Title: Center for Ethical Business Cultures

Source/Sponsoring Agency: Center for Ethical Business Cultures; University of St. Thomas

URL: http://www.cebcglobal.org/

Date Checked: 6/2/2011      Status: Active

Date Annotated: 5/25/2011

Topics: Commercial Law; Professional Ethics

Other keywords: Business Associations

Contents: Founded in 1978 by Minnesota CEOs and businesses, The Center for Ethical Business Cultures (CEBC) is an independent non-profit affiliated with the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. In addition to grants and University support, the Center is also supported by dues from membership companies. These companies include Best Buy, Piper Jaffray, and Thomson Reuters. The founders of CEBC sought to strengthen the Minnesota business environment, as well as local communities, by creating an organization to educate leaders and to perpetuate a “culture of corporate citizenship.” Since its founding, the Center has facilitated an “understanding of a spectrum of community and business policy issues” by conducting institutes and through other educational in initiatives. The website provides news and information about the Center’s purpose and programs. Highlighted programs and services include an annual ethics case competition, ethical leadership development, and code assessment. The most recent ethics competition centered on providing ethical advice to interested parties in microfinance. Competitors were judged on their research and analysis from business, legal, and ethics perspectives. CEBC’s code assessment service assists businesses in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their ethics codes and will help in creating more effective codes. A centerpiece of the site is the Knowledge Center. Here, users will find working papers and white papers. Topics include expectation setting, diversity, and executive compensation. Users should also look at the Minnesota Principles, which were developed by the Center in consultation with various business leaders, as a guiding document of standards and aspirations for conducting global business with an ethical basis. The document includes general principles, as well as stakeholder principles specific to customers, employees, owners, suppliers, communities, and competitors.

Author of Annotation: M. Morrison