Alison Taylor is the Executive Director of Ethical Systems.
It’s a nightmare right now trying to measure how a company performs on environmental, social, and governance issues. As you may know, doing so involves relying on a dizzying set of intersecting quantitative frameworks, all of which struggle to balance investor demands for comparability and consistency with the reality that these “ESG” issues are highly […]
As a result of COVID-19’s tumultuous impact on the economy, businesses fell over themselves to demonstrate a higher “purpose” and show that they care about the welfare of their employees and the environment. Influential organizations including the World Economic Forum, the Business Roundtable, and BlackRock have decisively called time on our exclusive focus on shareholder […]
Last December, a friend of Ethical Systems—a Chief Compliance Officer at a major multinational consumer products company, whose expertise is second to none—sent us an email. He was curious to know how concepts from behavioral science and social psychology might help him build more effective programs. He asked us for books, articles, and videos that […]
This time last year, I traveled to Dubai to participate in the Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption. The World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils are an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder network, grouped into specific themes for fixed terms, to tackle our most pressing global challenges. I was there along with a few dozen colleagues from […]
If you are wondering about the long-term impact of the pandemic, this is a must-watch.
Last November, I went to Dubai as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption.
In February, Barclays Bank in the United Kingdom announced that it would end a staff-monitoring scheme after the Trades Union Congress accused the bank of using “dystopian Big Brother employment practices.” However, numerous American other companies have already adopted similar approaches, apparently without facing the same backlash. Last year, The Wall Street Journal detailed similar […]
In 2013, National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked a large volume of highly classified information to investigative journalists, inspiring a new generation of whistleblowers. Since then, we’ve all been given access to the Panama and Paradise Papers. Last week brought the latest revelatory data dump: The Luanda Leaks have provided damaging new insight into […]
Today’s hyper-transparent environment has given the public stunning opportunities to review internal communications from executives at leading companies and to pass real-time judgments on the strengths and vulnerabilities of their cultures. In some cases, as with Away, Google, and Facebook, employees are leaking Slack conversations, email exchanges, and recordings of staff meetings. In others, as […]
In considering external operating risk, it has long been clear that corruption and negative human rights impacts correlate keenly. Underpaid doctors who require bribes before they will admit your child to a hospital immediately undermine your right to health. When an earthquake collapses buildings and causes fatalities, further investigation usually reveals that bribes were paid […]
Ethical Systems
IU Kelley School of Business
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