— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816
I would add to this, that any discussion of integrity, especially in the corporate context, should probably touch on the concept of bounded rationality (although I take this a little further, perhaps, than Herbert Simon meant it, in asserting that environmental/social signaling about what behaviors are appropriate constitute available information).
We often see behaviors within a narrow context that would be abhorrent in a larger one. In corporate sub-cultures where actions are carried out in isolation from a wider values context (e.g. a team of type-a, male, energy traders that is collocated and enjoys a good deal of autonomy) and obscured from view of outsiders (whether by the inherent complexity of the activity or purposeful obfuscation).
In these environments, ‘integrity’ is extremely bounded, and what people perceive to be good, honest behaviors are informed more sometimes by the shared sub-group understanding than the broader societal ethic. And words in a values statement don’t matter so much as management behaviors and incentives.
I remember, for instance, reading interviews with some mid-level Arthur Andersen/Enron kids who couldn’t even process at first that they’d been party to anything wrong. Their reaction seemed to be, “Oh, wait, that was wrong? Why didn’t anyone ever point that out before?” Because everybody was doing it.
One child is holding something that’s been banned in America to protect them.
Can I just reblog this over...
