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Ethics
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- February 2012
- Case
Henkel: Building a Winning Culture
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details
- February 2012
- Article
Walking the Talk in Multiparty Bargaining: An Experimental Investigation
By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Katherine L. Milkman and Markus Noth
We study the framing effects of communication on payoffs in multiparty bargaining. Communication has been shown to be more truthful and revealing than predicted in equilibrium. Because talk is preference revealing, it may effectively frame bargaining around a logic of... View Details
- December 2012
- Article
Behavioral Ethics: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Moral Judgment and Dishonesty
By: Max Bazerman and Francesca Gino
Early research and teaching on ethics focused on either a moral development perspective or philosophical approaches, and used a normative approach by focusing on the question of how people should act when resolving ethical dilemmas. In this paper, we briefly describe... View Details
- Article
Deception and Its Detection: Effects of Monetary Incentives and Personal Relationship History
By: Lyn M. Van Swol, Deepak Malhotra and Michael T. Braun
The study examined detection of deception in unsanctioned, consequential lies between either friends or strangers using an ultimatum game. The sender was given an amount of money to divide with the receiver. The receiver did not know the precise amount the sender had... View Details
- January 2012
- Article
Three Cheers for Teaching Distributive Bargaining
Back in the 1990s, business school professors at an Academy of Management conference debated the propriety of teaching distributive bargaining to their students. The particulars of that exchange are lost in the mists of time, but at the end of the session, a straw poll... View Details
- December 2011 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Akamai's Edge (A)
In 2009, Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai, the leading online content delivery network with a 60% market share, needs to decide how to respond to aggressive entry in its market, whether and how to pursue the explosive growth in online video, and whether to stay with its... View Details
- December 2011
- Article
Economics Education and Greed
By: Long Wang, Deepak Malhotra and J. Keith Murnighan
The recent financial crisis, and repeated corporate scandals, raise serious questions about whether a business school education contributes to what some have described as a culture of greed. The dominance of economic-related courses in MBA curricula led us to assess... View Details
- October 2011
- Case
Chris and Alison Weston (A)
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Chris and Alison Weston describe how they, a well-educated middle class couple, ended up committing mail fraud, for which they each served a year and a half in federal prison. The case highlights for students how otherwise upstanding individuals much like themselves... View Details
- October 2011
- Supplement
Chris and Alison Weston (B)
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Chris and Alison Weston describe their trial process and time in prison. View Details
- October 2011 (Revised December 2022)
- Background Note
Ethical Analysis: Moral Disengagement
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Moral disengagement is a process that enables people to engage in negative behaviors, from small misdeeds to great atrocities, without believing that they are causing harm or doing wrong. When Conrad Black, the fallen Canadian mogul convicted of multiple counts of... View Details
- 2011
- Chapter
American Exceptionalism?: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins and Trajectory of U.S. Business Education Development
By: Rakesh Khurana
As business education in an academic setting becomes an increasingly global phenomenon, the university-based business school in America remains a unique institution. This holds true despite the fact that the American business school as it evolved in the post-World War... View Details
- 2011
- Chapter
Ethical Discrepancy: Changing Our Attitudes to Resolve Moral Dissonance
By: L. L. Shu, F. Gino and M. H. Bazerman
- September 2011
- Case
AXA Private Equity: The Diana Investment
By: Michael J. Roberts and William A. Sahlman
The case focuses on an investment made by AXA Private Equity, a French manufacturer of food ingredients. The investment is made at the height of the financial markets, and financed with significant debt. Soon thereafter, the financial crisis impacted the company's... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
A Global Leader's Guide to Managing Business Conduct
An extensive global survey by three Harvard Business School professors finds that employees agree on core standards of corporate behavior. But meeting those standards will require new approaches to managing business conduct. The compliance and ethics programs of most... View Details
- August 2011 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Boardroom Battle Behind Bars: Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings—A Corporate Governance Drama
By: William C. Kirby and Tracy Yuen Manty
Despite widespread news of the incarceration of Gome Electronics' CEO, Huang Guangyu, Bain Capital felt they carefully undertook due diligence before making a significant investment in the company. The venture capital firm was confident that it and the current... View Details
Keywords: China; Legal Aspects Of Business; Corruption; Risk; Corporate Governance; Crime and Corruption; Power and Influence; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Venture Capital; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Values and Beliefs; Private Equity; China
- 2011
- Working Paper
Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the U.S. over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about... View Details
- July 2011 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
Ultimate Fighting Championship: License to Operate (A)
By: George Serafeim and Kyle Welch
The case describes the challenges that Ultimate Fighting Championship faced as a result of regulatory opposition and loss of the license to operate. The genesis of the business idea, the subsequent growth, and the fall of the UFC are described. The case concludes with... View Details