By Paul Tuthill
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-846289.mp3
Chicopee MA – The Bernard Madoff case, Enron, and other examples of immorality in business have brought a new emphasis on ethics from many financial professionals....WAMC's Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports...
About 20 percent of the class that graduated earlier this year from the Harvard Business School took a voluntary oath - developed by students - to act ethically. Business schools all across the county are putting a new emphasis on integrity, according to the New York Times.
William Donovan , who chairs the Division of Business and Laws at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, says they have long stressed values as part of the curriculum. Donovan says there have been financial scams and scandals through out almost all of recorded history, but he says there is not a rampant lack of morals in the business world.
Christine Arace, of Pittsfield, who has been a CPA for 15 years, does not believe Madoff has given the financial profession as a whole a black eye. She says the people who keep the books at businesses big and small are heavily regulated.
And more changes will come as a result of the global financial meltdown . Ben Gaynes, who has run a Connecticut based political and financial consulting business for more than a half century says we are in a period of unprecedented government involvement in business.