Programs
Risk, Reward, Responsibility: Ethics in Business
From the 6-part series Ethics in America II (2007)

The hypothetical scenario in this program poses the following question: Should the executives at Casablanca Cruise Lines have asbestos removed from their ships by a company based in the former Soviet republic of Novostan? The cost would be $80 million less than if an American company were used. But Novostani standards of worker safety are far less rigorous than those in the U. S. Another dilemma -- what should executives at MaxiCorp disclose about accidents in cars using their device, which doubles the mileage of cars in which it is installed, when they have no idea whether their device is contributing to the accidents? Finally, what should executives at Wowie Info, an Internet company, do when the authoritarian government of Jagunda demands the name of a Jagundan customer who has been using Wowie's Internet services to criticize the government? In each case, panelists struggle to make sound business decisions against a backdrop of ethical imperatives in our changing global economy.

Funder: Annenberg Media