IS BUSINESS ETHICS JUST A FAD?

Management researchers began to study business ethics during the 1960s by conducting
surveys of managers’ attitudes toward business ethics.19 Some thought that
business ethics was just a fad then (related to media attention to the burgeoning consumer
rights movement, for example) and that interest in the topic would quickly
fade. But research has found that management fads generally last only about 10
years,20 and interest in business ethics has climbed for more than 40 years. This
interest is fueled in part by regular media coverage of ethical lapses in the business
community. Examples include the federal savings and loan disaster, Wall Street
insider trading scandals, Archer Daniels Midland’s price fixing, Denny’s and
Texaco’s racial discrimination, Mitsubishi’s sexual harassment, the tobacco industry’s
nicotine-spiking of cigarettes, the Ford/Firestone tire and automobile safety
controversy, the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle, WorldCom, Adelphia (unfortunately,
the list is long).
But ethical lapses aren’t limited to business; such problems affect every institution
of our society. For example, in the 1970s the Watergate scandal focused attention
on ethical problems in government. This focus continued with questions about the
faulty decision making that led to the Challenger disaster, check-writing scandals in
Congress, Irangate, Whitewater, sexual harassment in the military, questionable election
fund-raising tactics, and the sex scandals in the Clinton White House.
Religious, educational, philanthropic, and sports organizations haven’t been
immune. Catholic priests (and other religious leaders) have sexually abused children,
students have cheated on exams and plagiarized papers, philanthropic organizations
have spent contributors’ funds irresponsibly, student athletes have run afoul of
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules, and Olympic judges have
been accused of fixing scores. Although we don’t want to leave it to the media to
define ethical business practice, the media’s continuing interest in ethical issues suggests
that ethics isn’t just a fad.
Articles and books have proliferated in the academic and professional press, suggesting
that these communities are becoming increasingly interested in ethics as well.
And organizations of every kind are addressing the “ethics problem” in a number of
ways. Many of them are establishing high-level ethics committees, drafting codes of
ethical conduct, and conducting ethics training programs. Such ethics initiatives have
increased quite steadily since the 1970s