Only when jobs involved making ethical compromises did women report less interest in the jobs than men.

That’s one finding from a series of recently released studies titled: “Who Is Willing to Sacrifice Ethical Values for Money and Social Status? Gender Differences in Reactions to Ethical Compromises.”

More from the studies conducted by Jessica Kennedy of Wharton and Laura Kray of Berkeley:

* Study 1, when reading decisions that compromised ethical values for social status and monetary gains, women reported feeling more moral outrage and perceived less business sense in the decisions than men.

* In Study 2, we established a causal relationship between aversion to ethical compromises and disinterest in business careers by manipulating the presence of ethical compromises in job descriptions. As hypothesized, an interaction between gender and presence of ethical compromises emerged.

The research points to the very good possibility that women may have more integrity than men.

What does this mean? (more…)

Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs executive who caused an uproar earlier this year with his opinion piece in the New York Times exposing the corruption and greed that’s rampant on Wall Street, is about to debut his new book: “Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story.”

Surely Smith will regale us with more in depth explanations of the sickening stories he shared in his oped:

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail.

This disregard for others in the name of money isn’t only the domain of Wall Streeters.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately you’ve probably heard about the tainted steriod injections that have killed 19 and sickened many others.

The problems aren’t only an issue for a lone lax pharmacy that produced the injections. A story in the New York Times today points to rampant violations at drug factories around the country. The first paragraph of the story will make you sick to your stomach:

Weevils floating in vials of heparin. Morphine cartridges that contain up to twice the labeled dose. Manufacturing plants with rusty tools, mold in production areas and — in one memorable case — a barrel of urine.

How does this happen? Clearly, someone, or a group of someones, decides to cut corners all for the good of the bottom line, and it turns out we may be teaching the idea that “greed is good” to students studying economics. (more…)

Some of us parents frown down on tattletaling when our kids engage in it. But maybe we should be encouraging the practice if we want our children to go out and change the world.

Cases of whistleblowing in the workplace are rare, but they’re critical when it comes to helping derail bad behaviors among everyone from the rank and file to CEOs.

The big news today is fraud at a huge hospital chain called HCA that’s been accused of wrongdoing by some of its doctors who allegedly performed unnecessary lucrative heart tests on patients that put those patients in danger. And guess how we found out about this? A whistleblower! (more…)

The great news this morning that Apple is considering bringing back some production to the United States brought out the pessimist in me.

This was my first tweet of the day:

US-made tech products are best/but will apple bring sweatshops to the US?- Apple CEO wants to make more products in US

There have been several reports lately that manufacturing jobs are starting to come back to our shores, but what’s driving a lot of the turnaround is sinking wages for Americans. No, we still don’t make as little as our Chinese counterparts, but the wallets of average American workers has been getting thinner everyday.

This from a Wall Street Journal article from Monday titled “Flat U.S. Wages Help Fuel Rebound in Manufacturing”:

With unemployment still high and global competition intense, employers have the upper hand in asking unions to relax work rules and restrain, or reduce, wages and benefits. Scores of U.S. companies have negotiated two-tier contracts with unions that allow them to pay new hires less than existing workers or otherwise restrain wage and benefit costs.

Indeed, real wages for U.S. workers grew at their slowest rate in two years, this on the heels of a report that CEOs brought in record pay checks in 2011.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook made close to $400 million in compensation last year. The average Apple worker in China makes: (more…)

I’ve written extensively about the lack of women board members in Corporate America but I’m especially peeved this morning about the problem.

Turns out the guys who sit on boards today — and we’re talking about 95 percent men who hold these powerful positions — aren’t there because they’re any great shakes. In fact, quite a few of them are actually unprincipled.

There’s a great piece in the New York Times by Andrew Ross Sorkin today titled “‘Tainted,’ But Sheltered On Boards,” that looks at why some men who’ve been disgraced in their fields for a host of reasons are still sitting on the nation’s top boards.

These are seats that someone with integrity should hold, and I would argue that these bad boys should be replaced with good girls. Clearly, women have proven themselves as potentially more ethical than men when it comes to ethics and business. (more…)

UPDATE BELOW

Are we experiencing whistleblower fever?

If you haven’t seen it yet, a former executive director at Goldman Sachs left his job this week but decided to take the firm down with him in a scathing letter about alleged illegal practices at the financial powerhouse.

Greg Smith, who had worked for the company for 12 years, wrote in an Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday:

“I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.”

He goes on to say how corrupt and greed focused the company has become, and Goldman came out swinging against his claims. But the letter has become an internet sensation, potentially inspiring others to get on the whistleblower bandwagon.

A tip I just received today from a Wall Street source directed me to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s website and a comment on an open forum on the page created to solicit public comment related to financial filings under the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” aka,“Dodd-Frank Act'’.

The comment my source wanted me to read was one supposedly written by a JPMorgan employee who claims to have information on chicanery at the firm: (more…)

This week, the federal government said it found major safety violations at a key Hershey plant in Pennsylvania.

But guess what? Hershey isn’t in trouble.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited two Hershey contractors — Exel Inc. and SHS Staffing Solutions — for the violations. The charges are serious including everything from willful thwarting of U.S. safety laws to the failure to keep tabs on worker injuries, and the fine was high, nearly $290,000.

Even though the workers at the plant make Hershey products and the company profits from those Kisses and Kit-Kats, the company pretty much gets to wash its hands of the whole thing.

A reporter for the New York Times, Julia Preston, rightly called Hershey after news of the fine came out, and the company took a pass:

A spokesman for the Hershey Company, Jeff Beckman, noted that Hershey had not been cited by OSHA, and he said he could not speak for Exel.

But what about Hershey’s role in this? I asked Labor Department spokeswoman Joanna Hawkins why Hershey wasn’t cited, and she said, (more…)

Yesterday I wrote about Apple’s announcement that it enlisted a labor group to probe harsh conditions at the company’s manufacturing operations in China.

It’s unclear if this is a real attempt to deal with mass suicides and child labor violations, among other horrors at the facilities, or just a PR stunt. But what we do know is the company felt compelled to do something.

Why? It turns out, the iPhone and iPad devotees out there aren’t all drinking the Apple Kool-Aid.

I know Apple products are great. I’m typing this post on a MacBook Pro right now. But how will Corporate America ever clean up its act if we, the consumers, don’t take a stand against unethical things companies do? I have written in the past about how so many of us, especially Apple fanatics, don’t even care about labor violations. I’m glad to say today that I’m eating my words. An Apple zealot should get a lot of credit for forcing the company’s hand. (more…)

I wrote a story for MSNBC.com this week about Newt Gingrich’s daughter working as a janitor when she was 13, an age that the Department of Labor says is illegal to hold such a job.

The Republican presidential candidate had mentioned his daughter’s first job as part of his talking points on how poor kids in schools can take the jobs from adult janitors as a way to learn a better work ethic. As for child labor laws, he’s called them “stupid”.

I spoke to Gingrich’s daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman about the janitorial job she held in the early 1980s at a local church, and she told me she was very proud of the gig. And, she said, she hoped she was working legally at the time.

“Cleaning bathrooms taught me a lot,” Cushman said, adding that she worked many menial jobs, including being a rollerblading waitress for the Sonic Drive-In chain in high school. Such experiences, she added, helped her value hard work and “appreciate and value the people that do the work as well.”

Before the story ran, I emailed Gingrich’s press team to find out if they knew Cushman’s job may have been illegal and his press secretary R.C. Hammond wrote: “Can they work as a clerk in the library?” I figured maybe he didn’t understand my question and emailed back: “I was specifically referring to Gingrich’s comment that his daughter worked a janitorial job at age 13.”

I didn’t get a reply back before we published the story late Wednesday night, but today I got another email from Hammond: (more…)

Newspapers and websites from around the globe published moving images this morning of Italy’s Labor Minister weeping.

Elsa Fornero is crying because she was unable to hold back her emotions while telling Italians they faced many austerity measures in the months and years ahead, including everything from boosting the retirement age by six years to pension cuts.

This from UK newspaper The Telegraph:

“We had to… and it cost us a lot psychologically… ask for a…” Ms Fornero said, but was unable to complete her sentence as she wiped tears from her eyes.

Mr Monti finished the sentence for her, speaking the word “sacrifice” that she’d been unable say.

I know many career experts tell employees and managers to keep their emotions in check on the job, especially women. Women are told to keep a stiff upper lip or risk being seen as weak. Well, pretending we’re just like the tough men in the workplace has done little for the advancement of women in Corporate America or in politics.

And during these tough economic times around the world, it’s refreshing to see a politician who seems to get how hard all these sacrifices workers are making really are.

Turns out, showing a little empathy goes a long way for your career and for the greater good. (more…)