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New research on moral sensibility from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including the true impact of white-collar crime, the boundaries of ethical tipping behavior, the costs of lacking integrity and the fallacy of using a cost/benefit analysis when deciding whether to honor your word.
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If a Car Can Drive Itself, Can It Make Life-or-Death Decisions?

by Tom Quinn

AI is transforming industries from retail to finance, but what about the moral quandaries posed by thinking machines? Buckle your seatbelts: Joseph Badaracco probes the most consequential questions raised by self-driving cars.

McDonald’s and the Post #MeToo Rules of Sex in the Workplace

by Avery Forman

As #MeToo cast a spotlight on harassment in the workplace, former McDonald's CEO Stephen Easterbrook went from savior to pariah. Drawing from a series of case studies, Lynn Paine outlines eight lessons all corporate boards can take away from the scandal to improve culture and prevent abuse of power.

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

by Dina Gerdeman

Corporate misconduct has grown in the past 30 years, with losses often totaling billions of dollars. What businesses may not realize is that misconduct often results from managers who set unrealistic expectations, leading decent people to take unethical shortcuts, says Lynn S. Paine.

Struggling With a Big Management Decision? Start by Asking What Really Matters

by Dina Gerdeman

Leaders must face hard choices, from cutting a budget to adopting a strategy to grow. To make the right call, they should start by following their own “true moral compass,” says Joseph Badaracco.

Doing Well by Doing Good? One Industry’s Struggle to Balance Values and Profits

by Scott Van Voorhis

Few companies wrestle with their moral mission and financial goals like those in journalism. Research by Lakshmi Ramarajan explores how a disrupted industry upholds its values even as the bottom line is at stake.

Why Ethical People Become Unethical Negotiators

by Dina Gerdeman

You may think you are an ethical person, but self-interest can cloud your judgment when you sit down at the bargaining table, says Max Bazerman. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Should CEO Satya Nadella Cancel Microsoft’s Contract with ICE?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP Respondents to this month’s James Heskett column provided a resounding “no” to the question of whether Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella should accede to the wishes of a vocal minority of employees and cancel ICE contracts. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Op-Ed: After Charlottesville, Where Does a CEO's Responsibility Lie?

by Gautam Mukunda

Donald Trump, the "business president," has recently had serious disagreements with some of the most powerful CEOs in the country. Gautam Mukunda discusses the responsibility of business leaders to themselves, their companies, and their country. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How To Deceive Others With Truthful Statements (It's Called 'Paltering,' And It's Risky)

by Dina Gerdeman

Presidential candidates do it. Business leaders do it. You probably do it, too. Paltering is a gentle form of lying, but is reviled by negotiators on the receiving end. Research by Francesca Gino, Michael Norton, and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Do Leaders Manage the Tension Between Pride and Arrogance?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP: James Heskett's readers agree that leaders can and should influence whether an organization crosses the line from pride to arrogance, and that it's possible to lead close to the line without crossing it. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Bernie Madoff Explains Himself

by Carmen Nobel

A few years ago, professor Eugene Soltes phoned convicted felon Bernie Madoff and asked him an important question: How would you explain your actions and misconduct to students? The recorded answer offers sobering lessons for anyone with business ambitions. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?

by Paul Healy and George Serafeim

Punishments of white-collar crime are systematically related to perpetrator, transaction, and company characteristics. This variation is consistent with executives determining appropriate punishments by an economic analysis of costs and benefits. Even so, senior male executives receive lighter punishments than female peers, for example. These and other variations suggest that not all decisions about punishment are taken with shareholders’ interests in mind: The self-interest of host company executives is also an important consideration.

5 Weight Loss Tips From Behavioral Economists

by Carmen Nobel

Behavioral economists study what motivates people to buy, save, donate, and any other number of actions that build society. The following studies reveal proven methods of encouraging healthy eating and exercise. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Are You Paying a Tip--or a Bribe?

by Dina Gerdeman

Both are rewards for service, so why is one considered outside the boundaries of ethical behavior? Harvard Business School professor Magnus Thor Torfason on the thin line. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Clayton Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

World-renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen explores the personal benefits of business research in the forthcoming book How Will You Measure Your Life? Coauthored with James Allworth and Karen Dillon, the book explains how well-tested academic theories can help us find meaning and happiness not just at work, but in life. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Ethical Can We Be?

by Jim Heskett

Summing Up Managers like to think they act ethically, but at the end of the day ethical action is subjective, readers tell Jim Heskett. Reaction to the new book Blind Spots. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Integrity: Without It Nothing Works

by Michael C. Jensen

"An individual is whole and complete when their word is whole and complete, and their word is whole and complete when they honor their word," says HBS professor Michael C. Jensen in this interview that appeared in Rotman: The Magazine of the Rotman School of Management, Fall 2009. Jensen (and his coauthors, Werner Erhard and Steve Zaffron) define and discuss integrity ("a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, in perfect condition"); the workability that integrity creates for individuals, groups, organizations, and society; and its translation into organizational performance. He also discusses the costs of lacking integrity and the fallacy of using a cost/benefit analysis when deciding whether to honor your word. Key concepts include: The personal and organizational benefits of honoring one's word are huge—both for individuals and for organizations—and generally unappreciated. We can honor our word in one of two ways: by keeping it on time and as promised, or if that becomes impossible, by owning up to the parties counting on us to keep our word in advance and cleaning up the mess our failure to keep our word creates in their lives. By failing to honor our word to ourselves, we undermine ourselves as persons of integrity, and create "unworkability" in our lives. Integrity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for maximum performance. There are unrecognized but significant costs to associating with people and organizations that lack integrity. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

SuperCorp: Values as Guidance System

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

In her new book SuperCorp, professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter details how vanguard companies such as IBM, Cemex, and Omron are rewriting the nature of the business enterprise and how firms will gain sustainable prosperity in the 21st century. Read our excerpt. Key concepts include: Grounding strategy in a sense of wider societal purpose provides many significant advantages and only a few potential disadvantages. Vanguard companies gain both a moral compass and an entire guidance system. To be strategic, a principles-based initiative must contribute to the fundamental way the company makes money, with customers and clients in mind. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

What’s Good about Quiet Rule-Breaking

by Martha Lagace

If your company quietly allows employees to break some rules with the tacit approval of management, that's a moral gray zone. And your company is not alone. When rules are broken but privileges are not abused, such unspoken pacts between workers and management can allow both to achieve their respective goals of expressing professional identity and sustaining efforts in positive ways, says HBS professor Michel Anteby. Q&A Key concepts include: Moral gray zones in organizations rely on trust. Even if monitoring of employees increases, such gray zones are here to stay. Moral gray zones test middle management's ability to manage and to prevent abuses of mutual trust. Strong communities within occupations provide the unstated but necessary guidelines to ensure proper use of moral gray zones. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People’s Unethical Behavior

by Francesca Gino, Don A. Moore & Max H. Bazerman

Even good people sometimes act unethically without their own awareness. This paper explores psychological processes as they affect the ethical perception of others' behavior, and concludes with implications for organizations. First, there is a tendency for people to overlook unethical behavior in others when recognizing such behavior would harm them. Second, people might readily ignore unethical behavior when others have an agent do their dirty work for them. Third, gradual moral decay leads people to grow comfortable with behavior to which they would otherwise object. Fourth, the tendency to value outcomes over processes can lead us to accept unethical processes for far too long. Key concepts include: Most people value ethical decisions and behavior, and strive to be good. Yet psychological processes sometimes lead them to engage in questionable behaviors that are inconsistent with their own values and beliefs. It is common to fail to notice or act on information when dealing with ethically relevant decisions. Organizational leaders must understand these processes and make the structural changes necessary to reduce the harmful effects of human psychological and ethical limitations. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.