Ethics Resource Center

Published: February 18, 2009

January 2009 Fellows Meeting

View photos from the January 2009 Fellows meeting at ERC's Flickr photo gallery

Anticipating the huge crowds, booked-up hotels and impossible traffic of Washington, D.C. during a presidential inauguration, the ERC Fellows Program’s annual January meeting retreated this year to the quiet of Tidewater Virginia, home of sparkling ocean waters, the U.S. Navy and a newly refurbished Chesapeake Marriott conference center.

Far from the U.S. Capitol festivities, the Fellows had time and space to focus on three days of discussions that ranged over a broad perspective of ethics and compliance – starting with Aristotle, exploring the avatars of Second Life and concluding with a provocative discussion of how social responsibility can be profitable.

Aristotle was introduced by the Rev. Robert Spitzer S.J., president of Gonzaga University in Spokane, who led a rapt audience on a guided tour of the philosophical underpinnings of modern ethics.   

The trail led from the “virtue ethics” of the ancient Greeks to the “principle-based ethics” of Jewish and Christian traditions, to the “utilitarian” ideas of Hobbes, Bentham and Mill.

His tour also covered the “Four Levels of Happiness” – immediate gratification (Level 1); personal achievement/ego (Level 2); good beyond self (Level 3), and ultimate good (Level 4).  (Snacks and drinks in the hallway outside were Level 1.)

In an afternoon session, the agenda turned to current-day realities as Fannie Mae Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer William Senhauser presented ideas about how a chief ethics and compliance officer can keep the attention of senior executives during difficult economic times.

The Fellows closed out their day with an introspective session on the state of the ERC Fellows Program itself.  The wide-ranging discussion allowed the Fellows to offer up their concerns, suggestions and preferences to the ERC staff, with an eye toward ensuring the continued success of the program.

The next day gave Fellows a fascinating – some might say unnerving – look at the future. “A New Frontier for Ethics” focused on social networking technologies, what they are, how they work, and what they may mean for the workplace, and specifically for workplace ethics. David Childers, president and CEO of EthicsPoint, led the discussion.

That was followed by Laura Thomas of Dell, Inc., who brought Dell into the “metaverse” with the creation of Dell Island in Second Life, a virtual world of avatars, including her own, “Pyrrha Dell.”

As Laura wrote later in her blog on Dell’s web site:
“My primary role was tour guide. Virtual worlds are hard to truly grasp until you actually go inside them. Snapshots in PowerPoint decks can't really do them justice, so I woke to a bit of panic when I saw that Second Life was going down for an hour of emergency maintenance right before my time on the day's agenda! Fortunately, I made it in and spent what turned out to be too short of a time taking the Fellows on a walking, and flying, tour of Dell Island.

“We stopped near a gazebo to talk about our 2007 Earth Day event and discuss how we handled things when a protestor showed up. We dropped in at the coffee shop where our technical support guru, Esperto Dell, was hanging out to dispense customer assistance instead of virtual coffee. That provided an opportunity to talk about how Dell expects our employees to adhere to our real world Code of Conduct and policies such as our Online Communication policy when representing us in virtual worlds. A trip to the conference center brought a discussion of privacy issues that might arise when our employees hold meetings there.”

After orienting themselves with social networking technologies, the Fellows were challenged to find solutions to several workplace case studies, designed to make the Fellows think about the potential ethical issues that may arise from their use in the workplace.

The Fellows’ solutions to these studies were discussed in-depth with a panel of David Childers, Laura Thomas, Deborah Johnson (a professor of applied ethics at the University of Virginia), and attorney Sean Kane.

The final session was dedicated to discussing the rise of social networking technologies as an opportunity to improve the ethical cultures of the Fellows’ organizations.  Along with the panelists, the Fellows were encouraged to think of unique ways to use these technologies as a means for organizational change. Several ERC Fellows left the meeting with new ideas that would help them expand the ethics office outreach and “put a face” on the ethics office.

On the final day, Laura Hartman, a professor of business ethics and legal studies at DePaul University in Chicago, discussed a new take on corporate social responsibility strategies.  Her presentation was based on her current work, which suggests that typical corporate social responsibility programs are flawed in that they are purely philanthropic in nature, and are therefore at risk for sudden termination in times of economic hardship.  She promoted the concept of companies assisting developing communities in ways that both stimulate development, but also turn a profit.  This way, the program would be more insulated from cuts in times of economic downturn, and therefore a more reliable program.

The Fellows departed having seen the past, the present and the future – if not the inauguration.

In This Issue

• The Policy Report By Paula J. Desio, ERC Chair on Ethics Policy
  - New Rules for Federal Contractors: You Must Disclose Wrongdoing
  - Federal Whistleblower Rights Increase Under the Stimulus Law
  - Criminal Liability: What’s on the Horizon?
  
• Guest Column By Andrea Bonime-Blanc
  Governance, Risk, Ethics and Compliance: Time for a Seat at the Executive Table
• Column By Patricia J. Harned, Ph.D. President, ERC
• One Vision of Ethics by Phillip B. Goldberg, ERC Vice President/Development
• January 2009 Fellows Meeting