Business Ethics, Part I

Last week I attended a panel event on Business Ethics hosted by my alma mater, San Francisco State University Graduate School of Business. It was a 4 person 2 hour event discussing recent events with a lack of business ethics (Arthur Andersen and Enron were mentioned more than once). There were some philosophical discussions about these things snowballing and the general theme seemed to be that the breakdown of ethical breakdown almost invariably happens from the top and trickles down. The matter of absolute power absolutely corrupts was also alluded to. There was some discussion about how a few publicly held companies who are faced with compliance with SOX have chosen to buy back stock and return to being privately held. That subject also moved to HIPAA compliance and how both of these (HIPAA & SOX) are really adoptions of best practices.

In terms of technology, I've dealt with both and I can't say that I fully agree with the statement of best practices, at least not in their entirety. I think particular sections are probably best practices but you will find several contradictions if you take them in their entirety. There are good ideas and as a good HIPAA compliance officer will tell you is that there are specifics for which you should comply but the biggest step is raising awareness of the entire organization. Ensuring that awareness will lead to better thought out procedures and policies. The first step is the biggest and I would encourage any organization to have dedicated personnel to implement this. The personnel should not be of a police-nature but they have to be collaborative with authority and should report to senior management. If you don't have someone trained and well-versed on the subject matter, individuals can very readily throw out 'I have to do it because of SOX/HIPAA' without providing any substance because there isn't anyone to challenge it. I saw the same thing happen frequently in the university with the phrase academic freedom. As soon as you hear someone say that their academic freedom is being compromised, I recommend paying special attention to find real logic.