Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Character and entrepreneurship

Business education is often good at teaching useful business theories and skills but less often good at teaching ethics. Ethics is often seen as irrelevant or as an obstacle, so business ethics is either not included in the core business curriculum or offered as an elective ornament.

Claim: Ethics is organically central to business success, and should be so built into business education. Two quotations from giants of American business in support.

First, from Georges Doriot, one of America’s trailblazing venture capitalists, as quoted in Jeffrey Young’s Forbes Greatest Technology Stories:

“Doriot spends most of his time talking to people who bring him prospective investments. He says he has considered no less than 5,000 of them since 1946. He is considered by friends and critics alike as a brilliant judge of character. But he has to be, he explains. ‘When someone comes in with an idea that’s never been tried, the only way you can judge is by the kind of man you’re dealing with’” (p. 101).

Second, from financier J. P. Morgan, who was once asked whether money was always loaned out based on one’s assets. Morgan replied, “No, sir, the first thing is character.” And, Morgan continued, if someone he couldn’t trust asked for funding, he wouldn’t make the loan even if he had “all the bonds in Christendom” (quoted in Kaizen, Issue 6 [pdf], featuring my interview with venture capitalist Kevin O’Connor).

For both Doriot and Morgan, character is fundamental. So what is good character? How does one acquire it, develop it, and make it second nature? How does one recognize it in others? How does one build institutions that support, nurture, and reward excellent character? That is a core part of business ethics.

And to make a plug for business and ethics here at Rockford College, the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship’s web log has a series of recent posts on patents and innovation, low-cost eye care in India, whether new jobs are most created in new or small businesses, and the psychic benefits of non-profit work.

Kaizen issue 9 published

The latest issue of Kaizen features my interview with sports entrepreneur David Checketts. Checketts is former CEO of New York’s Madison Square Garden and is now chairman of SCP Worldwide, which owns the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake.

Kaizen also features a course-development project by Rockford College Professor Bill Lewis, a paper given by Professor Shawn Klein at a sports ethics conference, and an international conference organized and hosted by Professor J. J. Asongu.

A PDF version of Kaizen is available at the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship’s Kaizen site, and the full interview with Mr. Checketts will be posted there soon.

If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford.edu.

Kaizen Issue 8 published

The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship has published its eighth issue of Kaizen [pdf], focusing on the theme of Education and Entrepreneurship. It features my interview with Steve Mariotti, founder of the excellent Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), an organization dedicated to providing entrepreneurship education to low-income youths.

Also featured are guest speakers David Mayer, who spoke at Rockford College on Thomas Jefferson, and C. Bradley Thompson, who spoke on John Adams, along with a mini interview with Professor Steve Kadamian on his new entrepreneurship course and a report on our 2009 High School Entrepreneur Day.

This and previous issues of Kaizen are also available at CEE’s Kaizen page.

Sports and business: Kaizen interviews

The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship has published its first-ever summer issue of Kaizen. This issue features an interview I conducted with Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the basketball’s Chicago Bulls and baseball’s Chicago White Sox. That issue also includes a short feature on Professor Shawn Klein, a philosopher and sports ethicist here at Rockford College.

Kaizen also recently published my extended interview with Ed Snider, CEO of Comcast-Spectacor, owner of hockey’s Philadelphia Flyers and basketball’s Philadelphia 76ers, and all-around great guy.

If you are interested in sports ethics and entrepreneurship, keep an eye out for my interview with David Checketts, CEO of SCP Worldwide, owner of hockey’s St. Louis Blues and soccer’s Real Salt Lake. Checketts is also the former CEO of the Madison Square Garden, which owns the New York Rangers, the New York Knicks, and the New York Liberty of the WNBA. That interview is forthcoming in the October 2009 issue of Kaizen.