[justratsinacoat]

Eh, if you say so. Determining "the shareholders" to be the ultimate authority, the fear of whose disapproval drives you to not make "bad" decisions (which, the comment elaborates, eventually means committing fraud to "juice the quarters numbers"; to whom are these numbers being eventually presented, to delight or disappointment?).

But upon further reflection upon our interaction, you must be right. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[tptacek]

No, he was implying that the reaction of shareholders is an acid test of ethics: that if you can't even tell your shareholders about something iffy, it's very unlikely that it's ethical. But he didn't say or imply that the opinion of shareholders completely disposed of the question.

[justratsinacoat]

>But he didn't [...] imply that the opinion of shareholders completely disposed of the question

Quite so! What he said was 'their having committed fraud to bump up the numbers, y'know, as you do, was to please shareholders at quarterly meetings'.

"Business ethics", at this level, revolves around the shareholders, and the comment telegraphs this: as you say, shareholder reaction is the acid test for appropriate behaviour. Nor, indeed, does the opinion of shareholders dispose of the question. Yet, it is fear of shareholder disapproval that drives both the cover-up of fraud (potential jailtime probably helps with this) and the instantiation of said fraud in order to keep numbers up in order to placate shareholders.

But, again, you're right. I'll keep my original comment up, but I should have put ""Business ethics" is all about shareholders, eh? This explains so much...".

[kolinko]

>Quite so! What he said was 'their having committed fraud to bump up the numbers, y'know, as you do, was to please shareholders at quarterly meetings'."

Check the thread history, he said exactly the opposite:

> > > if you wouldn't feel comfortable getting on the phone and telling your share holders what you are doing then its probably wrong.