This article was originally sourced from the article “When Two Rights Make a Wrong,” which appeared on Kellogg’s News & Events page.
Adam Waytz, an assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, recently partnered with online knowledge forum Big Think to sharpen the ethical behavior of business leaders.
The seven-module course titled Ethics in Action includes a series of scenarios, videos and quizzes on topics like “Loyalty vs. Fairness,” “Professional Duty vs. Personal Ethics,” “Speaking Truth to Power” and “Profit Maximization vs. Social Responsibility.”
“Given that many businesses at the turn of the 21st century have been viewed as undergoing ethical failures, the topic is timely,” Waytz said. “And given the nature of how quickly information moves, details about one’s reputation are now more public — and easier to access — than ever before.”
For businesses increasingly reliant on global collaboration, the establishment of trust is vitally important.
“This trust can only be ensured through displays of ethical behavior,” Waytz says. But how does that trust bridge cultural differences? Ethics in Action devotes a module to that topic as well.
Ethics in Action’s modules feed into a larger conversation about how decision-making influences the corporate health of organizations. Using ethical conundrums as learning models can help people pause and think when making similar decisions in their own companies.