Ethics Trainings Are Even Dumber Than You Think; Slate, 5/19/16

L.V. Anderson, Slate; Ethics Trainings Are Even Dumber Than You Think:

"Research shows that the only thing that actually prevents wrongdoing is a strong company culture that discourages wrongdoing. That 1999 study found that the best approach was “a values-based cultural approach” comprising “leaders’ commitment to ethics, fair treatment of employees, rewards for ethical conduct, concern for external stakeholders, and consistency between policies and actions.” In other words, there’s no quick fix for corporate ethics: “[C]oncerns for ethics and legal compliance must be baked into the culture of the organization.” If executives focused on culture—and if regulators gave it more weight than box-checking when considering corporate malfeasance—we would reduce corporate malfeasance and waste a lot less time on the simplistic ethical dilemmas of fictional characters."