Publications

2022
White Paper

Building from the Bottom Up: What Business Can Do to Strengthen the Bottom Line by Investing in Front-line Workers

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman

A significant number of American workers—44%—are employed in low wage jobs at the front line of industries. Despite undertaking some of the most tedious, dirtiest, and most dangerous jobs, low-wage workers are—and have long been—the most likely to be overlooked by... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Labor Market; Low-wage Workers; Worker Welfare; Churn/retention; Morale; Jobs and Positions; Employees; Wages; Retention; Well-being; Human Resources

June 1990 (Revised October 1991)
Supplement

Lake Pleasant Bodies Case (B)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Describes how the attorney resolved the dilemma he faced, the reasons for his decision, and the consequences he suffered. Displays vividly the personal toll that moral conflicts can create for professionals with role obligations. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Moral Sensibility; Managerial Roles; Outcome or Result; Problems and Challenges

2015
Article

Approach, Ability, Aftermath: A Psychological Framework of Unethical Behavior at Work

By: C. Moore and F. Gino

Many of the scandalous organizational practices that have come to light in the last decade—rigging LIBOR, misselling payment protection insurance, rampant Wall Street insider trading, large-scale bribery of foreign officials, and the packaging and sale of toxic... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Ethics; Decision Making

1997
Dictionary Entry

Incommensurable Values

By: Nien-he Hsieh

Values, such as liberty and equality, are sometimes said to be incommensurable in the sense that their value cannot be reduced to a common measure. The possibility of value incommensurability is thought to raise deep questions about practical reason and rational choice... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Values and Beliefs

July 2017
Article

Business Responsibilities for Human Rights: A Commentary on Arnold

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

Human rights have come to play a prominent role in debates about the responsibilities of business. In the business ethics literature, there are two approaches to the question of whether businesses have human rights obligations. The “moral” approach conceives of human... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Society

17 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

What’s Good about Quiet Rule-Breaking

rules but that used to be often tolerated. However, two important reasons suggest that moral gray zones are here to stay. First, moral gray zones involve tacit managerial... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

05 May 2003
Research & Ideas

Sharing the Responsibility of Corporate Governance

medical ethics, we can teach future business leaders how to use moral reasoning to determine what is ethical and how to create an organization that reduces the temptation to do the unethical. At a minimum,... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

January 2025
Case

Shifting Winds: DEI in Corporate America

By: Clayton S. Rose, Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon and David Lane

In the 2020s, intense and conflicting social and political pressures challenged organizational leaders around the world. Prominent among these were powerful competing views on workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI) in the United States. Public... View Details

Educators

December 2011
Article

Deposit Insurance and Subsidized Recapitalizations

By: Lucy White and Alan Morrison

The 2007–2009 financial crisis saw a vast expansion in deposit insurance guarantees around the world and yet our understanding of the design and consequences of deposit insurance schemes is in its infancy. We provide a new rationale for the provision of deposit... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Insurance; Taxation; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry

05 Dec 2005
What Do You Think?

Is Growth Good?

actually enable the kind of economic growth that we generally measure and read about. It's reasonably obvious, for example, that growth in such things as the rule of law, so-called transparency, and ethical behavior foster trust in... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

25 Jun 2001
Lessons from the Classroom

Machiavelli, Morals, and You

butler in a moral sense. He wanted to give his whole life, a life of service—and 'service' is the word he used—to somebody who was serving a larger cause." Unfortunately, the larger cause Stevens believed himself for decades to be... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Article

Should Business Have Human Rights Obligations?

By: Nien-he Hsieh

Businesses and their managers are increasingly called upon to take on human rights obligations. Focusing on the case of multinational enterprises (MNEs), the paper argues we have reason to reject assigning human rights obligations to business enterprises and their... View Details

Keywords: Human Rights; Ruggie Principles; Corporate Responsibility; Multinationals; Rights; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

19 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Charitable Organizations Can Thwart Excuses for Not Giving

how much good the donation will achieve. “That gives you some moral wiggle room to pursue the more selfish action,” says Exley, an assistant professor in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at HBS. Her research attempts to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

self-interest and, often, without regard for moral principles—is silent during the planning stage of a decision but typically emerges and dominates at the time of the decision. Not only will your self-interested motives be more prevalent... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

June 2020
Article

Air Pollution, State Anxiety, and Unethical Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review

By: J Lu, J. Lee, F. Gino and A. Galinsky

Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky (2018) reported four studies demonstrating that air pollution predicted unethical behavior and that one mediating mechanism was state anxiety. In contrast, Heck and colleagues reported two null-effect studies on air pollution, trait... View Details

Keywords: State Anxiety; Pollution; Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Analysis

06 Dec 2011
Op-Ed

Greater Fiscal Integration Best Solution for Euro Crisis

deleveraging that made them sell European sovereign debt. But the ECB's most powerful weapon - intervening in the bond market - is still locked away. Draghi needs to create consensus among the German "hawks" who worry about the inflationary risks of debt... View Details

Keywords: by Dante Roscini

April 2011
Article

Ethical Breakdowns: Good People often Let Bad Things Happen. Why?

By: Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel

Companies are spending a great deal of time and money to install codes of ethics, ethics training, compliance programs, and in-house watchdogs. If these efforts worked, the money would be well spent. But unethical behavior appears to be on the rise. The authors observe... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Behavior; Conflict of Interests