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Ethics and the Bottom Line

A company's ethical lapses can be far more costly than executives imagine, says one expert.

June 8, 2010

On Monday, Marianne Jennings avoided the standard warm and fuzzy lecture about ethics and went straight for the corporate-finance jugular. "Lapses in ethics hurt the cost of capital," declared Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. Speaking at the Institute of Management Accountants's annual meeting in Baltimore, she contended that although breakdowns in corporate ethics can be costly, executives never make ethics "part of a strategic business plan" until they understand the scope of potential losses. Read more...

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