Today I was skimming through the news and ran into an article headline about Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco. Before, I would most likely skip reading the article based on the title. I did not really remember a Tyco scandal of some 5-6 years ago, and the name was not telling me much.
But now it is different. The Kozlowski case is the one I read in preparation for my Business Ethics class in my MBA program just last week. The book gives more revealing details about the excesses and abuses Kozlowski exercised while at the helm of the company. Quite interesting read. (Case Studies in Business Ethics (6th Edition) ISBN-10: 0132424320 ISBN-13: 978-0132424325). We also had a chance to discuss the case in the classroom.
Therefore I was naturally interested in learning the latest developments of the story. The article itself felt to me a bit like a paid informecial. I would not be surprized if it was a part of the concerted effort of the appeal process that is under way at the time.
Anyways, just another example of how MBA classes make you “privy” to the previously ignored world of the “behind the curtains” business.
An interesting twist about that classroom discussion we had about the relatively recent scandals including Tyco, Enron, WorldCom among others. In each case we were prompted by our professor to identify what was the cause of the moral downfall of the people involved, and business collapse:
- Character flaws
- Organizational flaw
- Systemic flaw
One of my classmates stated that the real culprits in the story are the members of the board charged with oversight, but instead they overlooked the Kozlowski’s abuses spinning out of control. The student just stopped short of proclaiming the CEO innocent. At any rate, interesting angle on the business ethics from an MBA perspective in my opinion.
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