James Drogan

I tend to pass along a number of links to items in the blog of Irving Wladawsky-Berger.  He has, in my opinion, very useful and provocatve insights on a broad range of contemporary issues.

Social Reputation in the Age of Globalization is just such a post and worth a read.  It links well with the posts made on this blog concerning ethics (search on "ethics" to get a list of these posts) and provides pertinent material to the discussion of ethics I have each term with our incoming graduate students.

Without a stong ethical foundation not much else of what one possesses can be of value.  The world seems to be increasingly littered wth examples of this.

I believe that we’re about to witness what may turn out to be the last competitive frontier business will see.  It’s going to be a war over the one priceless resource.  Time.  And when it comes, trust may turn out to be the best investment anyone’s made (Jim Kelly, CEO of UPS, Remarks to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco & Oakland Chamber of Commerce, February 23, 2000).

Wladawsky-Berger underscores the value of this notion of trust (which must be based on ethics) as a prerequisite for reputation.