Jkaplan


“Third prize is you’re fired”

In David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross the boss explains a new sales contest to the assembled members of the office: “The first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.” The corrupting influence of […]

Executive Misconduct and Employment Contracts

To twist a famous saying of F. Scott Fitzgerald, CEO’s who engage in wrongdoing are different from you and me – they have the protections of employment contracts. But that is beginning to change, due to the MeToo Movement. In  Anticipating Harassment: MeToo and the Changing Norms of Executive Contracts  […]

Can the government make us more ethical?

An always important and interesting question! In Preferences Change & Behavioral Ethics: In Can States Create Ethical People?  Yuval Feldman and Yotam Kaplan (no relation) of Bar-Ilan University write: “Law and economics scholarship suggests that, in appropriate cases, the law can improve people’s behavior by changing their preferences. For instance, […]

Compliance program standards of proof

The Chauvin trial in Minneapolis has caught the attention of much of the US, and rightly so, given the importance of the issues it raises and the highly compelling nature of the proof in the court. The case – like many highly public prosecutions – also provides the occasion for […]

A behavioral ethics and compliance primer

Published by Ethical Systems.

In praise of Goldilocks compliance

My latest column in C&E Professional. I hope you find it useful.

Defamation as a compliance risk area

Dominion Voting Systems recently sued Fox News and two of President Trump’s former lawyers – Sydney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani – for their statements that Dominion had engaged in election fraud in connection with the 2020 presidential election. This could have profound adverse affects on the defendants. (Among other things, […]

Moral hazard and ethical habits of mind

“Moral hazard” means the provision of incentives that encourage unduly risky conduct by shifting the impact of a bad decision to a party other than the decision maker.   Perhaps the most consequential area of moral hazard ever is climate change, as those individuals most likely to bear the brunt of […]

Conflicts of interest: the role of norms

There has lately been much discussion of norms in the realm of politics and governance.  But norms are also important in the business world, particularly  those established within a profession. In Regulating Conflicts of Interest Through Public Disclosure: Evidence From a Physician Payments Sunshine Law, Matthew Chan of William College […]

Assessing your conflict of interest compliance program

Under Department of Justice standards for the government’s evaluating compliance & ethics (C&E) programs companies should undertake program self-assessments from time to time. What does this entail? At a minimum, it should include assessing the general components of the C&E program (e.g., compliance office, helpline, training) as well as corporate […]