News Scrapbook 1989

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Yet compared to the day f robber barons, sweat shops and child labor, Briscoe said, business ethics have definitely improved. For one thing, a lot of companies now employ someone to act as a sort of corporate conscience. Four years ago, the avy accused General Dynamic~ Corp. of fraud, deceit and attemptmg to bilk the government of millions of dollars. The giant defens contractor builder of submarm . planes, tanks and mtSSiles - temporarily lost its government contracts. As part of its rehabilitation, the , avy ins1Sted that General Dynam• ics adopt a code of ethics and begin a 5-year program to make sure 1t wasn't forgotten. "The eth1 department began as part of an agreement to lift the Navy's suspension of our contracts," Barrons aid. "It was created be· cause there was a perceptible (moral) slip m the way we did thing . There's no indication that it will discontinued next year." Convair's ethics program relies primarily on -a 20-page handboo\( and a four-hour program that teaches employees procedures, rules and three different anonymous bot lines they may use to report unethical be· havior. How much emphasis 1s placed on ethical behavior, Barrons said, de- pends on the employee's po ltion "Some people have the opportunity to be more unethical than o hers, ' he explained "The higher you are m the organw,tion, the greater the risk'

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all)_ has an _opportunity on the road tonight against seventh-place Port- land (2·1~, 2-23) and tomorrow night agamst ixth-place Gonzaga (4-8 13- 12) to change its destiny ' Two w1ns will a~ure the Toreros of a venth-place finish and the ev- enlh d m the WCAC Tournament If USD and _Portland finish tied fo~ last, there will be a com flip for ev- nlh eed. st Mary' (10-2, 22-3), which is tied with I~epperdme (10-2, 18-9) for first place I~ the WCAC, i all but a. ured of wmning the No. 1 berth to the con- ference tournament Pepperdme and third-place Loyola Marymount (9_3 16-9) are the only other teams with chance to flru h first• But the Gaels conclude the regular ason with games tonight agamst onzaga and tomorrow night against Portland Meanwhile, Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount take turns playmg al fourth-place Santa Clara and fifth-place USF. Portland broke a 21-game losmg tr k by beating USD 57-54 earlier this a on at the USD Sports Center However_, the _Pilots probably wili play tonight without leading scorer Jo h Lowery. Lowery, who played at San Diego State. two_years ago, has . n u pended 1ndefrn1tely ince his mvolvem nt in an off-campu. fight two weeks ago ___ · _ _/_

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A pceanside CA Ns;nhDiego Co.) B/~~e ir?b~~i (C!r. D. 29 089) (Cir. S. 30,498) F 1 7 1Q89

John C. Barrons Convair ethics director

putting ·ome mformat1on aside. You have it m all occupations. You've got a researcher m a university, for ex- ample, who conducts a project that doesn't come out the way he would h ve liked I to o the data gets ma· nipulated. "The interestmg thmg to me is that nobody lies in busme Managed the truth seems to be the ord. Very few people will say, Gee, I lied about that.' Even when faced with all the evidence, they still say, 'Well, there were good reasons for makmg the statements I made. "It's the white lie concept." Barrons said corporate ethics rise from the combined per:;onal ethics of employees. If they stnve for value, honesty, dignity and integnty - all listed as commitments in the compa- ny handbook - tben the corporate ethic improves as well. But "a code of ethics by itself is hardly worth the paper 1t is written on," said Manuel Velasquez, past president of the Society of Business Ethics, an academic organization based at Santa Clara Umversity. For it to work, there have to be specific guidelines and sanctions. That is sometimes easier said than done. Can corporations maintain value-laden business ethics while promoting themselve as leaner, meaner and more competitive? "The opposite of competition is co- operation," Brady said. "And it's just a lot easier to be ethical when you're cooperating."

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Barrons, who spent 28 years as a teacher and admirustrator in the Grossmont Union High School Dis- trict, prefers to be low-key about his job. ''When people call on the hot lines, they're often very nervous. No one likes to be a snitch or a rat fink. 'The opposite of competition is cooperation. And it's just a lot easier to be ethical

San Diego, CA (&m Diego Co .) S; n D1 go Union l Cir D. 217 .089) Cir S. 341 ,840)

~JU/,,.', 1 au , /:... Toreros lose to Gonzaga, drop to 7-19 Unlo I'. C. B f.Jr

when you're cooperating.'

(San Diego Ed ) (Ci r. D . 50 01()) (Cir. S. 55,573) 989

-Neil Brady

But good ethics is good business, countered Barrons, who noted that the best companies claim both the high road and high profit margins. "People do not want to do busmess with a shyster-type company. (Those companies) may flourish momentari· ly, but in the long haul, if you can't trust a person's word, it' difficult to maintain a business relationship." The real job of instilliDg ethics, said Barroos, begms at home. Brady at SDSU agreed. "If the par- ents didn't teach them ethics, there's little a business professor can do in a \ few short meetings." Business schools, nonetheless, have launched their own ethics courses in recent years. Harvard University, for example, has opened a center on business ethics with a $20 million gift from John S.R. Shad, the former chairman of the Secunties and Ex- change Commission. At USD, Briscoe said he has oo- ticed""srudeotsreturning to the values of the '60s, when volunteerism, ideal• ism and social responsibility were hip. But he agrees that ethics aren't taught well or extensively to busi- ness students. Other cultures, such as the Japa• nese, added Mrovka, are more will- ing to forsake quick, large profits for long-term benefits. '·It all depends on how you define the bottom line: money or corporate reputation," Mrovka said. "It's the company reputation and status that translates into money."

Sometimes you can tell they're read· ing a prepared statement. "One of the first things they ask is what will happen. I tell them nothing will happen until th y tell e what the problem is. I'm just there to get infonnation. Then. I say I will talk to em again before anything hap- pens." A Convair, which employs 8,000 people, Barrons last year handled 467 cases. They ranged from questions about accepting gifts to allegations of incorrect or fraudulent time cards. Three of the cases, he said, were serious enough to threaten federal contracts, 38 were the sort that at- tract media attention and 426 were relatively routine. Six employees, Barrons said, were fired in 1988 for unethical conduct. Defining what is ethical is extraor- dinarily difficult, said Mrovka. There are complications caused by cultural differences, generations and experi- ence. Bribery, for example, is ac- cepted practice in some countries but not in the United States. "Everything has to be blended to- gether so that it will all work," he said. For Barrons, business ethics is a matter of "knowing the truth and telling the truth. It's as simple as

Jlll.tt '• "· C. 8

P~KANE, Wa,.Ji~7,_,,,-c,Free-throw hootm has been a problem all sea- n for USD It hurt th Toreros m last night. ~S~, which rallied from a 17-point def1c1t late in the econd h If couldn't cov rt key one-and-one s~u: tions and lost to Gonzaga, 88-71, in a We l Coa t Athletic Conference am at the Mart111 C nt r We du~ out of It pretty good, but (once agam) we m ed free throws and some big shots," U D coach H nk Egan . id "We also didn't play dcfens all night" With Gonzaga leading, 64-59, with JU t ~nd r four mrnutes to go, USD's Kelvm Means and Craig Cottrell mis ed ~ront ends of one-and-one op- portunities. The Bulldogs (14-13, S-9) then went on a 10-0 run to put it out of reach. The Torero (7-19, 2-12) fell behind 1~-0, Jost four minutes into the game' An 8~ run brought them to within 37~ 30 with three minutes to go in the half,.but Doug Spradley' who scored 20, bit two Jumpers to help Gonzaga to a 42-35 halftime lead _"We couldn't stop ·Spradley or (Jim) McPhee at all," Egan said. "I thought we could come back but Just let it get away from us ~nee :: got clo "

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~r8 S::::,1'4' Six "pit,hers couldn t stop Cal State Long Beach as host Umvers,- ty~go dropped anTI -5 nonconference deci•wn. Pat Fitzsimmons (3-1) was the starter and loser for USO (5- 7). Cal State Long Beach ( 14-0) led after five mnl ng • 4-2, and then scored five runs in thl sixth and two more m the seventh to break the game oprn Todd Lloyd's grand slam high! ghted Cal State Long Beach's had two hit and three runs batte(f txth. Parris Sonanello

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San Diego , CA (San Diego Co.) San Diego Union (Cir. 0 . 217 ,089) (Cir. S. 341 ,840)

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four-y~ar record at US m for l'SD. entering this season was-'7'0-43:.:-wl~l'--~~----