April 2009 BBEOC conference

From: RDShatt
To: mgilley@stmarytx.edu, TMazur@theecoa.org, armando@canonburygroup.com, bolson@theecoa.org, Jacqueline_Brevard@merck.com, lou.bringht@tabc.state.tx.us, James.OToole@du.edu, steve@ethicalleadershipgroup.com
Sent: 9/6/2009 8:07:56 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Some thoughts for April 2009 BBEOC conference speakers

Dear Conference Speakers,

I did not attend the April 2009 conference "Building & Benefiting from an Ethical Organizational Culture."

The titles of your speeches at the conference suggest a wide ranging exposition of the topic of building and maintaining an ethical corporate culture.

I am interested in the extent to which there was addressed at the conference the interface between, on the one hand. the internal building and internal propagating of an ethical organizational ethos and, on the other hand, externally created and externally applied regimens, such as that of the criminal law. I cannot tell from the titles of the speeches whether that interface was covered in the conference.

It would seem that such interface between the internal and the external is a very important factor. This is manifestly established by the ECOA organization name and the "compliance" half of the organization name that refers to compliance with an externally imposed regimen, and by that regimen dictating at least part of the behavior that the organizational ethos seeks to engender.

It further would seem very relevant whether there is any tension or contradiction between what the organizational ethos concepts say is ethical and what the externally imposed regimen mandates. Hasnas and others have extensively explored this on the criminal law front related to the so-called "cooperative model" the federal government has adopted in applying the criminal law to corporations.. ,

Another externally created and imposed regimen is that of civil law liability. I believe this too has an important interface with the building of an ethical corporate culture. Further I believe the civil law liability system undermines business ethics and undermines the cultivation of an ethical ethos. See my self-published online article Does the Civil Liability System Undermine Business Ethics?

I hope the April BBEOC conference gave some attention to the interface between the internal building of an ethical ethos and externally imposed regimens such as the criminal law. I further hope more consideration will be given in exploring that interface in future conferences, including the interface with the external regimen of civil law liability.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck