Bounded Ethicality we are unaware of physiological and organizational factors that influence us to make unethical decisions Not aware that you are doing anything wrong We don t gather all relevant information we don t accurately process the information we do get we don t really know what will make us happy Factors that influence our decision making o Please our superiors o Please our peers o We want short term benefits o Misjudge our own abilities Moral Awareness How to act ethically o Moral awareness o Moral decision making o Moral intent o Moral action Factors that contribute to a lack of moral awareness o Ethical fading so focused on one dimension of s situation that the moral dimensions of o that situation fade from view Moral myopia keeps the moral dimensions from coming into focus usually through rationalizations What can we do to change it o Trust your gut o Engage trusted friends and advisors bring in objective third parties o Practice ethical attentiveness Framing how situations are posed controls how we respond including our ethical judgements Self Serving Bias we see things in a light most favorable to our own interests It affects the information we seek out and how we process it Affects how we remember and interpret information Mitigating self serving bias o Engage trusted advisers mentors o Seek objective sources of facts and evidence Loss Aversion we hate losing what we already have much more than we love getting new things This extreme desire to hold on to what we have can lead to unethical behavior How to mitigate when faced with a possible loss try to avoid it by asking yourself whether you would take the same course of action to gain the same amount of benefit Incrementalism working your way up to more unethical actions little by little i e Lance Armstrong Dan Arielly the first dishonest act is the most important one to prevent Studies show that young professional have a strong sense of right and wrong but believe it s fine to cut corners early in their careers to get ahead and they expect to adhere more closely to their moral principles once they have achieved success Intellectual Property creations of the mind that can be legally owned and protected Intellectual property drive innovation Trade Secrets any confidential proprietary business information Very little protection for trade secrets only protect them if you can keep them secret Misappropriation of a trade secret tort crime economic espionage act of 1996 Patents the exclusive right to use sell or license and invention for a period of time Utility patent 20 years Design patent 15 years Plant patent 20 years Requirements to obtain a patent novel useful and non obvious 2011 America Invents Act goes from first to invent to first to file Trademarks any unique name branding a company uses to distinguish itself and its products from those of its competitors Keys to strong trademarks distinctiveness and secondary meaning Risk of dominant trademark becoming generic rebound tumblers product v trampolines company Copyrights the right to protect a recorder expression of a created idea Originally it was as short as 14 years Now it is author s life plus 70 years individual copyrights or shorter of 95 years from date of first publication or 120 years from date of creation for business copyrights Ice Ice Baby v Under Pressure Infringements Patent infringement tort Possible consequences forced royalty payments injunction destruction of infringing items Direct infringement when someone uses your trademark without your permission in an unauthorized way that ends up confusing consumers Dilution when someone uses your trademark but it isn t exactly the same but weakens your brand Fair Use Doctrine use of copyrighted material without permission is ok if o It is used for parody o A short portion is used in a news report o A short portion is used by a student or teacher for educational purposes o It used for critique or review o It is used in a judicial legislative proceeding Misconceptions of ourselves We all think were better than we are We all think others are worse than they are Fundamental attribution error when others do bad things we think it s because they re bad people when we do bad things we think it s because of our circumstances Have empathy for others do not assume you are better than others put yourself in someone else s shoes learn from the mistakes of others Moral Equilibrium We all keep a running scoreboard in our heads comparing our behavior with our mental image of ourselves when we have a hard workout do we feel we deserve extra dessert that night Moral compensation when we do good to compensate for unethical behavior Moral licensing giving ourselves permission to be bad because we ve built up a reserve of good deeds Cognitive dissonance our minds can entertain two contradictory concepts at the same time our brains will make use resolve the conflict one way or another when we resolve it by action unethically we rationalize behavior we previously believe to be wrong as no longer being wrong Four factors that promote cognitive dissonance o Irrevocable commitment o Foreseeable consequences o Responsibility for consequences o Effort Suggestions for reducing it o Never ignore guilty feelings in your gut o Learn the ways our minds trick us into having incorrect views of ourselves o Know the types of rationalization we use to excuse our behavior Overconfidence bias we tend to believe we are more ethical than our actions would suggest How can we avoid overconfidence bias o Try some humility o Don t surround yourself with yes men Imposter syndrome is the flip side of this and can be damaging but mostly to the person experiencing it Conflicts of interest when we have incentives that conflict with our professional responsibilities We always think that we are immune to conflicts of interest overconfidence bias Conflicts of interest are the single most important ethical problem in business Reducing conflicts of interest o Increased transparency increased accountability implement policies to mitigate o conflicts Example multiple signers on corporate checks Rationalizations we are very good at convincing ourselves that our actions are justified Examples everyone else does it if I don t do it someone else will the system is unfair Rationalize Rational lies Why do business students need to learn environmental protection laws virtually all industries are impacted by them Sustainability initiatives are often based on