Business Ethics, Global Competitiveness, and Personal Morals?

After reading an article on the Industrial News Room, I was left with a few questions. None of them really came from one cohesive train of thought. First, should the leaders of today’s government and business be held accountable for their actions outside of the office? The article mentions the recent downfall that was Governor Spitzer’s career and how ethics and moral behavior is always being pushed into public discourse when it comes to business. The question here is, do the leaders that tout themselves for being socially responsible in the boardroom, need to be socially and morally responsible in their personal lives? Does it even matter, unless it directly affects the consumer?

 

Another question that stemmed from further reading was whether or not the costs of compliance tests are too high for these businesses? Could this be a downfall to having governmentally regulated CSR standards? Or are big businesses just looking for a way to explain their outsourcing so they don’t look like the “bad guy”?