It is perhaps apt that the alleged vandals of the digital universe best capture how all lives and actions are reliant upon an often unspoken, yet unshakeable, code of behavior. An ethic - a set of rules by which to judge right and wrong, moral and immoral, or perhaps simply a mechanism by which to justify our own actions to ourselves and others. Any attempt to define an ethic exposes the inherent contradiction that underlies the very concept. To a programmer at an Internet security firm, a hacker is the most unethical actor imaginable. Just as this programmer acts to protect what he believes is people's right to privacy, the hacker acts to protect people's right to information. Both base their actions on an ethic, an idea that what they do is right. Which ethic then is correct? Is either? Can ethics be compared? Do some have a greater value than others? What determines how we judge ethical or unethical behavior and whose standards do we use?
The idea of this essay is to explore such questions within the realm of corporations. How does one determine what a corporation should, or should not do? Who does one judge - a corporation or an individual within it? Does it even matter if an individual -say you or I- believes that a corporation acts unethically? In other words, how does one enforce an ethic on a corporation?
In a landmark 1999 survey, the Environics Research Group found that while 40% of consumers made purchasing decisions on the strength of brand quality and reputations, 49% said that they strongly consider the company's demonstrated social responsibility. Fully 23% of the 25,000 consumers surveyed said that they had punished a company in the previous year for failing to meet what they perceived were its social.......
