Musings on sustainability - why being seen to be green is not enough

The terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ are increasingly becoming part of our everyday language as well as coming to the fore of political thinking as politicians parade their green credentials. We think we understand what these terms mean but in order to take correct actions and to weigh others judgments these terms could do with an element of definition. The danger of not having a clear view of...

I was reading through the Telegraph today and a sad picture caught my eye that of a memorial to 'baby-P'. What struck me was that even in death he has no identity - even this has been taken away in the cause of correctness. On the card with the flowers his name shown as 'Baby P'. Brutally killed, failed by society, ashes scattered in a paupers funeral apparently anonymous.

I do not want vigilantes either even those who did this should have due process but at least there could be...

Some years ago I was sitting in the accountancy module B212 'window dressing and off balance sheet techniques' during my Masters course when the lecturer at the time piped up that one of the biggest fears in finance was the fact that mortgages were lent long whilst money was saved or acquired from the market short. In principle short money can be called for very quickly whilst paying back a mortgage on demand is impossible. A interesting discussion took place as we considered the possibilities of...

Stress From Outsourcing can Kill

I was struck by the similarity in the situation when people are laid off during redundancies and the stress caused by the move from one company to another during outsourcing - it strikes me that this is an under researched area and something we as managers should pay more attention to.

Pioneering studies in Scandinavia that took place some years ago, where centralized health care allows researchers access to vast databases of medical...

Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines the principles and moral or ethical dilemmas that arise in a business environment. Business ethics is relevant both to the conduct of individuals as well as the organisation as a whole and is an increasingly important issue for all organisations. Business ethics is a topic covering the practices that corporations should adhere to in order to establish an ethical, fair business.

Business ethics, is informed by rich and multiple...

Why does Outsourcing often fails to deliver any benefit?


In a recent Dun & Bradstreet report they noted that "25 percent of all outsourcing fails" completely and over 50% of all outsource deals do not deliver any substantive benefit at all. Outsourcing failures are often the result of companies rushing into transactions with unrealistic or unsubstantiated expectations of cost savings and performance improvements that cannot be met because the client does not communicate its requirements...