The Big Hustle Theranos was a privately held health corporation that was touted as a breakthrough technology company. It claimed to have devised blood tests that required only exceedingly small amounts of blood and could be performed very rapidly using small automated devices the company had developed. However, the claims later proved to be false. Here is their […]
What Happened to Theranos? Read More »
Analyzing Motives for Behavior What motivates a parent to bribe key people to get their kid admitted to a prestigious university? That is the ethical question of “Operation Varsity Blues.” In March 2019, the story broke of an alarming fraudulent scheme by parents to pay off middleman, William “Rick” Singer, and athletic coaches to give
Operation Varsity Blues Revisited Read More »
Venting on Social Media The right to free speech is guaranteed in our Constitution. However, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others can limit, control, and censor speech. Federal law does not offer much recourse for social media users who object to whether and how these companies present a user’s content. It can
The Danger of Posting Critical Comments Online Read More »
Kindness Breeds Civility We’ve heard it many times before. This person is kind. But what do we mean by kindness, and how can we tell if someone is kind? What are the characteristic traits of behavior? Kindness is generally thought of as the quality of being friendly, considerate, and generous. A kind person considers the
The Ethics of Kindness Read More »
Calling out the Cancel Culture I have previously blogged about the cancel culture and implications for free speech. The overall ethical question is: Is it right to target a person with whom you disagree, and use the Internet to express your outrage, get people fired, or push them out of certain circles? Canceling someone can lead
We Have Diversity in Society and the Workplace but Not in Thought Read More »
It’s Time to Allow Employees to Participate More Fully in Stock Ownership The disconnect between Wall Street and what we now call the “woke” culture is startling. During the week ended June 5, the stock market rose 1,985 points or about 20% on the Dow, the highest increase in value for some time. During the
Closing the Gap Between the Haves and Have Nots: A Call for Compassionate Capitalism Read More »
Advice For Parents We all know that K-12 students are using digital platforms much more for personal and educational purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This opens the possibility that cyberbullying will occur online. Parents and kids need to know how to protect themselves during these trying times. With so many U.S. states closing schools until
The Key to Using Artificial Intelligence Ethically Read More »
What is the Public Interest? It’s been about 18 years since Congress created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in response to widespread fraud in the financial statements of the likes of Enron and WorldCom. Given the high rate of audit deficiencies identified in PCAOB inspections of public company audits, the time is right to
Is it Time to Reconfigure the PCAOB? Read More »
A Critical Analysis of the Business Roundtable Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation On August 19, 2019, the Business Roundtable issued a Statement of the Purpose of a Corporation that really is a mission statement, not a plan of action. As such, it is short on details about how corporations can achieve their purpose
Social Responsibilities of Corporations and the Public Good Read More »
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Recommendations for Students If I were still a teaching professor, at this time of year I would have been inundated with student requests for letters of recommendation. Alas, I retired 1 ½ years ago so this is one chore I no longer have to do. What’s more
Should You Write That Letter of Recommendation? Read More »