For the 15th consecutive year, Australians rate nurses as the most ethical and honest professionals, followed closely by pharmacists, according to the annual Image of the Professions survey, conducted by Roy Morgan Research. The findings mirror those of Gallup's annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions survey, which consistently finds that Americans consider nurses the most ethical of all professionals. Australians view car salesmen, advertising executives and newspaper journalists as the least ethical occupations, and only 17 percent trust the directors of public companies.
The world is a little less peaceful this year, according to the 2009 Global Peace Index, a project of the Institute for Economics and Peace and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The global economic crisis has contributed to an uptick in violence and instability, said the researchers who compiled the third annual Index ranking 144 countries from most to least peaceful, based on indicators like crime rate, political stability, relations with neighboring countries, and military deaths. New Zealand ranks as the most peaceful country this year; Iraq ranks last. The report contends that an economic bonus of up to $7.3 trillion could be realized by increasing world peace, defined by the project as “the absence of violence.” The United States ranks in the middle of the pack at No. 83.
Corruption, violence and political stability are key drivers of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), updated June 29 by the World Bank. The analysis of data from 1996-2008 shows many countries making progress in governance and anti-corruption, but also shows that many are regressing. “We should not presume that rich and powerful countries have the very best levels of governance and corruption control; the financial crisis reminds us that the quality of governance in G8 countries is not always exemplary,” said Daniel Kaufmann, co-author of the report and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. The indicators cover 212 countries and territories, analyzing hundreds of variables from 35 different data sources. Click here to access the user-friendly electrponic report.
LinkedIn profiles of job candidates are more truthful than the candidates' resumes, according to Reid Hoffman, CEO of the social networking site. Speaking June 15 at a Google-sponsored summit, he explained that details about previous employment, such as dates and job titles, are more accurate on public profiles maintained by individuals and accessible to their former co-workers and other contacts. One might infer that this accountability leaves little opportunity to fudge, especially compared to resumes that are seen only by a select few. LinkedIn is a growing, web-based network of 42 million people worldwide.
What will they think of next? The latest weapon in the assault on acedemic integrity is corrupted-files.com, a service that sells students intentionally corrupted files that can be submitted via e-mail in lieu of an assignment that was not finished on time. The instructions say, "After purchasing a file, rename the file e.g. Mike_Final-Paper. Step 2: E-mail the file to your professor along with your 'here's my assignment' e-mail. Step 3: It will take your professor several hours if not days to notice your file is 'unfortunately' corrupted. Use the time this website just bought you wisely and finish that paper!!!" The purchased download includes Word documents of 2, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 pages, suitable for a variety of assignment lengths. Is it cheating? Not according to the web site, which argues that its service is merely an improvement on "lame" excuses like the faked death of a grandmother. "Who's to say your 10-page paper didn't get corrupted? Exactly! No one can! Its the perfect excuse to buy yourself extra time and not hand in a garbage paper."
Miller is an internationally known leader in diversity management who has held senior executive positions at Toyota, Delta Air Lines, The Coca-Cola Company and Intercontinental Hotels. At the Birmingham Diversity Summit he will discuss the challenges faced by managers in today's business environment, including a recession that has severely affected his own industry. At Samford he will share lessons from his own life story, which began in a poverty-stricken African-American community in south Georgia. More details about both events will be posted in October.
