Say "whistleblower" to some execs and the reaction your likely to get is one of fear and loathing. It shouldn't be that way. Whistleblowers can help keep your company out of trouble by catching fraud and corruption – things harmful to your company's reputation and bottom line over the long...
Oil companies like to boast that their record-breaking profits are largely invested in infrastructure, exploration for new sources of "Texas tea," and in exploring "green alternatives." But, according to an AP story, the bulk of oil companies' earnings have gone not into exploration, but to stock buybacks...
BNET Industries editor, David Hamilton, blogs up the skinny on Roche's attempted acquisition of biotech giant, Genentech. Writes Hamilton: The deal also has a funny smell to it. Roche CEO Severin Schwan claims the merger would save $800 million a year in administrative costs from merging commercial and manufacturing...
Seems like it's Cosmopolitan Day here at BNET. Over at the Corner Office, Peter Galuszka notes that U.S. companies are, in increasing numbers, tapping executives and board members from abroad, notably China and India (Or, as the kids are calling it, Chindia.) Meanwhile, BNET1's...
In the past we've shared advice on how to survive dinner with your wine snob boss and order wine at a business luncheon or dinner. As every wine enthusiast knows, where a wine comes from and how it is made determines its character and quality. But many wineries today are...
How can you condemn cheating in a game where the players are expected to "steal" bases? David Jacobson has done a remarkable job in researching and writing this week's business of baseball feature package, talking about salaries, the revenue sharing model and the MLB's legally sanctioned monopoly...
You know what we do at BNET: provide information, advice and insight -- plus a little entertainment -- to you, the redoubtable manager battling every day to make your team, your organization and yourself more successful. We hope we've been useful to you. Judging by our growing...
Last week we asked, "where should eBay draw the line against fakes?" The post was the result of a French court's $63 million ruling against the company on grounds that it did not sufficiently police its site against counterfeiters selling, among other things, phony Louis Vuitton merchandise. ...
(Note: This is a post submitted by BNET member Michael Mattis. To submit your own post, click here.) What a difference three years and the global spread of social media technology make. Back in 2005, Prospect, a British center-left magazine of ideas and culture,...
The great majority of companies can't afford a full-time on-board ethicist to deal with delicate conflicts of interest and other moral dilemmas. Most employees turn to their Human Resources departments. So a study released this month by The Society for Human Resource Management SHRM and The Ethics...
What do Tyco Services, Huatai Group, Ford Malaysia, L'Oreal Argentina, Barclay's Bank of Ghana and The Ethical Investment Company of Australia all have in common? Each is among the 630 companies the United Nations Global Compact has booted off of its worldwide list of participants for failure to submit a...
Last week, online auction giant, eBay, said it would appeal a $63 million ruling against it by a French court, which found the company liable for facilitating the sale of counterfeit luxury goods, including the famed Louis Vuitton signature handbags. The suit was brought by LVMH Group, which owns the...
Going in vacation this summer? With the high price of fuel, increasing the costs of plane trips, road trips and even train trips, you might be better off staying home with a good book. But for how long? That depends on where you live. As BNET1's Jessica...
We know that managing millennials -- i.e., Gen Y, Generation Tech, Adultolescents, etc. -- can be different than managing Baby Boomers, or even Gen X, but at least BNET gives the kids the benefit of the doubt. No so author Mark Bauerlein, a 49-year-old professor of English...
BNET readers know us as an online publication designed especially for business managers and owned by CNet Networks. Last Monday, CNet was acquired by the venerated Columbia Broadcasting System, or CBS. BNET, along with other former CNet properties, like our business technology partners, ZDNet and TechRepublic, are...
Concerned about your workplace's ethics? The ethics of your leadership? You could be in the wrong place, say Ronald Howard and Clinton Korver, authors of "Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life." The book shows how to become...
Long-time Yahoo Search Marketing strategy and finance man Rick Gombos has followed his boss, search marketing pioneer, Tim Cadogan, to OpenX. Cadogan jumped the Yahoo ship back in February to head up OpenX, an open source advertising community for Web publishers. ...
Sometimes even the best laid plans of mice and managers can fail, especially in a downturn. It's best to be prepared for the worst. And the best thing you can do when pink slips are plentiful is network. Remember networking? You probably did a lot of it in the way...
One of Levi Strauss & Co.'s first great acts of corporate responsibility came just a short while after the company began to supply Comstock Lode miners with tough-skinned work duds in the 1870s. The original Levi's reinforced pants included metal rivets not only on the pockets but also one located...
An interesting conundrum came up recently in Randy Cohen's column, The Ethicist, that bears on our post Tuesday regarding the role of human resources in workplace ethics. In the wake of the recent California Supreme Court Ruling that recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry, a reader writes into...
