Cam Caldwell

The ability of leaders to be perceived as trustworthy and to develop authentic and effective relationships is largely a function of their personal identities and their self-awareness in understanding and making accommodations for their weaknesses. The research about self-deception confirms that we often practice denial regarding our identities without being fully aware of the ethical duties that we owe to ourselves and to others. This article offers insights about the nature of identity and selfawareness, specifically examining how self-deception can create barriers to self-awareness within both a personal and a business context.

Although the foundation of financial accounting and auditing has traditionally been based upon a rule-based framework, the concept of a principle-based approach has been periodically advocated since being incorporated into the AICPA Code of Conduct in 1989. Recent high profile events indicate that the accountants and auditors involved have followed rule-based ethical perspectives and have failed to protect investors and stakeholders – resulting in a wave of scandals and charges of unethical conduct. In this paper we describe how the rule-based traditions of auditing became a convenient vehicle that perpetuated the unethical conduct of firms such as Enron and Arthur Andersen. We present a model of ten ethical perspectives and briefly describe how these ten ethical perspectives impact rule-based and principle-based ethical conduct for accountants and auditors. We conclude by identifying six specific suggestions that the accounting and auditing profession should consider to restore public trust and to improve the ethical conduct of accountants and auditors.

Although efforts have been made to increase the opportunities for American-born minorities to obtain doctoral degrees in business, the actual number of business students who are American-born minorities has been extremely low. At the same time more than half of all PhD candidates in business schools are foreign-born. We suggest that business schools owe an ethical duty to provide role models for minority business students, and that this duty can be achieved by initiating Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programs that can enable working professionals who are American-born minorities to obtain terminal degrees in business. We outline eight steps that can be taken to implement a viable and cost effective DBA program.

Although trust has been widely recognized as a vital component ofrelationships and a critical element to the success of organizations,the literature describing trust and trustworthiness is known for itsvarying perspectives and its inconsistencies. Trustworthiness has beenidentified as a condition precedent to the development of trust.Building upon the established constructs of interpersonaltrustworthiness, we propose a related model containing the sevenconstructs of Competence, Legal Compliance, Responsibility to Inform,Quality Assurance, Procedural Fairness, Interactional Cour-tesy, andFinancial Balance. Citing evidence from trust-related literature, weidentify the utility of these seven constructs in encompassingorganizational trustworthiness as a subjectively perceived aspect oforganizational effectiveness. We analyzed questionnaire data andconducted comparative world-region analyses.

Individuals who demonstrate organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) contribute to their organization’s ability to create wealth, but they also owe their organizations a complex set of ethical duties. Although, the academic literature has begun to address the ethical duties owed by organizational leaders to organizational citizens, very little has been written about the duties owed by those who practice OCB to their organizations. In this article, we identify an array of ethical duties owed by those who engage in extra-role behavior and describe those duties in context with personality theory. We suggest that employees who understand the complex nature of OCB and the associated duties they owe to others are more likely to reach their potential and make greater contributions within their organizations.