Business Ethics in the New Millennium: Will the Patient Survive?

To date, the business ethics movement has mainly concentrated on reaching the troops, not the generals. But the issue that will determine how well this movement succeeds in the opening decades of the new millennium is not how we drive ethics and compliance programs down an organization, but how we integrate considerations of ethics and values up in an organization. We must broaden the present group of business ethics advocates by enlisting influential policymakers, opinion leaders, the media, boards of directors, CEOs, investment bankers, international economic experts, and others who comprise what we might call the International Club of Thinkers and Doers. The key to ethical health in the future is a process that will drive integrity-based leadership and governance to the top of our global business organizations, with a goal to achieving global and universal standards of fundamental ethical values.