Hi everyone, so as a follow-up to our lecture on ethics and legal issues and considerations in the business of sales management and all. We'd like to kind of continue that discussion that we started in the formal lecture with actually a group discussion. And as you can see these two people sitting next to me happened to be colleagues of mine at West Virginia University. Dr Paula Fitzgerald is a professor of marketing and has been at WVU here for quite some time. And one of her keen research interests that she has, is in the area of ethics and ethical behavior, social responsibility issues, and so forth. And it's been studying this for a number of years. And we're just delighted to have you be part of our Coursera course and to share your experiences with that. And then as Shin Shui Wang is a one of our new faculty members that joined us here actually just at the beginning of the school year. And is an expert in the area of sales and of course when you study sales you can't help but study ethics and also. We're going to have a little discussion among ourselves, and really it's just designed to kind of follow up on some of the points that we tried to make in our lecture. So I'd actually like to start with you Paula, and let's just begin we hear this term ethics, what does ethics mean? >> I really think ethics is about your relationship with others, I think that's why it's so important in marketing, right? Is because we talk about relationships, so an ethical relationship is a relationship that is morally right. That people are treated fairly, that they are treated with justice, that they are treated with respect. So that's kind of my general idea of ethics because you have ethics with your consumers, you have an ethical relationship with the stakeholders, your community that you work with. In marketing, of course, with your supply chain, you need to have ethical relationships with the people that are in your supply chain as well. >> I see, so let me, I want to come back to that, but let's just get one more concept introduced into that mix which is laws and legal issues and all. So help us to understand how is ethics different than laws and. >> One of my very good friends is an attorney, and he said, I am so tired of being the catfish here, as the bottom dwellers. The bottom of what ethics or yeah of what ethics is, right? That law is not the bottom level of ethics, I see things a little bit differently I think, than someone folks do. Laws are the codification, right? Those are the codes, the written down rules that one should operate their systems with. Ethics are not quite so codified, it's more, because we'll talk in a little bit, right? That you could see one issue is being ethical or unethical, depending on the perspective that one may have. And certainly, many would argue that there are laws that breach relationships that should be expected to be fair. So sometimes I think people would argue that laws may not always be ethical. >> Okay, so obviously there is overlap, but they're not the same thing. >> Correct, correct. >> And so, where do ethics come from? How do the, when you say they kind of govern our relations with other people, where is the source of that? >> I goes all the way back to Aristotle, right? I mean, so most of your ethics are coming from ethical philosophers, starting with Aristotle and Socrates, at least to my knowledge, to kind of the roots of what we do. And they go all the way up through probably the most prominent recent philosopher would be Rawls. And he did most of his work in the 70s and the 80s and he's had a huge influence on how modern day philosophers and modern day people who study ethics in the business situation, consider what is ethical and what is unethical. So they are rules, you've heard of diotology, right? What I call the thou shalt nots. So that's one way of thinking of ethics, is here are the rules that I will follow that thou shalt not, they are rules of thumbs. Almost every major culture has a treat people the way that you would want to be treated kind of a thing. Then there's the utilitarian perspective that's another set of philosophy and they talk about costs and benefits. The overall cost to the overall benefit. Amongst modern day philosophers that has been pretty much discounted. When you start thinking about a significant cost to one or two individuals is there any benefit that would make up for that, right? It depends on that distribution of cost, and then Rawls takes all of these things, and kind of combines them up to look at what is the impact on the least influential? The group or individual with the least resources, and makes judgments about what is fair and just in those situations. >> So when we talk about laws, of course, those would be pretty much based on a particular country has a legal system and has their body of law that they have established that governs the citizens of that particular country. Ethics is a concept that kind of doesn't observe country boundaries, right? >> Exactly, exactly, and part of the issue is that people see ethics quite differently. I'll give you what I think is the best maybe when you're thinking of how's your conflict between good people of good intentions, and they see a situation very differently. And what is ethical is, what is your idea of fairness? So if some people have an idea that fairness means everybody gets exactly the same thing. Other people see ethics, or an ethical fairness as you get what you need. Now think about that, I know all three of us here have kids, what if you did that with your children, right? So and think about how that would change your relationship with how you operate. Now I don't know which rule you tend to go with, right? But a everybody gets exactly the same thing feeling of ethics means that, well, if this kid gets $10, then this kid gets $10, and then this kid gets $10. Where maybe, you get what you need this kid has a particular interest in an area that happens to be inexpensive, let's say a soccer player, and this kid has an interest in ice hockey, which is a more expensive sport. But you'd say, maybe, you both get exactly the same thing or you may say you like hockey, you go play hockey and that's fair. And you like soccer and you go play soccer and that's fair. >> Wow. >> So that's a very different concept of two good approaches to an ethical problem. >> All right, so one of the things that I think of I know in the United States, the notion of paying a bribe. So this would be trying to influence someone to buy a product or whatever, right? Paying a bribe is considered illegal, now, there are other countries where paying a bribe isn't illegal. In fact, it's kind of expected as part of the way business gets conducted and all. >> Right. >> How does ethics come into that? So we have two things are- >> Where one thing is legal and one thing is illegal? I'll tell you just as a US, if you're a US company, don't pay bribes, [LAUGH] right? [LAUGH] Going to jail I really want to avoid. >> [LAUGH] >> Going to jail in my life. I think that is one of the biggest issues that to my knowledge, has not been resolved. Are these cultural differences that are sometimes one culture would see this as a illegal, unethical thing. And sometimes another culture would see it quite differently. >> Right. >> And to my understanding that particular issue, I have not seen resolution to it. >> Now and I do think that to those students of ours that are in the United States. The United States has a law in it's book, it's called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Which actually outlaws the paying of bribes anywhere. So even if you're a US citizen, but you're in some other country just because that is considered acceptable in that country is not an excuse. You're held to the US standards so that's- >> Yes, that's what I wanted to make sure [LAUGH] >> We don't want anybody- >> [LAUGH] Is very clear. >> Getting into trouble and all. I guess, one way to look at this is to say that ethics kinds of try to determine behaviors that are considered morally right or wrong, right? >> Morally right or wrong and I always put that comment in relationships, right? That you're dealing with relationships with other people. >> Okay, so I mentioned the paying of bribes and that's a kind of a unique thing. In your research and work that you've done, could you sort of help us to understand or give some examples of other kinds of unethical business behavior, things that businesses have done that >> To me, they're two classics recently, so one of them would be Volkswagen, right? And the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal and just a little shout out to WVU because WVU researcher over in our engineering school were part of identifying that these engines ran clean when they were on the treadmills. But they didn't run so clean when they were off the treadmills after the standards were being tested. And so that's just a huge scandal that certainly was planned, right? And that Volkswagen, in fact, within the last two weeks, I believe that is still continuing on throughout court systems and because they're a global firm it's going on in multiple nations. So, that is one where people are being deceived where the product is not meeting the standards that the product should have been meeting. A breach of your social norms, right? And a breach of the law itself, as well. The other one is Wells Fargo, and Wells Fargo, we continue to see, I can't remember the year they were founded, but reinvented in 2018. So you're seeing some of their ads trying to say, we messed up. The first of the scandals that came out was the what we would call cross-selling. Have you all talked about cross-selling yet? >> No we haven't. >> because I'll explain that then. >> Sure please. >> Cross-selling would be I have one customer, and I make sure that that customer uses many different products because generally it's, in fact always, almost, it is cheaper to work with an existing customer than it is for you to get a new client. And so for cross-selling in financial industry, you might have a checking account and small money market, and an online presence, or something like that. So maybe I have three different accounts with Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo made it as their goal that you'll have eight. So the corporate goal was eight because, this is my favorite, eight rhymes with great. So with that, there was a tremendous pressure on people to cross-sell, right? To get people to open up a new account of some nature credit cards whatever it may be. And so many thousands of new accounts were opened with a fee without the knowledge of the person whose name the account was in. And that has been a major scandal, and then there has been many scandals meaning it both Many and Mini Many scandals since that big break about two years ago. >> And I think what most of us would probably agree that at some point in your career you're probably going to face some type of unethical issue, you may have a choice that you have to make that requires you to consider, Sort of opposing ethical views and so forth. So I guess my question is, is it ever okay to do something unethical? I know that's a tricky question. >> Yeah, I'm going to say no. >> Okay. >> Because my rule of thumb is when I hit one of those ethical dilemmas and I don't know what to do. There's the little over here and the little over there and I try very hard to say, if I were to explain this to somebody out loud with people that I respect, am I going to feel good about my decision? And fortunately, or unfortunately, I know a lot of these theories and that helps me, honestly. But the rule of thumb I use is, if I really had to go out, and just say, here is literally what happened, and this is how I made my decision. You may not agree with that decision, but I could still feel good about what I did. >> No, that's a good piece of advice, I appreciate it. Now,
