Transcript Slides for the class

Conclusion
What did we learn?
What did I learn during this course?
Business students in China are very sensitive to grades. I can help by
making sure that the evolution of the grades during the course is
motivating
It can be too difficult to have too open questions. So maybe next year, I
can propose a choice of more structured, step by step questions.
The more I try to give students opportunities to be free in their mind, the
more I am obliged to open my mind, and I like it.
There was a good flow in the course, and I hope you have been
learning something useful for you and your career.
I hope to come again next year.
My Intentions

Make you face different contexts

Make you collect data that go contrary to your implicit bias

Question yourselves, provoke your thoughts

Make you scared

Raise emotions, experience conflicts of values

Broaden your decision-making

Animate debates, decode discourses

Propose structures and framework, illustrate them

Be systematic

Make you dream

Make you join the enthusiastic crowd of those who believe in ethics and still
do business
Is it fair business?
A store has been selling large snow shovels for sale for
$15. The morning after a major snowstorm, the store
raises its price to $20. Please rate this action as:
1 Acceptable
2 Neither acceptable nor unfair
3 Unfair
Bhopal
Legal responsibility of business is limited
Moral responsibility is not, and it is inescapable
Why is it so difficult to assume it?
Economy
Industry
Company
There are different
views on causality,
which imply
different views on
responsibility
Plant
Team
Human act
Causal Chain?
Economists’ Models
What are the consequences of business having no
other responsibility than maximizing profit?
Is an idealist view of law realist and sufficient?
Why do we maximize revenues for shareholders
while employees are the ones creating value?
Should you serve your self-interest or the one of the
company?
Is the discourse of profit maximization scientific,
ideological, or propaganda?
Thinking Ethics as a Grey Zone
Looking at the
bad side
Looking at the
good side
You are honest
It feels bad
But you are
more aware
and anticipate

Purely
Purely
unethical
ethical
You
are
here!
You feel good,
full of energy
You may not be
very credible
And you may
be blind to
risks
Your ethical judgments are bounded and biased by your emotions, your interest, your
mental habits and self-image, your cultural context and work environment, etc.

This psychological phenomenon is not necessarily intentional, but it can have significant
consequences. It can be used by others to influence or even control you.

With training and effort, you can develop, refine and structure your ethical consciousness.
It requires to open your mind and be able to think beyond the justification of your ethical
opinion.
Ethical Rationality, a Framework
There is more to happiness than just attainment of
goals. The process too has a reward, more
immaterial but so meaningful…
Best
consequence
for the actor
Costly
Unethical Action
Worse
Consequence for
the actor
INTEREST
Ethical Action
Profitable
ETHICS
Priority to
business
Ideal
Irrational
Priority to
Ethics
A tool to face Dilemmas
Neutrality
A tool to think strategically
Changmaï
When you will be faced with corruption, will you?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify the lack of ethics?
Anticipate all its consequences?
Imagine consequences of not doing it?
Openly discuss with others?
Any unethical action should be battle that has been lost!
Who would you be if you could make
any ethical dilemma an opportunity
for self-accomplishment?
Addicted to lies
The tactics of business to manipulate public opinion,
to subvert institutions and to distort science are
powerful, sophisticated, and secret.
A harmful product raises an ethical dilemma
A harmful behavior is likely to hide it…
And it creates even more dilemmas, and unethical behaviors.
The most harmful effect of Tobacco companies maybe on
society through the weakening of democracy, the
subversion of institution, the distortion of science and the
manipulation of opinion
A change of climate
There are different possible strategies in front of ethical dilemmas
Some are more ethical than other, when priority is given to business
And ambiguity always remains part of the issue.
Priority
Ideal
Business Situation
Irrational
Priority
Ethics
Natural Dynamics
Priority
Ideal
Business Situation
Irrational
Priority
Ethics
A Proactive Credible Strategy
The Spirit of Money

Only after the last tree has been cut down

Only after the last fish has been caught

Only after the last river has been poisoned

Only then will you find money cannot be eaten
Objectives

To raise your awareness of issues faced by business with regard
to society and the environment: the ethical issues

To help you dealing with ethical dilemmas

To increase your ability to see things “differently”

To learn from yourself, to learn from each other, and to develop
your own questioning;

To share my enthusiasm in analyzing the relation between
business and society in the century to come.
Now we are here and now
We have more power to see both
the white and the black in every
situation
We can be the idealist and
the realist at the same time
We have the strength to go within
ourselves to find solutions…
And we know ethics is about
drawing a line
And some lines are simply
beautiful
Joan Miro, 1968
Enjoy your life!