Tag: Bentley

Writing a Company’s Code of Ethics

W. Michael Hoffman of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College penned a 1999 Writing a Company’s Code of Ethics for Perspectives on the Professions.

If employees are not brought into the process in some such way as I have suggested, they will be turned off. The code will seem something “they” have imposed on “us”. That’s not what ethics should be. Ethics should be part of an organizational community. Everything should be done to make employees see that having a code of ethics can strengthen the ethical environment in which they work, as well as protect the company legally. Everything should be done to make employees understand that the code is subject to change, revision, and renewal – and that they will have a part. So, in a sense, the code is never finished.

The Power of How presentation by Dov Seidman

LRN published the transcript of a presentation by Dov Seidman at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University: The Power of How: Achieving Enduring Success Through Ethics.

Basically, in a world in which nothing stays hidden, you have to act as if you have nothing to hide. But before you can act as though you have nothing to hide, in fact, you must have nothing to hide. There is an opportunity to literally out-behave your competition. You might not be able to answer a phone faster. You might not be able to create an anti-tampering device and market your bottled water on the basis of that device, because all the manufacturers of bottled water have that nailed down. But you can out-behave someone.