South Korea Writing Robot Code of Ethics

Even robots have to worry about ethics codes.

An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by the government of South Korea, where millions of dollars are being devoted to robot research. South Korea is one of the world's most high-tech societies and authorities there say that robotics are a key economic driver. The Ministry of Information and Communication has predicted that every South Korean household will have a robot by between 2015 and 2020, according to BBC News.

The new guidelines could reflect the three laws of robotics put forward by author Isaac Asimov in his short story Runaround in 1942.

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Kiss Sarbanes-Oxley Goodbye?

When the new Congress began its session in January, two familiar faces were not present: Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes and Rep. Michael G. Oxley, who are both retiring (after 30 and 26 years, respectively.) Many companies think their main legacy, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, ought to be retired with them.

Sarbanes-Oxley has seriously harmed American corporations and financial markets without increasing investor confidence, say critics.

Corporate Responsibility Spurns New Businesses and Conferences

Corporate ethics crises have turned corporate responsibility into a big business. It's got its own conference, and a directory of companies that provide services to corporate responsibility officers.

The first annual conference for Corporate Responsibility Officers will take place in New York City on November 1.

Featured speakers include: Vice Chair of Citigroup Lewis Kaden, Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Alan Murray, Bloomberg News Editor Marty Schenker, Def Jam Records and Comedy and Phat Farm Fashions founder Russell Simmons, and 20 other Corporate Responsibility officers telling their success stories.

Business Ethics Gurus' Business is Booming

It's a hot time to be a business ethics expert says the Atlanta Journal Constitution. One sign: the Atlanta for the Society for Business Ethics' annual conference workshops included their first-ever workshop for members on how to deal with the press. Other sessions included "Markets and Business Ethics," "The Corporation and Moral Agency" and one titled simply "Wal-Mart."

Need certified multilanguage translation of your company's Code of Ethics? Phone Sloan Friedman at SRF Global Translations.

Is Options Gate a McCarthy Era for Business Ethics?

Has Silicon Alley entered the McCarthy era for business ethics? A widening federal investigation into suspicious stock options allocations at least 57 companies, including 25 based in Silicon Valley is "rattling corporate boardrooms, entrepreneurs and rank-and-file workers alike," according to the San Jose Mercury News

Red Herring reports that "Investors are hammering the stocks of many of the companies affected by the inquiries and are asking questions about how well these companies have been governed."

The rush to judgment is "a shame" Michael Gray, a certified public accountant, wrote in a newsletter. "We may be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs."

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Moral Liability is Hidden Threat to Corporations: Fortune

Companies will pay a price if they fail to meet society's expectation that they act ethically. Merely obeying the law, or following compliance guidelines to the letter is not enough, writes Marc Gunther in Fortune. Companies need to meet their "moral liability" or face bigger threats from customers than from government or courts.

Sometimes the price will be damage to a brand or reputation. Other times, the cost will be more concrete, in the form of lawsuits, damage awards or lost sale," Gunther says. The good news is that "...all these social issues present opportunities as well as threats... the best way for business to avoid "moral liability" - become part of the solution instead of part of the problem."

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Sarbanes-Oxley: $10 Billion a Word?

Global Services points out that each word in the 168-word Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley costs the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year.

"This, says the editorial, "at a time when companies are under severe pressure to become lighter and innovate more as global competition intensifies. No Chinese or Indian company is being made to spend 15% of IT budgets on compliance (Gartner’s numbers)."

Politicians and Policy Wonks Attend Ethics Camp. But No S'mores

Politicians have nothing on Ethics Crisis' anonymous ethics confessions. That's why it's refreshing to read that instead of clipboard and whistles, counselors at Ethics and Leadership Camp for politicians and public officials wore "moral compasses" around their necks, in an effort to create "a culture of ethics and accountability," according to Judy Nadler, a former mayor of Santa Clara and a senior fellow at the university's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, the host and sponsor.

The New York Times reports that the two dozen or so campers — including local city council members and ethics officers from Texas and Arizona — were "a veritable optimists' club."

Dean J. Chu, a council member from nearby Sunnyvale, chose to go to camp "as a continuing reminder of how you should behave." Mr. Chu added, "Unfortunately, the kind of people attending are not the ones who need to."

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Mark Cuban Shakes Up Investment Ethics With Sharesleuth

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and seriate entrepreneur has funded a website called sharesleuth, which will focus on "corporate chicanery and securities fraud." The site will initially have a blog format, then, after it proves its worth, go subscription.

Cuban told BusinessWeek.com in an email that he'll buy and sell stocks based on scoops the site uncovers, even before they're published.

"There are a million ugly stories in the financial underground," he wrote. "We plan on finding and sharing and profiting from them." He declined to comment further.

Isn't that insider trading? Didn't Martha Stewart go to jail for that? Not necessarily.

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Japan's Top Banker Embroiled in Ethics Scandal

Revelations that the Japanese central bank governor, Toshihiko Fukui, owned $90,000 of a stock fund accused in an insider trading scandal have raised an ethics issues for the bank and helped cause not only the biggest sell-off in Tokyo's stock market since 9/11, but also a political firestorm, according to The New York Times.

A Bank of Japan spokesman, Takashi Yoshimura, denied that there is an ethics issue, saying that the bank's ethics guidelines only required employees, including Mr. Fukui, to report internally any purchases or sales of stocks, and any profits, and did not limit where they could invest their money.

In the most understated comment of the year, Mr. Fukui apologized during a meeting of Cabinet members. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have created a fuss."

"At the very least, it is a warning that the bank needs to tighten its ethical standards," said Naoki Iizuka, chief economist at the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute.

Ethics Awards Nominations Sought

The Ethics Web annual Ethics in Action Awards and Business Ethics Magazine's 2006 Business Ethics Annual Award are accepting nominations of companies that are "out ahead of the pack, showing the way ethically." Ethics compliance champions, start your engines!

Companies Tout Their Ethics Compliance in Enron's Wake - But Only in English

"Nothing focuses the mind like the knowledge you will be hanged in a fortnight," said Columbia University business law professor John Coffee.

He's talking about the way corporations are rushing to tout their ethics codes on their websites in the face of the Enron convictions. Unfortunately, they seem to be doing it in English only. Clearly, American companies still have a ways to go toward true globalization.

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ERC: Tone, connotation crucial in multi-language translations of corporate codes of ethics

In a statement about globalizing a corporate code of ethics, The Ethics Resource Center, the oldest non-profit in the United States devoted to organizational ethics notes:

"... a pure/literal translation of the [corporate] code [of ethics] may not be sufficient. Translating the code back to the original language might reveal inconsistencies.

Tone and connotation are fundamental to this technical and sensitive document.

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MySpace Post: "bribery is an accepted and usual way of doing business"

On his MySpace Blog "Everything I Own is Broken", Gerry Alexander addresses the ethics (or lack thereof) of doing business in a foreign country where bribes are expected for accomplishing everyday tasks like getting a driver's license.

He writes:

"...If you were to personally pay the bribe, you have taken an unethical action.

If you go to your manager and he authorises then makes the payment, you have acted ethically.

This is wrong, foolish and completely unethical in either case as far as I can understand the concept of moral responsibility."

A similar issue is addressed in one of the anonymous confessions on Ethics Crisis, "We paid for new business in another country." Of the 296 readers who've rated this confession so far, the majority found the practice acceptable.

Coping with the Compliance Headache

CRMDaily.com reports:

"The truth is, companies cannot afford to have point solutions for the DEA, DoJ, EPA, FDA, OSHA, and SEC, not to mention state and local requirements. If it is true that more and more business will be driven by regulation in the future, then alignment of business and I.T. is more critical than ever. ...The question becomes how to minimize the impact on business operations."

The article does not mention multi-language translation of corporate ethics compliance materials,, says Sloan Friedman President of SRF Global Translations, although corporations are required by Sarbanes-Oxley to translate codes of conduct, ethics codes and other corporate compliance material into the languages of the countries in which they do business and of all of its employees.

John Hagerty, vice president of research at AMR Research, says:

"the 'overlapping requirements' of the individual compliance mandates mean that the enterprise must have in place nine technologies: an integration infrastructure Relevant Products/Services from Insight; business process management and workflow; learning and education management; content and records management; a data warehouse; a rules engine; an alerting engine; identity and security management Relevant Products/Services from ; and management dashboards and analytics."

Better add certified multilanguage translation and make that 10!

AASCB Conference: Ethics in Business Schools

Integrity is Everything: Ethics and Governance Conference of the AACSB presents an opportunity to hear, compare and analyze the critical role of ethical practices in today's modern business schools.

Ventura Paper Uproar: Ethical Lapse or Business as Usual?

The newsroom at the Ventura County Star is in an uproar about an ethics violation by Managing Editor Richard Luna, The issue forced a mass meeting with the publisher--and prompted the paper to bring in parent company E.W. Scripps' human resources director.

Luna's ethics transgression?

"He put pressure on a sports reporter to obtain press credentials for him to attend two Final Four college basketball tournament games. He did not report on the games, and would not ordinarily have qualified for the credentials."

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Welcome to Ethics Crisis Blog

Welcome! This is SRF Global Translations new Ethics Crisis Blog, written by well-known blogger B.L. Ochman.

SRF Global Translations specializes in mindful, nuanced multilanguage translation of ethics compliance materials for multinational companies.

Ethics Crisis Blog will cover global business ethics issues, with a bit of a twist. Please subscribe to the Ethics Crisis Blog's RSS feed so you can read and rate the ethics confessions, which are already getting juicy.

Thank You,
Sloan Friedman, President
SRF Global Translations

Dupont Requires Vendors to Follow WOMMA Code of Ethics

Dupont has become the first Fortune 100 marketer to require its employees and vendors worldwide to follow the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's (WOMMA) Code of Ethics

The WOMMA code demands that consumers disclose their relationship with marketers; that they be allowed to form their own honest opinions; and that everyone discloses their true identity.

Gary Spangler, DuPont's representative to WOMMA, said, "DuPont's proactive adoption of this ethics code is a leading example of self-regulation in this emerging field."

via MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog

Business Ethics: Not to Get Caught vs What's Right

Bruce Weinstein PhD, syndicated "Ask the Ethics Guy" columnist, disagrees with a recent study that says businesses are getting more ethical.

"I think in general the ethical standards in the business world have slipped in recent years. I believe that often the standard operating procedure is "not to get caught" rather than "to do what's right." I'm not sure why acceptable business ethics standards have changed, but the faster pace of life and the greater tendency for executives to move around the country and the world seems to have created an era of less accountability."

And, he says, "even in the post-Enron era, boards of directors are still reluctant to exact punishment on executives who misbehave but escape legal prosecution."
Posted by SRF Translations Global