Any True ESG Focus on Executive Pay Needs a Link to Employee Engagement

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Too often “of material value to shareholders” is used as the great duck out on fundamental questions of human values. More than half of the 100 Financial Times Stock Exchange CEOs have had their salaries frozen this year. The news comes…

What Pirates Have to Teach Us About Leadership

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Pirates, it turns out, were forward-thinking in a number of surprising—and instructive—ways. In the deep heat of an 18th-century summer, a crew of pirates was sailing off the Virginia coast when a lookout spotted a merchant ship to the…

Why Promotion Is a Moral Hazard

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"When leaders very publicly fail due to ethical lapses, some people are inclined to say, 'See, that’s just how business is,' instead of learning a more inspiring lesson." Jessica Kennedy gets frustrated when people—often academics—try…

Why Some Americans Don’t Believe the Election Results

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When we care deeply about an issue and get an unfavorable outcome, we question the process used to make the decision. The electoral votes have confirmed Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election. The presidential electors…

How Business Can Boost Human Rights in 2021

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The ghost of Milton Friedman still haunts corporate America and his outdated model. Few will regret the passing of 2020, a year headlined by a global health crisis, profound economic distress, and high-profile examples of racial inequality.…

Designing a Good Life, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, 2015

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Download syllabus for Designing a Good Life, taught at University of Chicago Booth's School of Business in 2015 by Nick Epley. Download

Ethical Leadership in the Global Economy, Boston University, 2016

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Download syllabus for Ethical Leadership in the Global Economy, taught at Boston University in 2016 by Laura Pincus Hartman. Download

Is There a Problem with Meaningful Work?

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The eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell, who died exactly 50 years ago at the impressive age of 97, once penned a polemic lauding laziness. Beginning on a humorous note—he wrote of having hopes that, after reading his essay, the leaders…

Business Roundtable Wants Fair Employee Payment, But What About Agency?

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The problem with the modern workplace is deeper than the ideology of shareholder primacy. Well into his 30s, my father ran a pool-plumbing business that just got us by: Sometimes clients wouldn’t pay, and when they did, it wouldn’t be…

Evolutionary Thinking Can Help Companies Foster More Ethical Culture

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Humans have some basic needs that work should fulfill if organizations want to get the best out of them. Charles Darwin ended The Origin of Species, his argument for evolution by natural selection, on a note of celebrated eloquence. “There…