Executive Ethics involves the ability to take the disparate value propositions of various stakeholders and integrate them into a coherent strategy/vision that helps executives and their organizations respond to a wide range of ethical challenges. Doing so requires the capacity to take a stand and to offer a coherent justification for one's decisions. The course helps you develop the ability to consider a wide-range of value perspectives and to integrate them when navigating through any ethical quagmire.

We will explore how recognizing and incorporating competing values claims throughout an organization and industry is often facilitated and hindered by a number of economic, psychological, organizational, and cultural processes. Industries, organizations, and individuals in the 21st century confront a daunting set of challenges. Increasing globalization means doing business in countries with radically different values. At the same time, public awareness and scrutiny of business practices has never been higher. Finally, the combination of technology, globalization and ever-present media has produced rapid cultural and ethical transformations. The focus of this course is on helping organizations and their leaders navigate this landscape and become more capable of designing procedures and processes to produce ethical outcomes.

This course will help you understand the range of underlying levers managers of organizations typically have at their disposal to successfully implement their value objectives, while anticipating the constraints of the organization's market and non-market environments. It will both provide self-insight and add depth to your perspective and understanding. Ultimately, you will be wiser after taking this class.

Because executive ethics cuts across every discipline in the school, this will class will be staffed by faculty across the school’s divisions. Each faculty will tackle an important issue that their discipline and their expertise illuminate. Below is the schedule of faculty and topics for this version of Executive Ethics.

SN     Date      Professor - Topic

1        5 / 18     Adam Galinsky - Introduction

2        6 / 1       Oded Netzer - Lying with Statistics, Fraud

3        6 / 2       Bruce Usher - Bribery + Corruption

4        6 / 15     Modupe Akinola - Discrimination

5        6 / 16     Wei Jiang - CEO Power

6        7 / 7       Ann Heinrichs - Accounting Dilemmas

7        7 / 20     Christopher Meyer - Corruptible Industry / Real Estate

8        7 / 21     Tomasz Piskorski - Mortgage Fraud, Rating Agencies

9        8 / 3       Pierre Yared - Income Inequality

10      8 / 17     Charles Angelucci - Anti-Trust

11      8 / 18     Michel Pham - Marketing Deception

12      8 / 25     Adam Galinsky - Conclusion

Adam Galinsky

Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics

Adam Galinsky is the Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School.

Professor Galinsky has published more than 200 scientific articles, chapters, and teaching cases in the fields of management and social psychology. His research and teaching focus on leadership, power, negotiations, decision-making, diversity, and ethics.

Professor Galinsky co-authored the best-selling book, Friend & Foe

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