Business ethics in action

Edouard Larpin, Cass Business School alumni and Management Consultant at Ernst & Young, tells us about ‘Cass Ethics’, and why he set up the series of video interviews for Cass Knowledge.

Sub-prime mortgages. Bankers’ bonuses. Executive pay. Recent events in the business world have moved the subject of ethics up the corporate agenda. Back in January 2010, when the economic crisis was really hitting home, the papers were full of bad ethical practices. Like many people, I felt really disgusted by these excesses of capitalism.

I remember seeing Roger Steare’s lecture about business ethics. It really inspired me, and a few weeks later Roger kindly agreed to let me interview him about CSR in HR for a class project. This gave me the idea of doing a regular video series on ethics in business.

Cass Ethics is published every two weeks and in each episode I interview a leading academic or practitioner. The focus is on applying ethics to real life business situations. In other words, finding the balance between maximising profit and minimising negative impacts on the wider society.

As well as providing practical advice for managers and professionals, Cass Ethics should be of real interest to Cass students, alumni and other academics. Interviews so far have touched on Business Education, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Ethics tools, life in the City, what we can learn from religion, and ethics in the insurance world. To date, these interviews have been watched nearly 10,500 times.

In upcoming posts (the last two in the series), I’ll publish part two of my interview with controversial ‘City Boy’ author Geraint Anderson, and meet Peter Hahn, now a lecturer in Finance at Cass and previous MD of CitiGroup. To watch these and other interviews, visit Cass Ethics at here

Though I graduated last May, I’ve been asked to consult on the next series, which will have more of a student focus. If you’re interested in taking over the reins, please email me on edouard@larpin.com