans to carry on these dialogues with 200 of his future leaders, meeting them face-to-face all over the world in the next three years. Communication is critical to bringing dreams to life.

5. Wise Leaders Exercise Political Power

It isn't enough to identify the essence or communicate it; phronetic leaders must bring people together and spur them to act, combining and synthesizing everyone's knowledge and efforts in the single-minded pursuit of their goals. To mobilize people, executives must utilize all the means-including Machiavellian ones-suited to the situation. Shrewdness and stubbornness are often necessary to create something new and good.

Wise leaders exercise political judgment by understanding the viewpoints and emotions of others, gleaned through everyday verbal and nonverbal communication. They carefully consider timing-when to make a move or to discuss issues. No one we know exercises these qualities with more passion than Toshiba's chairman, Atsutoshi Nishida, who is a scholar of intersubjectivity-a field of phenomenology pioneered by Edmund Husserl. Nishida firmly believes that people are by nature both logical and emotional, so he stresses the importance of empathizing with others to develop genuine dialogues with them. It isn't unusual for him to engage in discussions with his colleagues that run twice the allotted time.

Phronetic leaders also strive to understand all the contradictions in human nature-good and bad, civility and incivility, optimism and pessimism, diligence and laziness-and synthesize them as situations arise. Rather than seeking an optimal balance between contradictions, they engage in dialectical thinking, which enables them to deal with contradictions, opposites, and paradoxes by moving to a higher level. Some use the German word aufheben to describe this process. By thinking in terms of "both and" rather than "either or," phronetic leaders can make the decision best suited to a situation without losing sight of the goodness to be achieved. As F. Scott Fitzgerald pointed out, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." In this age of discontinuity, these qualities matter more than ever.

Imagination and vision are key to rising to a higher level. For instance, Yanai has announced that Fast Retailing will need 200 next-generation leaders to bring about his vision for the company. He has used dialectics to identify the starting point-namely, the composition of the leadership pool. Half the future leaders will be Japanese, half will come from current employees, half will be geniuses (and the other half will be ordinary folks). Yanai wants them to transcend all the dichotomies and turn into globally minded business owners. His leaders must be both asura (demon) and Buddha: They must become tyrannical perfectionists who understand both the bad and the good in human nature.

Interestingly, demoting leaders can help them understand other viewpoints and emotions. This technique works especially well in Japan, and nobody uses it more than Fast Retailing. More than half the company's senior executives have been demoted, which involves a 25% pay cut and sends a clear message that a particular judgment, decision, or action didn't work. The executives are given another chance to excel. One of them, who has experienced two demotions, says, "Sure, it hurts both economically and psychologically. But the demotions made me tougher. I now have the stomach to give my subordinates the kind of feedback I received."

Forgetting success is also effective in spurring people to do better. Yanai recently warned his team that doing the same thing year after year is synonymous with falling behind. The title of a book he wrote in 2009, Throw Away Your Success in One Day, shows how quickly he thinks companies must reinvent themselves.

6. Wise Leaders Foster Practical Wisdom in Others

Practical wisdom should never be treated as if it were the preserve of the company's chief executive or top management team. It must be distributed as much as possible through the organization, and employees at all levels can be trained in its use. Fostering distributed leadership is therefore one of the wise leader's biggest responsibilities. For instance, in the 1970s Soichiro Honda gained some practical wisdom from his subordinates when Honda was developing a low-emissions automobile engine. He declared that the new engine would put the company in a position to beat the "Big Three" automakers in the United States, who were then opposing the Clean Air Act. Honda's engineers objected, saying that they were developing the engine in order to fulfill social responsibilities. They were doing it for their children, they said. The story goes that Honda was so ashamed of himself when he heard this that he decided it was time to retire.

Fostering distributed phronesis will enable organizations to respond flexibly and creatively to any situation. One structural option is to use the "scrum" approach (see our article "The New New Product Development Game," HBR January-February 1986) to stay agile. The rugby metaphor, first used in the manufacturing industry, is today the official name of the agile software development process. Although individual teams are usually limited to seven members, the number of teams rises as the scope of the project grows. The development process stops at two-week intervals, when members form a scrum (a "huddle" in American football) to make judgments on how to complete unfinished tasks. It's possible to have hundreds of scrum masters and thousands of members working, learning, and making wise decisions concurrently.

Even part-time workers should be able to use phronesis, according to Seven-Eleven Japan's Suzuki. "I have only two eyes and one mind," he argues. "There are several thousand part-time workers in our stores. If everyone can make a judgment on his or her own, we will have quite a few more eyes and minds."

People can often learn about practical wisdom by observing an exemplar's behavior. At Honda the company's founder is still the dominant exemplar. Takeo Fukui, a former company president, told us, "It is important for Honda to create many Soichiro Hondas." That doesn't mean Honda workers should imitate the founder; the situations they face are often different from those he faced when he was alive. Rather, it means that when a judgment call is necessary, a worker should ask himself or herself: "If I were Soichiro Honda, what would I do?"

Exemplars can frequently be found among middle managers. Consider Honda's large-project leaders, who undertake work of strategic importance but have no hierarchical authority or personnel selection power. They work with as many as 200 of their colleagues at a time in design, engineering, testing, marketing, and other fields. Those colleagues all volunteer mainly because of the leader's character. An exemplar enables ordinary people to perform in extraordinary ways.

Another method of fostering practical wisdom is to use a formal system of apprenticeship, which allows mentors to share experiences, contexts, and time. At Fast Retailing, for instance, Yanai serves as the mentor for 200 apprentices all over the world. He assigns them projects in three areas-product development, store operations, and administration (finance, human resources, IT, and legal)-and asks them to implement ideas that will change the status quo. Each project lasts about six months; apprentices work for 18 months on these jet-set projects, as employees call them, while maintaining their regular jobs. Yanai must personally evaluate the results of 600 change projects in a timely fashion, and in the process he helps create the next generation of wise leaders for the company.

Today's knowledge-creating company, we believe, must metamorphose into the wisdom-practicing company of tomorrow. That demands a new kind of leader-a CEO who is many things at the same time:

a philosopher who grasps the essence of a problem and draws general conclusions from random observations;

a master craftsman who understands the key issues of the moment and acts on them immediately;

an idealist who will do what he or she believes is right and good for the company and society;

a politician who can spur people to action;

a novelist who uses metaphors, stories, and rhetoric;

a teacher with good values and strong principles, from whom others want to learn.

That's too idealistic or too much to expect, you may say. Perhaps. But companies have to create new futures in order to survive. Those futures can no longer be extensions of the past; they must be leaps of faith into tomorrow. CEOs cannot be content to analyze situations using empirical data and deductive reasoning; they must also make inductive jumps according to their ideals and dreams. If they aren't idealistic, they simply can't create new futures.

Being idealistic isn't enough, though. Leaders must also be pragmatic-looking reality in the eye, grasping the essence of a situation, and envisioning how it relates to the larger context-if they are to judge what they must do right then and there to achieve the common good. CEOs have to become idealistic pragmatists, which is why they must turn the dual quest for knowledge and practical wisdom into a way of life.

A version of this article appeared in the May 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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In an era when discontinuity is the only constant, the ability to lead wisely has nearly vanished. All the knowledge in the world did not prevent the collapse of the global financial system three years ago or stop institutions like Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual from failing.

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Barnaby Joyce resigns as Deputy Prime Minister 

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Barnaby Joyce resigns as Deputy Prime Minister 

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Barnaby Joyce affair scandal is an example of unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour. It is evident that the public and other Politicians are unhappy with the leadership Mr Joyce has shown with his latest scandal. It would now be difficult for Australians to have confidence in his abilities to provide leadership, as his actions go against the qualities of someone who can be trusted to ensure organisational goals are achieved.

Only days after Joyce announced a new sex ban between ministers and their staff members. Now expecting a child with the mistress in April, 2018.  ABC News has stated that Joyce has resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader after facing strained pressure to quit following revelations of his affair with a former staff member.

In light of the model provided by Dubrin (J. Dubrin, 2014, p190), CSR is traced to various subgroups linked to ethics, values and responsibility that each individual can take to enhance an organisations reputation and also link to the economy. Joyce’s latest scandal does not warrant him to be known as a great leader that people look up to.

Reference
ABC News. (2018). Barney Joyce resigns as Deputy Prime Minister. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-23/barnaby-joyce-resigns/9477942

J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 190). Cengage Learning.

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Updated February 24, 2018 00:15:24

Barnaby Joyce has resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader after facing sustained pressure to quit following revelations of his affair with a former staffer.

In a separate matter, Mr Joyce is also the subject of a sexual harassment claim received by the Nationals.

Mr Joyce explained his decision to quit the frontbench, saying there had to be some "clear air".

He said he would resign at a meeting of the Nationals in Canberra on Monday morning.

Mr Joyce said he would sit on the backbench and would not be resigning from Parliament.

He informed acting Prime Minister Mathias Cormann of his decision to stand down on Friday.

Mr Joyce has not said who should replace him as leader and deputy prime minister, but Veterans Affairs Minister Michael McCormack is the leading contender.

Reflecting on his leadership, Mr Joyce said it had been an incredible privilege to have been deputy prime minister.

But he said he had faced a litany of allegations, although he believed none of them had been sustained.

He acknowledged the controversy had left him with little choice.

"It is quite evident that you can't go to the dispatch box while issues like that are surrounding you," Mr Joyce told reporters in Armidale in his electorate of New England.

He thanked the people of his electorate and said people were backing him even though he suspected some of them did not vote for him.

"People literally running up and someone crying, offering their support to me," Mr Joyce said.

"I don't deserve the support that you have given me.

"At the end, no not hard at all," he said of his dramatic decision to walk away from his powerful roles.

Turnbull reacts to Joyce's decision

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull issued a brief statement thanking Mr Joyce for his service, describing him as a "fierce advocate for rural and regional Australia".

Mr Turnbull said the Coalition between the Liberals and the Nationals remains "undiminished".

The Prime Minister is in the United States, but had made it clear in the past week that he was angry with Mr Joyce.

Mr Joyce emphasised that standing down was aimed at protecting his new partner who is due to have their baby in April, as well as his estranged wife and daughters.

He said his resignation as leader would act as a circuit breaker. "It has got to stop. This has got to stop and it is not fair on them," he said.

Media coverage has been intense with national newspapers running the story prominently for well over a week.

Mr Joyce described the reporting as completely and utterly unwarranted, but found some humour in the situation.

He said the controversy also had to end for the sake of the "poor buggers who are parked outside my house every day", referring to the lurking media.

He said the media should not expose private relationships in the way it had scrutinised his.

He apologised to his pregnant partner Vikki Campion, who was photographed on the front page of the Daily Telegraph newspaper earlier this month.

"The idea that for Vikki, walking across the road as a pregnant lady and just being put under so much pressure, I thought that is not who we are in Australia," he said.

"That's not the kind of people we are. I am the public figure - go after me. That is what I get paid for.

"But don't go after private individuals. It is just wrong."

Nationals look to future

Veterans Affairs Minister Michael McCormack has confirmed he is standing for the leadership.

"I am a fighter and I have the drive to deliver," Mr McCormack said.

Nationals backbencher Mark Coulton said Mr Joyce had done the right thing by resigning.

Mr Coulton said he would back Mr McCormack as leader.

Former Cabinet Minister Darren Chester announced he too would back Mr McCormack and ruled out making a bid himself.

He said Mr McCormack had the passion, enthusiasm and determination to deliver for all regional Australians.

Another backbencher, Ken O'Dowd, praised both Mr McCormack and David Gillespie as potential leaders.

Dr Gillespie has confirmed he will also contest the leadership.

He is the Assistant Minister for Children and Families and has been in parliament since 2013.

Federal National Party president Larry Anthony praised Mr Joyce as a great leader and a true champion of regional and rural Australia.

"The party will greet this news with a heavy heart but we understand and respect his decision to stand down as leader," Mr Anthony said.

"The Nationals' thoughts and support are with Barnaby and those closest to him at this time."

Topics: government-and-politics, joyce-barnaby, political-parties, nationals, parliament, federal-parliament, australia

First posted February 23, 2018 14:05:29

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After weeks of pressure, Joyce falls on his sword

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Updated February 24, 2018 00:15:24 Barnaby Joyce has resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader after facing sustained pressure to quit following revelations of his affair with a former staffer. In a separate matter, Mr Joyce is also the subject of a sexual harassment claim received by the Nationals.

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UK charity presidents club closes amid harassment allegation at all male dinner 

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UK charity presidents club closes amid harassment allegation at all male dinner 

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This dinner is an example of unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour being exhibited and accepted by leaders in our society. This dinner was attended by top business executives, financiers and politicians that engaged in misogynist and sexist behaviour and sexual harassment (SBS News, 2018). The fact this event had been running for three decades indicates that the culture is deeply ingrained in not only this club, but potentially the business’ each leader is involved with as well. The use of non-disclosure forms is evidence of the behaviour they knew what going to be exhibited by the attendees (SBS News, 2018). Behaviour like this in leaders demonstrates that there is still a way to go for equal treatment of women and men in business. Hiding behind the charitable act of donating money, does not excuse their behaviour and in this case has impacted the charities that feel they need to return donations. Nobody wants to be associated with an immoral organisation in today’s society, especially since the recent #metoo movement.

Reference
UK charity Presidents Club closes amid harassment allegation at all-male dinner. (2019, January 25). SBS News. Retrieved from https://www.sbs.com.au/news/uk-charity-presidents-club-closes-amid-harassment-allegation-at-all-male-dinner

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The Presidents Club, a British charity, is shutting down and will hold no further fundraising events after the Financial Times reported female hostesses were groped and harassed at a men-only gala it organised last week.

"The trustees have decided that the Presidents Club will not host any further fundraising events. Remaining funds will be distributed in an efficient manner to children's charities and it will then be closed," the organisation said in a statement on Wednesday.

The FT article by a reporter who went undercover at the Presidents Club gala last week described braying men in tuxedos fondling women, putting their hands up their skirts, pulling them into their laps, making lewd comments and offering to take them to hotel rooms.

One of the 130 hostesses, who were required to wear skimpy black dresses with matching underwear and to sign non-disclosure agreements before entertaining the 360 male guests, said a diner had exposed his penis to her during the event.

"Women were bought as bait for men, for rich men, not a mile from where we stand, as if that is acceptable behaviour. It is totally unacceptable," MP Jess Phillips told parliament during a hastily convened debate about the issue.

She was one of several visibly furious women politicians who lined up to denounce the event as despicable.

Two London children's hospitals, Great Ormond Street and Evelina, said they would return donations received from the Presidents Club, while corporate sponsor WPP, the advertising group, said it was severing ties with the organisation.

The FT said the event, an annual fixture on the London social calendar for three decades, was attended by business executives, financiers, politicians and other powerful men.

The Bank of England, which was dragged into the story because one of the prizes offered up for auction at the event was tea with Governor Mark Carney, said it had not approved the prize or had any contact with the organisers.

Also on offer for big donors was lunch with Boris Johnson, Britain's foreign secretary. Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said Johnson had not known about the prize.

Luxury goods businessman David Meller, one of co-chairmen of the Presidents Club Charitable Trust, stepped down as a non-executive board member at the education ministry as the fallout from the FT report intensified.

May's spokesman said she had been uncomfortable reading about the event, pointedly saying that as a woman she would not have been invited.

The FT report said lots put up for auction at the gala, which was held at the prestigious Dorchester Hotel, included a night at a strip club and a course of plastic surgery, with the invitation "Add spice to your wife".

The Charity Commission, the not-for-profit sector regulator, said it would be urgently investigating the Presidents Club.

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UK charity Presidents Club closes amid harassment allegation at all-male dinner

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The Presidents Club, a British charity, is shutting down and will hold no further fundraising events after the Financial Times reported female hostesses were groped and harassed at a men-only gala it organised last week. "The trustees have decided that the Presidents Club will not host any further fundraising events.

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CBA breached money laundering, counter terrorism laws

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CBA breached money laundering, counter terrorism laws

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This is a good example of leaders looking the other way and allowing unethical and socially irresponsible conduct to continue. The failure to act over such a long period of time, and then the decision not to inform shareholders, supports the theory that the culture of the organisation allowed it to happen (Clarke, 2017). This could have been due to the motivated blindness of the leaders, executive greed and more likely, not wanting disciplinary action to be taken against them and share prices to be affected (Shaw, Barry, Issa, Catley & Muntean, 2016).  No matter the reason, the leadership team must take accountability as the investigation uncovered that they failed to act appropriately. By allowing money laundering to continue they allowed crime and terrorism to thrive financially, heavily impacting the Australian community and the world. The financial impact may be minimal compared to the amount they earn, but the price of their reputational damage is yet to be fully seen.

References
Shaw, W., Barry, V., Issa, T., Catley, B.& Muntean, D. (2016). Moral Issues in Business. (3rd Asia-Pacific ed.). Melbourne, Australia: Cengage Learning.

Clarke, C. (2017, December 14). CBA admits breaching money laundering, counter terrorism laws more than 53,000 times, expects more charges. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-13/cba-breached-money-laundering,-counter-terrorism-laws/9257224

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Updated December 14, 2017 15:42:51

Investors are bracing for a share market reaction after the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) admitted it breached Australia's money laundering and counter-terrorism regulations and indicated more charges could be brought against it.

Months after Australia's money laundering regulator, AUSTRAC, launched legal action against CBA, Australia's biggest bank has admitted it breached statutory disclosure laws more than 53,000 times.

AUSTRAC has indicated it proposes to file an amended statement of claim containing additional alleged contraventions, CBA said in a statement to the ASX.

CBA said it would defend more than 100 more serious allegations regarding its alleged failure to disclose suspicious transactions.

The bank potentially faces multi-million-dollar fines. The matter is next due in court on March 16 next year.

AUSTRAC accused the CBA of failing to flag more than 53,000 transactions which exceeded a $10,000 limit and passed through its smart ATMs between November 2012 and September 2015.

In October, law firm Maurice Blackburn and litigation funder IMF Bentham filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court in Melbourne saying the CBA board knew of the potential breaches in the second half of 2015 and failed to inform shareholders for two years.

The class action is on behalf of all shareholders who bought CBA shares between July 2015 and August 3, 2017.

Top executives at the bank, including outgoing chief executive Ian Narev and current board chairwoman Catherine Livingstone, have been singled out in the class action as knowing about the compliance issues but failing to act.

Topics: banking, industry, business-economics-and-finance, law-crime-and-justice, australia

First posted December 13, 2017 19:14:24

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CBA admits 53,000 breaches of money laundering rules, expects more charges

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Updated December 14, 2017 15:42:51 Investors are bracing for a share market reaction after the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) admitted it breached Australia's money laundering and counter-terrorism regulations and indicated more charges could be brought against it. Months after Australia's money laundering regulator, AUSTRAC, launched legal action against CBA, Australia's biggest bank has admitted it breached statutory disclosure laws more than 53,000 times.

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The video ‘Mary Pat: What is Ethical Leadership’ by Blakestrategric describes how ethics starts with the individuals. This highlights that leadership is defined differently by each person providing they follow the foundations of ethics. The video then provides guidelines and quotes from famous figures about how ethical leaders should act in their daily lives. The advice provided throughout the video while useful, was very generic and did not offer anything new to ethics or leadership. One of the key points that this video lacked was that no mention of integrity in this video. An ethical leader is someone who is trustworthy, honest and loyal to their rational principles which shows that the leader has integrity (Dubrin, 2016, p.182). The reason why the video was chosen, was that sometimes we forget about the basics so it is best that we remind ourselves. Additionally, it is a great starting point for people who want a basic understanding of what is required to be an ethical leader. That is why this video can be useful in showing the connection between ethics and social responsibility with leadership and what recommendations a leader can follow in order to be able to lead in an ethical manner.

References

Blakestrategric. (2010/02/10).

Mary Pat: "What Is Ethical Leadership?" Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njayvy5Cqms

J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 190). Cengage Learning.

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Mary Pat Blake at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, December 2009

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7-Eleven: Covert video captures worker being forced to pay back wage in cash by Mark Willacy

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7-Eleven: Covert video captures worker being forced to pay back wage in cash by Mark Willacy

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This news article by Mark Willacy highlights that some 7-Eleven stores have a cashback scheme with their employees, where employees are paid their full wage, but have to pay almost half back to the store owners. The store owners tell the staff that they cannot afford to hire them while the 7-Eleven headquarters state they were not aware of this issue. This story reinforces what Dubrin (2016, p.181) says, that a number of businesses have numerous ethical problems and these problems reduce trust in organisations and its leaders. The workers only comply with the cashback scheme out of fear that they will not have jobs if they refuse. While some could argue there is ABC bias in this piece, there is multiple video footage of this exchange occurring. While the store owners might not be able to afford employees, as leaders, it is unethical of them to use this cashback scheme as employees are entitled to what they earn. If the 7-Eleven headquarters finds evidence of this cashback scheme, they should hopefully embrace ethical leadership and punish those responsible, though there is the chance that they are a part of this problem and lying to the public. This article shows how the need for a profit has undermined a leader’s ethical and social responsibility.

References
J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 190). Cengage Learning.

Willacy M, (2016). 7-Eleven: Covert video captures worker being forced to pay back wage in cash. Retrieved from  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-21/covert-video-captures-711-workers-being-forced-to-pay-back-wage/8033808

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Updated November 21, 2016 11:30:02

The scandal-plagued convenience chain 7-Eleven is facing fresh scrutiny, with covert video showing an employee handing back a sizeable portion of her pay to the store franchisee.

The employee at a Brisbane 7-Eleven told the ABC that she and other staff were told to pay back thousands of dollars or face losing their jobs.

"My bosses say they can't afford to pay the government rate. That's why they ask us to give some of the money back," said the worker "Anna". The ABC agreed to protect her identity.

Known in the industry as the "cash back" scam, workers are paid the full award rate but have to hand back up to half their pay to the store franchisee.

7-Eleven told the ABC it has launched an internal investigation into the allegations involving the Brisbane store.

Like many of her co-workers, Anna is an international student studying in Australia, and she said the cash back scam is the only way of securing her job.

"[The franchisees] say agree to paying back the money. If not, you can go find another job. Everyone at the shop has to do it," she said.

Anna's paid back $6,000 in a year

Using hidden cameras, the ABC filmed on two occasions when Anna handed back hundreds of dollars of her pay.

At one handover, her boss can be seen accepting $150 in cash from Anna in the manager's office of the Brisbane store.

She said she hands back about $11 for every hour she works.

"The government pay is $25 per hour for casual staff. What I get is $14 per hour. Every week I pay [back], because they pay me every week," she said.

"[I] take the cash out of the ATM, and hand it back."

Anna showed the ABC her bank statements detailing her withdrawals, saying she had paid back more than $6,000 since the start of this year.

Cash back scam concerns raised previously with 7-Eleven

Systemic wage fraud and the underpayment of workers was exposed by Four Corners and Fairfax Media last year, prompting the company to set up a wages compensation panel headed by former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Allan Fels.

7-Eleven later sacked Professor Fels after he refused to agree to new conditions the company wanted to impose on the process.

"When my panel was effectively fired by 7-Eleven we had drawn their attention to many continuing cases of these cash back payments," said Professor Fels.

"This example here clearly shows not enough has changed."

Asked if 7-Eleven headquarters knew of the cash back scam at the Brisbane franchise, Anna said she was told that a staff member had complained.

"The staff member who wanted to report our boss just got fired," she said.

The ABC went to the Brisbane store to ask the franchisees about the allegations that staff were being underpaid.

A manager said she was not authorised to comment, saying all questions should be directed to 7-Eleven's headquarters.

A spokesman for the company told the ABC that 7-Eleven "takes any allegation of illegal activity in our franchisee network extremely seriously".

"We are not aware of any allegations relating to this store, and no staff members have raised any concerns with us. As soon as the allegations were raised with us we commenced an internal investigation," the spokesman said.

He said 7-Eleven will act upon any allegations of illegal activity, "up to and including termination of the Franchise Agreement".

In response to questions from the ABC, a spokesman for the Fair Work Ombudsman said any employer who tells a worker that they have to pay part of their wages back is breaching work laws.

"The Fair Work Ombudsman is concerned about the use of 'cash-back' arrangements we are seeing in some 7-Eleven cases," he said.

In June, another 7-Eleven franchisee was fined more than $400,000 over a cash back scheme.

It is the largest court-imposed penalty achieved by the Fair Work Ombudsman, whose investigation found that the franchisee had stripped back $82,000 from 12 of his employees, some of whom were international students.

Topics: work, community-and-society, law-crime-and-justice, corruption, fraud-and-corporate-crime, business-economics-and-finance, brisbane-4000, qld, australia

First posted November 21, 2016 06:14:28

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7-Eleven worker forced to pay back wage, covert video shows

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Updated November 21, 2016 11:30:02 The scandal-plagued convenience chain 7-Eleven is facing fresh scrutiny, with covert video showing an employee handing back a sizeable portion of her pay to the store franchisee. The employee at a Brisbane 7-Eleven told the ABC that she and other staff were told to pay back thousands of dollars or face losing their jobs.

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Posted August 25, 2017 09:17:10

Australia Post has revealed that its former chief executive Ahmed Fahour was paid a total of $10.8 million after quitting earlier this year amid political and community uproar about his fat pay deal.

In its remuneration report released this morning, Australia Post confirmed Mr Fahour was paid a total $6.8 million in the 2017 financial year, sweetened by an additional $4 million in long-term incentives awarded from 2015 and 2016.

Mr Fahour's $10.8 million parting pay - which includes $1.75 million in superannuation - is well above the $5.6 million estimate circulating in February in the lead-up to his abrupt resignation in the face of criticism.

The bonuses reflect what Australia Post describes as Mr Fahour's "sustained success" in transforming the government agency from a letter delivery business to a parcels and ecommerce business in line with contractual obligations.

However, Mr Fahour's successor Christine Holgate will receive a substantially lighter pay deal set at a maximum of $2.75 million, comprising a fixed base of $1.37 million and a potential short-term bonus capped at a similar level.

Unlike Mr Fahour, Ms Holgate will not be eligible for long-term incentive payments in 2018.

Her pay will now be determined by the Remuneration Tribunal after the Federal Government removed the ability of the Australia Post board to set chief executive pay.

The less lucrative pay arrangements are likely to fuel debate about the gender pay gap.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that on average, male executives are paid 15.3 per cent more than women counterparts in similar roles.

Ms Holgate, who resigned in June as chief executive of the vitamins company Blackmores, begins one of Australia's toughest and highly politicised corporate roles on October 30.

Australia Post chairman John Stanhope defended the board's original stance to align Mr Fahour's pay with commercial competitors in global ecommerce and logistics.

But he acknowledged the community and political concerns that forced the turnaround.

"While community expectations have changed since Mr Fahour's appointment in 2010, it is not practical or possible to retrospectively change our contractual obligations to him," Mr Stanhope said.

Pay deal to overshadow Australia Post's profit rise

Mr Stanhope came under fire in February after the Australia Post board initially refused to fully disclose details of Mr Fahour's pay arrangements.

But after sustained pressure from a Senate committee and public criticism from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield, Mr Stanhope agreed to be more transparent about senior executive pay.

"We have aligned our executive remuneration reporting to meet the same standards of transparency and disclosure that you would expect from a listed company of similar size and complexity," Mr Stanhope said.

Senator Fifield faced hostile questioning about why he did not know the specifics of Mr Fahour's multi-million-dollar salary.

The revelations about Mr Fahour's departing pay deal overshadows with Australia Post reporting a full-year after-tax profit of $95 million - $126 million before tax - compared to $36 million in 2016.

Despite profit improvement for the overall agency, letter delivery volumes declined by another 11.8 per cent, contributing to a $180 million loss in Australia Post's traditional letters business.

The organisation's new "bread and butter" focus of parcel deliveries and ecommerce accounted for an almost 5 per cent profit improvement to $299.7 million before tax.

Australia Post's acting chief executive Christine Corbett said the strong result validated the shift from traditional letters to parcels and ecommerce.

"Last Christmas we had our largest ever parcel delivery day with more than two million parcels delivered in a single day," Ms Corbett said.

"With new entrants in the market contributing to overall growth in ecommerce volumes, we expect out parcels business to continue to grow."

Mr Fahour announced his resignation from his lucrative seven-year role in February in the wake of criticism about his pay and attempts by the Australia Post board to conceal the details.

"This has been a difficult and emotional decision for me and my family, but I have come to the conclusion that the timing is right," Mr Fahour said at the time.

After leaving Australia Post in July, Mr Fahour was appointed as non-executive chairman for Asia of BCG Digital Ventures, an arm of the Boston Consulting Group where he previously worked for 13 years.
Follow Peter Ryan on Twitter @peter_f_ryan and on his Main Street blog.
Topics: company-news, business-economics-and-finance, australia

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Australia Post boss gets $10.8 million golden handshake

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Posted August 25, 2017 09:17:10 Australia Post has revealed that its former chief executive Ahmed Fahour was paid a total of $10.8 million after quitting earlier this year amid political and community uproar about his fat pay deal.

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Legal vs. Ethical Liability: A Crisis of Leadership and Culture | Mel Fugate | TEDxSMU

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Ethics in Leadership by William E Richardson 

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Ethics in Leadership by William E Richardson 

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The article ‘Ethics in Leadership' by William Richardson explored the idea that anyone in a position of leadership should enforce ethics. The first part of this article is about how jerks in leadership positions are memorable but not better leaders. This part tells us about leadership but does not relate it to ethics. The second part of the article is about ethics in the form of karma as helping people can benefit the individual. While this logic can be argued, it is not an ideal reason for leaders to embrace ethics and social responsibility. The last part discusses that ethical leaders acknowledge the importance of their colleagues, especially when it comes to the issue of delegating because this is something that is hard for a number of leaders. Effective leadership is not possible without delegation and to lead is to inspire others to accomplish tasks (Dubrin, 2016, p.222). Dubrin believes that rather than seeing delegation as lightening a leader’s workload, it should be seen as an opportunity for the recipient to develop their ability and prove their competence. This piece ends on how society is affected by the ethical principles of leaders and the impacts of this relationship.

References
J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 190). Cengage Learning.

Richardson, W. E. (2012). ETHICS IN LEADERSHIP. The Journal of Applied Christian Leadership, 6(1), 10-16. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1518930511?accountid=10344

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Duke University - The Fuqua School of Business

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Apple CEO Tim Cook on Ethical Leadership

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http://bcorporation.com.au/

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Volkswagen and the failure of corporate social responsibility

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Volkswagen and the failure of corporate social responsibility

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Worldwide known car brand Volkswagen have been under fire after exampling unethical and socially irresponsible behaviour. It all started when Volkswagen company came up with and deliberately set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control. According to Forbes Volkswagen did ‘stratagem known at the highest levels, that aimed for giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it the world’s number one car maker, in large part on the basis of its supposedly environmentally friendly cars was actually poisoning the planet.’ Volkswagen did everything they could to hide the fact that their diesel engines were highly contaminating.

Volkswagen decide that it didn’t matter if their cars poisoned the planet by emitted 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, just as long as this ‘poison emitting car’ made them the world’s leading car maker.

As stated by Dubrin (J. Dubrin, 2014, p190) one new framework is that responsibility is part of external engagement or the efforts a company makes to manage its relationship with the external world. The external engagement should be integrated into decision making at every organisational level. This statement proves the Volkswagen didn’t have the intentions of managing and building the relationship with the public, in fact doing the compete opposite. It shows that the company only cared about their status and didn’t thinking about the affect it would have on the environment.

Reference
Forbes. (2015). Volkswagen And the Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility. Retrieved from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2015/09/27/volkswagen-and-the-failure-of-corporate-social-responsibility/#48e02c8c4405

J. DuBrin, A. (2016). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (8th ed., p. 190). Cengage Learning.

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The Volkswagen case represents above all an absolute failure in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The company deliberately set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control-a stratagem known at the highest levels-with the aim of giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it the world's number one car maker, in large part on the basis of its supposedly environmentally friendly cars; meanwhile it was poisoning the planet.

This rejection of any ethical standards in engineering, which has led to the resignation not just of the CEO, but also Audi's head of R+D and Porsche's engine chief, makes one thing absolutely clear: the company's CSR department must have known what was going on. The command chain that led to the development of certain lines of software that could put an engine into to test mode and then return it to "dirty mode" are on record, all the testing that was done is documented: those responsible can be identified, and are to be found at all levels throughout Volkswagen. With software taking over all the complexities of a product, the only way to avoid problems is to go fully transparent, document every step of the process and embrace open source.

We are talking about an engine here, a lump of metal, not some interpretation or shade of meaning. Volkswagen did all it could to hide the fact that its diesel engines were highly contaminating. How can the head of CSR deny he knew anything about what was going on? Either that person wasn't doing their job, or they were colluding. The conclusion can only be that for Volkswagen, CSR is a marketing exercise.

But the sad truth is that this conclusion applies to the vast majority of companies: a head of CSR is appointed, given an air of respectability, and runs a department the job of which is to keep the company's image clean, despite the filth it is mired in, as is clearly the case with Volkswagen. Once again, we have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing that companies can and will regulate themselves, when of course the sordid reality is that as their actions show, beyond the occasional symbolic act, their sole objective is to maximize profit, and by any means.

Volkswagen decided that it didn't matter if its cars poisoned the planet by emitting 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, as long as doing so allowed it to become the world's leading car maker. The parallels with the tobacco industry are notable, particularly as regards the lies that we are prepared to believe about the effects of our actions: in the same way that may smokers still tell themselves that the smoke they inhale is not dangerous, millions of car drivers prefer to continue belching out dangerous gases so long as their vehicle runs faster and better.

The only thing that Volkswagen drivers are worried about at the moment is: "What am I going to have to do to my car, and is it going to make it slower? Well, if I don't have to by law, then I won't." Because we don't see the steady poisoning of our planet, we are more concerned about not being able to pull away more quickly at the lights. We're simply not prepared to pay that price for a cleaner environment. We would rather have a faster car than do something to reduce the tens of thousands of deaths from respiratory diseases each year.

The problem with CSR pretty much comes down to this: we are asking companies to self-regulate. Furthermore, we must be doing something wrong when the majority of people see CSR as superfluous, a luxury that mustn't get in the way of making profits or giving us that delicious feeling of acceleration when we put our foot down. Most heads of CSR know this reality, and they know which side their bread is buttered on.

The Volkswagen case shows in stark contrast that we must reinvent CSR. The people who head these departments must be made responsible for their companies' actions, even if that means going to jail. These people will have to be very well paid in return for assuming this responsibility, as well as having budgets that will allow them to develop systems to find out what really goes on in their companies. The Volkswagen crisis highlights the failings of capitalism, of a system that has closed its eyes to the reality of the future, and a clearly unsustainable future.

If you're a head of CSR, you need to ask yourself whether you have any idea what is going on in your company, or whether you are complicit in activities that go directly against your supposed remit. Are you head of window dressing? Are you prepared to lie, to cover up, or even kill people in return for helping your company make more profits? Which is more important to you: the sustainability of your company, or that of the planet? Which is of greater value: tens of thousands of deaths from respiratory disease and cancer, or sitting on the throne of the global automobile industry?

In short, CSR has failed. What has happened at Volkswagen is so important, so real, that it should spark companies to rethink their priorities and just what the job of their CSR department is. They need to ask themselves if something like this could happen in their company, because the answer may well be yes. They need to ask if their company is prepared to cheat, lie and kill people in return for the kind of profits that Volkswagen has made. They need to ask if their board of directors is as irresponsible as Volkswagen's.

And if they work in CSR and they don't think that what has happened at Volkswagen merits serious consideration about their own actions, then perhaps the time has come to get out from behind the wheel, be corporately and socially responsible, and let somebody else take over.

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Volkswagen And The Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility

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(JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images) The Volkswagen case represents above all an absolute failure in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The company deliberately set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control-a stratagem known at the highest levels-with the aim of giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it [...]

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Shared Value - better than Shareholder value ?

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Shared Value - better than Shareholder value ?

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http://sharedvalue.org.au/

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The year 1777 was not a particularly good time for America's newly formed revolutionary army. Under General George Washington's command, some 11,000 soldiers made their way to Valley Forge. Following the latest defeat in a string of battles that left Philadelphia in the hands of British forces, these tired, demoralized, and poorly equipped early American heroes knew they now faced another devastating winter.

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