Ethics, CSR & Leadership
Preparatory questions
Laurent Ledoux
In order to prepare the lecture, please answer individually or in group (maximum 3) the
following questions and send your answers to ledoux.laurent@gmail.com by 19/10 at
the latest.
1. What do you expect from this lecture? What would you like to learn from it? Are
there specific issues you would like to discuss during this lecture?
2. Have you ever been confronted with an ethical dilemma at work? If so, describe it
(you may disguise the name of the company or organization) briefly and explain:
- why this was an ethical dilemma for you (and/or for your colleagues)?
- how you attempted to solve it?
- why you succeeded or did not succeed in solving it?
3. Pinto case: Imagine you are Carlos Pinto, the CEO of a large car manufacturer that
has just launched in a hurry a new model. Tests for rear-end impact has just showed
that is below the standard of comparable cars. The danger comes from the fact that
the positioning of the fuel tank makes it prone to be punctured in a crash, leading to
the car’s explosion with a higher probability. Your team has made a cost-benefit
analysis. The cost of inserting a protective baffle is greater than the cost of legal
claims that might arise from deaths attributable to the design fault. What do you do?
Why?
4. Lewis case: Imagine you are Steve Lewis, a young analyst at a prestigious New
York investment bank. You like your job, spending days and many of your nights
dissecting detailed financial data. One day you get message from your boss who has
become a friend and who supports you in your professional development. He asks
you to fly to St. Louis in two days to be present for an important business
presentation to a prospective client. That comes as a surprise to you as the bank has
a clear policy against including analysts in presentations or client meetings, because
they lack both experience and expertise. Talking to your boss you realize he wants
you to go because the client, the new state treasurer of Missouri is black…just like
you. Your boss thinks your mere presence will therefore give your team an
advantage. Do you accept to go? Why or why not? What do you do?
5. Adario case: Imagine you are Peter Adario, the head of the marketing department of
a large distributor of computer products. The company for which you work is known
for the intense, hothouse atmosphere in which everyone is working: 10- to 12-hour
days have become common at your firm. You are married, have 3 children and
believe your company should start to adopt a better work-life balance. You have
spent most of your career as a successful salesman and branch manager in this
company, and you have eagerly accepted the present position because of its
management challenges but you have come to believe a better work-life balance
should be pursued in the company. Three senior managers report to you and
supervise the other 50 people in the marketing department. You report yourself to
one of four vice presidents at corporate headquarters. Now, one of your direct
reports, Lisa Walters, has a serious conflict with one of her collaborators, Kathryn Mc
Neil, 37, who has been working for the company for only four months. You have
yourself hired Mc Neil recently, headhunting her away from one of your clients,
hoping Mc Neil’s example, a devoted mother with full custody of her six-year-old and
with no child support or other assistance of her ex-husband, could be an example for
others and help you push for a better work-life balance in the company. Mc Neil now
heads an important project but it is currently falling behind schedule. She seems to
have indeed difficulties at home that apparently cause problems at work: working 60
hours a week, much less than everyone else (including yourself), she’s not really
pulling her weight. That’s at least what Walters believes and she is growing
frustrated and very impatient with the situation. Walters, a single woman in her late
twenties, handled the project during two years before McNeil was hired, and she
excelled at her job, consistently meeting deadlines and demonstrating initiative. You
know Walters wants to fire McNeil. She has just sent you a second reminder to allow
her to proceed. You’re about to leave for a one week holidays. What do you do?
Why?
6. Sakiz case: Imagine you are Edward Sakiz, the CEO of Roussel-Uclaf, a mediumsized pharmaceutical company with less than $2 billion in annual sales. You have to
decide where and how to market a new drug, an abortion pill that shows to be 90 to
95 percent effective in causing miscarriage during the first five weeks of pregnancy.
You are a physician with a longstanding personal commitment to such pill. Earlier in
your career you have worked as a medical researcher to help develop the chemical
compound on which the pill is based. Together with most people at Roussel-Uclaf,
you believe strongly that the drug could help thousands of women, particularly in
poor countries, avoid injury or death from botched abortions. In the developed world,
the drug would provide women and physicians with a valuable alternative to surgical
abortions. But some of your shareholders have serious reservations about it.
Revenues from the drug are likely to be quite small, particularly in the early years.
Besides, American antiabortion, pro-life groups are threatening to mount an
international boycott of your products and those of Hoechst, the chemical giant that
is your largest shareholder and that was condemned for producing Ziclon B, used in
gas chambers, during the Second World War. A successful boycott would cost the
two companies far more than they would earn from the abortion pill. At worst, a
boycott could imperil the survival of your company, for it is still a relatively small
pharmaceutical company with weak profits (compared with other giants). What do
you do? Why?
7. What are the relevant commonalities and differences you see in these 4 cases?
8. What do the following words mean for you?
- Morals
- Ethics
- Business Ethics
- Responsibility
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Deontology
9. According to you, what are the factors that can explain the rising importance of CSR
for organizations today?
10. According to you, what does really “motivate” organizations to act in a “socially
responsible” manner?
11. According to you, where does the primary responsibility of a manager lie: towards its
shareholders or towards the stakeholders of the organization he manages?
12. According to you, who should regulate the respect of CSR principles: the state or the
organizations themselves (self-regulation)?
13. According to you, what is leadership? What does it take to be a leader?
14. Please read the different cases in the document “Leadership cases” (Document
2). Reflect upon the different cases separately and globally. Please answers
following questions about the four cases:

What did Dr. Barbara Parsons (or did not do) and why? Reflect also on the
question whether this is a case about leadership. Why or why not?

What did Ruckelshaus (and did not do) and why? Reflect also on the question
whether this is a case about leadership. Why or why not?

What did Johnson, King and other actors do or did not do and why? Reflect
also on the question on who was leading. Who did? Who did not? How did the
eventual leaders differ in the way they led? What could explain these
differences?

In the last case, what did Johnson or did not and why? Did he exercise
leadership regarding the Vietnam war? Why or why not? What kind? How did
his actions compare with the ones he took on the blacks’ civil rights case?

What are the relevant commonalities and differences related to leadership
you can distinguish in these four case studies?

What are the general lessons about leadership you draw from reading these 3
cases?
15. What are the possible links you see between ethics, CSR and leadership?
Please note that it is compulsory to send me your answers to these questions before the
lecture. Note also that after the lecture, you will be asked to reflect once again upon
these questions and review your answers, using the concepts we discussed during the
lecture.
Your grades for the course will depend on the depth of your reflections, before and after
the course, to these questions and to the quality of your participation during the course
itself (quality will here be subjectively measured by the way your interventions or
questions will contribute to a constructive and meaningful debate on the topics
addressed and stimulate or facilitate interventions by others.
Those who will want to deepen the questions addressed during this course will have the
opportunity to fill a questionnaire titled “Leadership - A personal investigation” (see
attachment; Document 3). Filling in this questionnaire takes time (a few hours as a
minimum). It is not compuIsory to do so. You should do it for yourself only but I will be
happy to review it and exchange with you about it. In this questionnaire, you will find a
set of questions about leadership and mainly about yourself. The filled in questionnaire
shall be sent back to me not later than one month after the lecture. There will be no
minimum or maximum in terms of the length of your answers. As long as you answer
them honestly and thoughtfully, it will be alright. What you will get out of it will be
proportional to what you will put into it.
Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any question.
Laurent Ledoux
+32 478 62 14 20