Archive for the ‘sports’ Category
Should Penn State’s Board Resign?
Filed under: accountability, boards, education, ethics, excuses, governance, public relations, sports, stakeholders, transparency, trust |
Comments (4) In the wake of the Sandusky sex-abuse scandal the question has arisen whether Penn State University’s Board of Trustees should tender its collective resignation. And now, following the death of Coach Joe Paterno on Sunday, the question has taken on additional emotional resonance. The university’s Faculty Senate is scheduled to discuss a motion to strike an independent committee to investigate the Board’s role in the whole affair, and indeed has seen at least one motion calling for the entire Board’s resignation.
So, should the members of the Board be asked to resign? And if not, should they do so of their own volition?
To answer these questions, here are some questions that need to be considered:
Fist, did indeed the Board fail in its fiduciary (‘trust-based’) duties? It’s worth noting that the Board has been under fire from two different directions, here. Some think the Board failed in not staying sufficiently ‘on top of’ the Sandusky situation, and in resting satisfied with whatever dribbles of information the university administration saw fit to feed them. (The only detailed account I’ve read so far paints the Board in a rather sympathetic light, in this regard.)
Others think the Board failed in firing — in their eyes, scapegoating — the beloved Paterno. Both sides think the Board screwed up, but for very different reasons. Of course, both can be right at the same time. Perhaps the Board has just generally done a bad job, first by letting the situation get out of hand and then second by botching the task of responding to it. Rather than cancelling each other out, maybe these two sets of complaints just compound each other.
Next, we need to ask, if the Board failed, was it a failure of people or a failure of structure? A board, after all, is both an institutional structure and a set of people occupying that structure.
If it was a failure of structure (and, as governance expert Richard Leblanc wrote back in November, there are serious problems with how Penn State’s board is configured) then there’s little reason to think that a change of personnel on the Board is either necessary or sufficient to fix the problem. And if instead it was a failure of people, then getting rid of them all is a blunt, but perhaps effective, way to solve the problem — providing, of course, that the new people brought in to replace them are better.
Of course, the problem is that it’s difficult to distinguish between a failure of people and a failure of structure, in a case like this. Perhaps people better-suited to the job would have risen above the confines of a poorly-structured board, or lobbied to have its structure revised. Human behaviour and institutional structure shape each other.
And finally, regardless of the above questions about the sources of failure, it might be the case that the removal or resignation of the Board is necessary in order to restore public confidence. That is, even if the individuals currently on the Board are not in any way to blame, the fact that key stakeholders have lost faith in the Board might be sufficient grounds for calling for the entire Board to go. Without the confidence of key stakeholders, any Board is going to find it hard to do its job.
But then, while the current Board certainly faces challenges, so would an entirely new Board. The loss of continuity that would result from a 100% change in membership could seriously impair the Board’s functioning, and make it even more reliant on — and susceptible to control by — university administrators. There’s a good reason why well-governed boards have careful plans in place to make sure that new blood is brought in regularly, rather than en masse. In the end, it seems to me that the best prescription is this. The Board of Trustess at Penn State needs to see substantial structural change. It also needs enough new blood to restore confidence, while retaining enough of the old guard to ensure continuity. Beyond that, the Board is just going to have to do its best to muddle through whatever challenges lie ahead, with whatever strengths and limits it possesses, just like any other board.
Pepsi Makes the Best of a Super Bowl-Free Sunday
Filed under: advertising, brands, corporate citizenship, CSR, marketing, sponsorship, sports | Tags: philanthropy
Comments (6) 
Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. PepsiCo has managed to make a win out of not sponsoring the biggest advertising event of the year.
See the story here, by Jennifer Preston of the NYT: Pepsi Bets on Local Grants, Not the Super Bowl
What’s better than reaching more than 100 million viewers during last year’s Super Bowl? For Pepsi, it could be 6,000 football fans during a high school game on Friday night in central Texas. Or a group of parents who wanted a new playground in their Las Vegas neighborhood.
That is the bet that PepsiCo made when it walked away from spending $20 million on television spots for Pepsi during last year’s Super Bowl and plowed the money into a monthly online contest for people to submit their ideas and compete for votes to win grants….
This is the first time in 23 years that Pepsi isn’t a sponsor of the Super Bowl. How did this happen? Who knows. Maybe the price-tag got too rich for them. Maybe they got outbid. (Though it’s worth noting that PepsiCo won’t be entirely absent from the Super Bowl: the game will feature ads for two of the company’s other brands, Pepsi Max and Doritos.) At any rate, Pepsi says it’s just a new strategy. Interestingly, they say — despite the fact that this new strategy involves giving millions of dollars to good causes — it’s not a philanthropic strategy:
“This was not a corporate philanthropy effort,” said Shiv Singh, head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages America. “This was using brand dollars with the belief that when you use these brand dollars to have consumers share ideas to change the world, the consumers will win, the brand will win, and the community will win.
It’s an interesting move. For one thing, it brings together cause-based marketing and social media on a supersized scale. And to me, whatever the motivation for the move, it’s a true-and-justified instance of corporate social responsibility. It’s not ethically obligatory: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing things the old way. It’s not unethical to spend $20 million-plus on commercials for the Super Bowl, like they did last year. And it’s not obligatory to support dozens or hundreds of local causes. So think of it this way: PepsiCo has $20 million to spend on building its brand. It had to choose a strategy, a choice regarding how to spend that money. They could give it to the NFL, or they could give it to a bunch of worthy charities. If they can achieve their objectives (and hence fulfill obligations to shareholders) while at the same time doing some social good, that’s a good example of CSR.
As the company says, though, it’s a gamble. But as gambles go, they’re sure making the best of it. PepsiCo is turning not sponsoring the Super Bowl into a straight-up victory, rather than a defeat. And notice also that, with the right media coverage, Pepsi still gets its name associated with the Super Bowl.
God-Washing Davos
Filed under: ethics, finance, greenwashing, international, sports, Uncategorized, values, workplace safety |
Comments (19) 
Can religion save the soul of the world’s economic system? What does religion have to do with ethics? In particular, what does religion have to do with business ethics? There’s certainly no necessary connection. You’ll notice an utter lack of theological arguments in this blog, for instance. But many people see a connection, and perhaps a necessary one.
For example, see this piece by Dan Gilgoff, for CNN’s “Belief” Blog: How Davos found God
…Since the banking crisis shook global markets more than two years ago and contributed to a worldwide economic slump, the annual Davos summit has invited dozens of religious and spiritual leaders to hash out issues like business ethics and the morality of markets in the company of presidents and corporate titans….
This worries me for two reasons.
First is that religious leaders have no particular expertise in the questions at hand. One clergyman quoted in the story says the key question is “how do you embed values in the culture of companies in a way that would change behaviors?” Good question, but it’s not one about which most religious leaders are likely to have any real insight. Most, for example, won’t know much about the workings of corporations, or about corporate culture, or about (for example) what the criminological literature says about the real causes of wrongdoing. Sure, talking about values can be a good thing. But there’s no good evidence that religious values, or organized religion as a way of inculcating values, does anything in particular to make people more ethical. And certainly there’s no reason to believe that “40 minutes of guided meditation” is going to play any role at all in fixing the problems faced by the world’s economy.
My second worry is that the inclusion of religious leaders is a distraction, a way of deflecting criticism by including a few dozen people who a large portion of the public are likely to associate with the idea of being a good person. It’s symbolic. It’s a way of signalling to the public that the business world really is concerned about doing the right thing — without engaging anyone who actually has the relevant expertise. It’s a feel-good move. It’s like greenwashing, but with religion rather than environmentalism as the focal distraction.
World Cup Fever and Employee Productivity
The FIFA World Cup is one of the few events capable of diverting the world’s attention from the BP oil spill. I’m sure for many it’s a relief not to have a world-class disaster as the focus of their attention during every waking moment. In that regard, even for non-soccer fans, the World Cup is a welcome diversion. Of course, for many, it’s much more than that. It’s an obsession. It’s also a month-long diversion from other obligations.
Here’s a story about how businesses are dealing with the ways in which World Cup fever is affecting employee productivity. By Susan Krashinsky and Iain Marlow, for the Globe & Mail: The World Cup in the workplace – no keeper can stop it
[A]t its call centre in Brampton, the Canadian telecommunications giant [Rogers Communications] has wheeled in four giant projection screens to allow employees to catch World Cup games.
In Brampton, Rogers has opted to face head-on the possibility of lost productivity during this global sports event. Almost all World Cup matches will take place during regular work hours in North America. Rather than pretend employees won’t be focused on the tournament, Rogers is supplying the screens – some playing silently for those taking calls, and one that will sit in the cafeteria, volume cranked up….
Two main ethical questions arise, here. One: what do employees owe their employers? The other: what do employers owe their employees? Alternatively, we can combine the two into the single question, ‘How should an important-but-time-consuming cultural event like the World Cup be integrated into the workplace? Obviously, cases will differ. In an Air Traffic Control tower, where distractions could be fatal, no one (hopefully) is going to make an argument for installing a big-screen TV to watch whatever game is on. On the other hand, if you happen to work in a sports bar, the question is again kind of trivial but for the opposite reasons.
Setting aside those extremes, what about your average, middle-of-the-road office environment? Clearly any sensible solution has to involve a formulation of shared expectations. Managers and employees need to come to an understanding about how (as opposed to “whether”) employees are going to check in on World Cup games. In principle, any mutually-agreeable solution is ethically acceptable. But I would think really wise managers would find ways to turn employees’ interest in the World Cup into a benefit, rather than a liability. The most obvious way is by using the World Cup as part of various morale-boosting activities. More subtly, companies might draw on sports analogies — analogies that should be particularly vivid during the World Cup — in order to create training activities, perhaps ones that provide lessons on teamwork and courage. Indeed, they could even draw on the world cup to create training activities that focus on ethics, building on the analogy between sports and business as two competitive domains that can and should be productive endeavours, but that are more likely to be so when played within the boundaries of a well-thought-out set of rules.
Soccer Ball Ethics
Filed under: advertising, quality, sponsorship, sports, technology |
Comments (5) 
Amidst all the excitement over the start of the FIFA World Cup, one of the oddest bits of excitement has surrounded the innovative ball being used in the tournament, namely Adidas’ new “Jabulani.” Although the ball was designed to have superior aerodynamic properties, critics have attacked the ball for the particular way it flies though the air. Here, for example, cites Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar as saying “It’s terrible, horrible. It’s like one of those balls you buy in the supermarket.”
Two things are interesting about this controversy.
One has to do with fairness. The controversy over the Jabulani — the ball that all teams will play with during the tournament — reminds us that the “level playing-field” metaphor so often appealed to in business is a sporting metaphor. It’s a reference to the fact that we think it desirable, generally, to make sure that no team has an unfair advantage. We want a level playing-field because if we play on a hill, one team is seriously disadvantaged by having to attempt to advance the ball up-hill, which requires considerably more effort. The point generalizes to any factors (including changes in the game) that give one side an unfair (dis)advantage. A change in the game is one thing, but a change that creates a differential advantage is quite another. And with regard to the Jabulani, even some critics have admitted that the fact that this change affects everyone equally mitigates the criticism. As English goalkeeper David James put it, “It’s horrible, but it’s horrible for everyone.”
But it’s worth noting the limits of this level-playingfield argument. While it’s true that all teams are subject to the same change, it’s not true that everyone is affected equally. First, it seems to be goalkeepers that are complaining most, suggesting that there’s a differential impact on them compared to other players — and that matters, at very least in terms of the ego of goalkeepers vs the egos of those scoring the goals. (In fact some suspect that this is an intentional outcome of the change in the ball: it will result in more goals, and hence more excitement, hence making it a better TV sport for North American viewers in particular.) Second, it’s not clear that all teams will be affected equally. Particular ball characteristics are liable to suit some teams’ strengths and strategies better than others. So why the “field” may be “level” at a superficial level, we may need to look deeper if we’re really interested in deciding whether this particular change is, in fact, a fair one.
The second interesting thing about the controversy has been the response from Adidas, the company that designed the ball. The response from Adidas has mainly focused on the science, and on pointing out that change is always difficult at first. But Adidas also had a more interesting defence, namely accusing (some) critics of conflict of interest. (See this definition of ‘conflict of interest’.) In particular, the claim is that most of the critics are subject to a possible financial bias. According to this story,
[Adidas spokesman Brueggen] pointed out that if you look closely at the players and goalies making these accusations you’ll notice one common thread among them: the all have contracts with Adidas’ competitors.
Now certainly not all critics have been affiliated with Adidas’ competitors. The soccer-gear website ‘Soccer Cleats 101,’ for example, reviewed the Jabulani back in January, and expressed some of the same concerns. Still, it’s an interesting accusation. And as always with such accusations, interesting questions arise. First, can Adidas’ claim be backed up empirically? If we actually count up the critics and look at what companies they’re sponsored by, will we see the pattern that Adidas claims? If Adidas hasn’t done such a tally (but is simply working from a rough impression) is it fair to make the accusation? Is the suspicion enough? And if we do confirm such a pattern of bias, what’s the specific explanation for it? Is it a matter of players consciously promoting the interests of companies they’re affiliated with, or is it more likely to be a more subtle, subconscious bias? And, finally — setting aside the fact that professional sport is, itself, a big business — what lessons can we learn from this sports story, and apply to the world of business more generally?
(p.s. Those of you with an interest in ethical dimensions of sports should be sure to check out Wayne Norman’s blog, This Sporting Life.)
