Evaluating Your Business Ethics (Gallup Business Journal Q&A)

Their wordsOur observation is that much of what goes wrong isn't caused by bad people doing bad things; it's caused by good people doing bad things without knowing that they're doing something bad.

Their wordsThe fact that we set goals, then want to meet them, certainly increases the likelihood that we'll engage in behavior that we otherwise would have viewed as unethical. That doesn't mean goal setting is bad; it means it has problematic features that we often don't think about.

Their wordsStep one is to make it clear what the corporate ethics are and not to send subtle, conflicting signals about what they want.

Their wordsAnother way of looking at it is that by being a better organization, companies can recruit people more effectively. Most people want to work for a high-quality organization rather than a low-quality organization.