“ETHICS IN PRACTICE”

On March 31, SPP’s Alumni Association and Student Association presented a panel discussion on the topic “Ethics in Practice” at the Arlington Original Building. The four distinguished panelists had varied professional experiences that made for an interesting discussion. Joan Elise Dubinsky, Esquire, is the Ethics Officer for the International Monetary Fund, based in Washington, D.C., and she also leads the Rosentreter Group, a management consulting practice providing expertise in business ethics, organizational development, and corporate compliance. In his capacity as the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s Deputy Ethics Counselor, James Lager helps maintain GAO’s reputation for integrity by providing counsel to senior GAO employees on matters of ethics and compliance with GAO’s standards of conduct. SPP’s own Professor Janine Wedel, an anthropologist, does research on topics like corruption, governance, foreign aid, civil society and development, all of which have implications for ethics questions. The evening’s moderator, Bill Richardson, has been the Deputy Inspector General for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting since July 2004; he also received his master’s degree in 2005 from SPP, where his studies focused on organizational knowledge.

Richardson started off the discussion by pointing out that ethical issues are in the news constantly, in stories about topics like the Enron scandal or lobbyists granting special favors to Congressional representatives. “What do you do as an employee within an organization when you are confronted with an ethical issue?” he asked the panelists.

Lager started off his response by noting that the infrastructure an organization develops for ethics forms according to the group’s risks. “We in the U.S. think if we pass a law, a problem is solved, but I’ve never seen a law that a clever lawyer or accountant can’t get around,” he said. “At GAO, we try to go beyond mere compliance with the laws.” Rather, GAO’s aims to make sure that government employees aren’t involved practices that are in any way ethically questionable—even if they might be perfectly legal.

Dubinsky made an interesting point about the geography of ethics. “There are 184 countries who are members of the IMF,” she said. “So we have to ask ourselves, ‘Whose ethics are these’? Can we at the IMF have ethics or values that transcend 184 nations’ individual approaches?” Those are questions that she and her colleagues consider constantly.

“Joan and Jim talked about ethics within organizations,” Wedel noted, putting the discussion in context. “But I want to talk about areas and players who fall through the cracks of accountability systems and structures.” She said she became interested in the topic when she was observing Eastern Europe during the aftermath of Communism in the 1990's. “The end of the Cold War made it unclear who was in charge,” she noted. “New players on the corruption field were breaking rules of both government and business. They conflated their own personal interests with those of their organizations, and created ambiguity around them—it was never clear exactly what role they’re playing, or whose interests they’re representing.” She mentioned that some members of the Clinton administration were especially adept at such “representational gymnastics.”

There was a lively debate following the discussion, with questions posed by audience members like Dean Cathy Rudder, Professor Frank Manheim, and a number of students and alumni. The evening ended with a presentation of awards by the Student Association (see related story for more information) and the distribution of door prizes by Kate Trygstad, the President of the Alumni Association, who got her master’s degree in Social and Organizational Learning from SPP in 2005.