Business law and ethics

Comments for this Make Your Case installment are now closed. Thanks to all who participated. This week’s guest commentator, Marshall Goldsmith, has posted his response to your comments and shared some thoughts of his own below. The opening to your cube is darkened by the familiar figure of a longtime colleague. Though you’re his immediate […]

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

The trade-offs can be complex.

Just as people can develop skills and abilities over time, they can learn to be more or less ethical. Yet many organizations limit ethics training to...

As the 1990s overtake us, public interest in ethics is at a historic high. While the press calls attention to blatant derelictions on Wall Street, in the defense industry, and in the Pentagon, and to questionable activities in the White House, in the attorney general’s office, and in Congress, observers wonder whether our society is […]

Neuroscience can show managers ways to improve productivity.

Business schools fall short on teaching ethics and leadership, says economics professor Peter Navarro.

Business has become one of the primary players in structuring the global economy and, by extension, global governance. This places new demands on business...

Thousands of companies every year acquire other companies, or are acquired themselves. This event is usually painful and messy--and statistics show, it...

Big isn't categorically bad, but it should invite public suspicion and scrutiny.

It’s impressive that Warren Buffett has earned billions of dollars. It’s even more impressive that he’s the only billionaire with the good grace and social conscience to state the obvious: people like him ought to be paying far higher taxes than they do, especially in these debt-riddled times. But what’s most impressive about Warren Buffett […]

A three-step process will make everyone less stressed and more productive.

As anyone with the slightest interest in the consulting business knows by now, the SEC has brought civil charges against Rajat Gupta in the Galleon insider-trading case. What makes the matter fascinating to industry watchers, approximately their equivalent of the Charlie Sheen supernova, is that Gupta served three terms as managing director of McKinsey & […]

Joseph Jett’s account of his tumultuous career on Wall Street isn’t just a story of racism and greed. It’s also a cautionary tale for knowledge workers.

Targeting abuses of purchasing power helped usher in a golden age of retail in the United States — and it could again.

Research shows that these systems are often discriminatory, alienating, and deeply stressful for job seekers.

Six steps business leaders can take right now.

To save themselves, pharmaceutical companies will have to break up their giant R&D organizations, overhaul core processes, and put passionate scientists back in charge.

Using the collective “we” might increase misconduct, according to research.

Congress needs to make it easier to enforce IP protections.