Assignment : Ethics
WHAT:
Answer questions based on the podcast and article.
Planet Money Podcast "Why People Do Bad Things".
Slate "Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical".
WHY:
Research done by behavioral psychologists and economists over the past 15 years has changed our view on ethical behavior. They have found that most unethical behavior is the result of our "ethical blind spots". This leads to the all too common phenomenon of "good people doing bad things".
As future leaders of organizations you need to understand how this happens, and how you as a leader might be able steer behavior toward more ethical ends.
Question 1
From "Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical": Describe Ariel Rubinstein's experiment on judgment and empathy and summarize his findings and conclusions in your own words.
Question 2
From "Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical": What are the top two responses give by students to the question, "Why do you want to be a CEO"?
Question 3
From "Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical": The author's note that if business schools want to get students to integrate ethics into the practical tools of business they need to incorporate ethics throughout the curriculum.What does this mean?
Question 4
From "Why People Do Bad Things": Why were employees inside Toby's company and people outside his company willing to help him with the fraud?
Question 5
From "Why People Do Bad Things": What kinds of goals does a business frame activate?
Question 6
From "Why People Do Bad Things": What was Toby's first lie and how did he rationalize it to himself?
Question 7
From "Why People Do Bad Things": What do researchers say about the idea that bad behavior is largely a function of a person's character?
Question 8
From "Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical": The article gives examples of the "selfserving" bias that can lead to unethical behavior. What is one example of this from the article?
Question 9
From "Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical": According to the authors what is the most promising approach to teaching ethics?