Mrs. Clinton and her campaign staff have been frustrated over the last few months by the steady stream of what they see as defections by formerly loyal supporters. Mark Leibovich in a New York Times article today examined the dynamics of this exodus. He nicely summarizes the frustration in the Clinton camp in a quote by Leon Panetta, a White House chief of staff under Mr. Clinton, and a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

“These are people that the Clintons gave an opportunity to serve,” said Mr. Panetta, speaking generally. “They helped give them the titles they now have, and made them a lot of money. I think the Clintons probably feel they are owed something.”

Clintons Sort Friends: Past and Present - New York Times

Personally, I’m not a fan of loyalty. It probably once served as a valuable survival skill when being a member of a tribe provided easier access to resources, mates, and security. Today, I believe it is more likely to cause problems.

First, in-group loyalty often brings out-group hostility. Why do supporters of Mrs. Clinton so adamantly criticize new supporters of Mr. Obama? “Demonstrating hostility to those in the out-group is a very easy way of demonstrating loyalty to your in-group”.Ingroup loyalty - Outgroup hostility | Long Live Science.

Second, loyalty can lead to ethical compromise. Suppose Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico who was tarred as “Judas” by James Carville for endorsing Mr. Obama, chose instead to be “loyal” and support Mrs. Clinton even though he really believed Mr. Obama was the best candidate. This would be a misrepresentation of his beliefs. He might have good reasons for the deception, but it would still be deception.

Finally, and most importantly it can cloud thinking. Governor Richardson, in an attempt to rationalize the inconsistency between his public stance and his true beliefs would most likely attempt to rationalize his deception. Maybe he “owed it to the Clintons” or maybe “so many others do this as a political necessity” or maybe this is the “best way to further his career.” As soon as you start fooling yourself, you put your integrity and character at risk.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am not a supporter of Obama, Clinton, or McCain. However, they all provide such great material for an ethical blog, I’m sure I will be talking about them more in the future.

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Tags: ethics, campaign ethics, clint korver, ethics for the real world, politica ethics

Ever wonder how famous doctors find the time to co-author hundreds of articles while they run an active practice. The WSJ today in an article examining Merck’s publishing ethics suggests one possible answer — ghostwriters.

One of the JAMA articles — based on an analysis of 96 Merck-sponsored Vioxx papers published since 1999 — suggests the Whitehouse Station, N.J., company engaged in a systematic strategy to ghostwrite dozens of Vioxx studies that appeared in medical journals and then list academics as principal authors.

Merck’s Publishing Ethics Are Questioned by Studies - WSJ.com

I don’t have any ethical problems in using ghostwriters. In fact hiring a ghostwriter to help with our book was one of the best decisions we made. Bill Birchard, our ghostwriter, provided great help in not only the writing but also in navigating the publishing process. The ethical sensitivities come when their involvement is not disclosed or the listed authors involvement is overstated.

Most lay readers are under the impression that a book or article was written by the authors. Academic readers also appreciate that academic authors may be listed not because of their assistance in writing but because of their contribution to the design of the experiments or analysis of the data. But, in all cases the presumption is that the authors have contributed meaningfully to the piece.

The quid pro quo implied by the WSJ article is that in return for the credibility of putting a famous “author’s” name on an article, Merck provides the “author” with a published work with little to no effort. While this might be prudentially good for both Merck and the “author”, it raises significant ethical questions.  Also, if a ghostwriter has done a large part of the writing, then it seems to me that disclosing this somewhere, not necessarily on the author line, but somewhere in the article would be the right thing to do.

When you purchase our book, coming out at the end of June, take a look on the title page. You will notice the authors listed as Ronald A. Howard and Clinton D Korver with Bill Birchard. The ‘with’ designation is a standard, transparent way to recognize a ghostwriter and the way that Bill requested he be acknowledged.

Tags: Merck, publishing ethics, clint korver, ethics, ethics for the real world, vioxx,

The Ethics Resource Center, an organization which studies the ethical practices of public and private institutions, just released their report on the ethics of Nonprofit institutions in the US. It’s not pretty.

Ethics Resource Center: Celebrating 85 Years of Ethics Surveying and Research

Some believe that without the pressure to generate a profit, nonprofit organizations would exhibit higher ethical standards than for-profit organizations. However this report, based on data from 558 respondents , paints a different picture. Here are some highlights (or lowlights might be more accurate):

• 6% observed alteration of documents.
• 8% observed alteration of financial records–called financial fraud.
• 14% observed lying to customers, vendors, or the public
• 19% observed misreporting of hours
• 21% observed lying to employees
• 55% observed one or more acts of misconduct

The numbers for business and government are about the same across the board. Business reports 56% observations of misconduct and government 57%. Interestingly the incident of financial fraud seems to be noticeably higher in non-profits (8%) than in either business (5%) or government (5%).

The report goes on to say that when nonprofit employees saw ethical misconduct, 38% of the time they said nothing. They did not report the observed transgression to management.

• 66% of the time they did not report environmental violations,
• 49% of the time they did not report misreporting of hours worked, and
• 31% of the time they did not report stealing.

The primary reasons for staying silent include:

• 50% did not believe corrective action would be taken
• 42% feared retaliation from management or peers (a drop from 64% in 2005)
• 30% would have to report to the person involved.

The report is not all bad. The data show that attention to this issue by creating a Code of Conduct (ethical code), engaging in ethics training, creating a hotline for reporting, and others dramatically decreases incidents of misconduct.

Overall this report shows that people in the nonprofit sector fall prey to the same shortcomings and temptations as those in the for-profit sector. People are people regardless of their context. Ethics are important regardless of the context.

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Tags: nonprofit, ethics, ethics for the real world, clint korver, Ethics Resource Center,