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corporate responsibility
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Friday, July 2nd, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about a new kind of corporation that may offer a safer vehicle for doing well while doing good. Let’s presume that you’re the head of a publicly traded company. You’re also something of a social activist, and you want to [...]
How often has BP lied?
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the Interior Department has reportedly fined the U.S. unit of BP $5.2 million for submitting “false, inaccurate or misleading” reports regarding its energy production on Southern Ute Indian Tribal lands in Colorado. According to the Journal, the department alleges that tribal auditors found that BP reported [...]
Kudos to P&G for helping Gulf wildlife
Monday, June 28th, 2010There’s been so much bad news out of the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that I thought it might be nice to focus on the positive efforts being made by Procter & Gamble to help clean up the spill. P&G is the producer of hundreds of household products, including Dawn [...]
Don’t let problems fester
Friday, June 25th, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, I’m a little surprised that I’m about to praise the Tabernacle of Fast Food, McDonald’s. Yes, I know, a lot of the food there is bad for you and the marketing focuses all too effectively on credulous children. Nonetheless, the company’s management [...]
Know the culture where you do business
Friday, June 18th, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about a mistake that we’ve seen two major international corporations make in the very recent past. British Petroleum and Toyota are two enormous companies founded in the U.K. and Japan respectively. They both have done a lot of business here, [...]
Deepwater Horizon is not Hurricane Katrina!
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010As oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico from the damaged Deepwater Horizon oil rig, too many commentators are calling this disaster “President Obama’s Hurricane Katrina.” At first glance, it’s an obvious analogy. After all, both events were disasters affecting the Gulf coast, particularly New Orleans. But while the analogy [...]
Watch Second City’s ethics shorts, laugh, and learn
Monday, June 14th, 2010Last week, I was delighted to get a call from Bill Briggs of MSNBC about Second City’s new series of business ethics training films. That’s right - the fabulous lunatics who brought us Saturday Night Live have produced a series of shorts showing employees what not to do where business ethics are concerned.
Companies are [...]
Let your employees have a life
Sunday, June 13th, 2010Returning to my series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about a mistake that employers make all too often, especially when times are hard and unemployment is running rampant. Some companies may find it very, very tempting right now to come down hard on employees who seem to put their work [...]
Why hasn’t Hearst Corp. helped Helen Thomas apologize?
Thursday, June 10th, 2010Helen Thomas used to be one of the most powerful people in Washington. The grande dame of the White House press corps played a starring role in five decades of Presidential press conferences. She was smart, tough, and articulate, and a worthy challenger to ten different Administrations - until she made some appalling [...]
When business disasters happen, how much can the government do?
Monday, June 7th, 2010With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in its 49th day (how horrible is that?) fingers are pointing in every direction. While British Petroleum remains the primary target of public outrage, the Obama Administration is taking tremendous heat for failing to prevent this unprecedented catatrophe. That’s understandable - but is it fair?
Businesses that operate [...]