Practical Ethics - Essays

One of the best ways to help promote a corporate or business-wide awareness of business ethics (and perhaps to help prepare your organization for entry in the Rochester Business Ethics Award competition) is to stimulate a year-round discussion of ethics at the grassroots level – that is, among and between business owners, officers, directors, managers, unit heads and other employees.

To help you get started, the Rochester Area Business Ethics Foundation offers these brief essays for your continued use. Each contains thoughts and observations on a particular concept or theme related to business ethics, as well as questions and discussion points.

Use these essays at any level - from meetings of shareholders, directors and senior management to the monthly and weekly meetings of individual divisions, departments and units. Download them, distribute them and make them a part of a discussion of ethics as a recurring item in your meeting agendas.

RABEF’s belief is that when employees and managers begin to talk about ethics in business, talk turns into action and everyone benefits – your company, your customers and colleagues, your community.

UPDATE: As of February, 2012, our series of monthly essays has ended, and we are grateful to the series author, retired corporate attorney Dave Hoffberg, for providing us these valuable, and timeless, tools and insights. The essays live on and will be available here as a resource to the area's business leaders and managers.

Archived Essays