Why good businesspeople do bad things

Joseph Holt
The Chicago Tribune
Originally posted October 30, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Businesspeople are also more likely to engage in bad behavior if they assume that their competitors are doing so and that they will be at a competitive disadvantage if they do not.

A 2006 study showed that MBA students in the U.S. and Canada were more likely to cheat than other graduate students. One of the authors of the study, Donald McCabe, explained in an article that the cheating was a result of MBA students’ “succeed-at-all-costs mentality” and the belief that they were acting the way they believed they needed to act to succeed in the corporate world.

Casey Donnelly, Gatto’s attorney, claimed in her opening statement at the trial that “every major apparel company” engaged in the same payment practice, and that her client was simply attempting to “level the playing field.”

Federal authorities engaged in a yearslong investigation of shadowy dealings involving shoe companies, sports agents, college coaches and top high school basketball players have reportedly looked into Nike and Under Armour as well as Adidas.

Time will tell whether those companies were involved in similar payment schemes.

The info is here.

Ohio State places winning above morality by failing to fire Urban Meyer

Ryan Pawloski
The Daily Nebraskan
Originally published August 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

These off-field scandals were no secret back when Meyer was at Florida, and Ohio State showed that it was willing to look past them when it hired him a year after he left Gainesville.

It is evident that Ohio State kept Meyer because he wins, but the question still remains: Why did Ohio State fire Tressel after the 2011 tattoo scandal, but keep Meyer after knowing he kept a domestic abuser on his staff and lied about not knowing?

Tressel had a successful tenure as the Ohio State head coach from 2001-10 as he went 106-22 — 94-22 after NCAA sanctions — and won five Big Ten titles and one national title in 2002. Many would think that Ohio State would have kept Tressel just like it did with Meyer because he won, too.

The answer is simple. Meyer has been better for the Buckeyes than Tressel was. Tressel was one of the top coaches in the country at Columbus and any program would have taken him if he was on the market, but Meyer was better.

Meyer retired from coaching in 2010 because of health and family reasons. About six months later, Tressel was forced out by Ohio State because of NCAA violations. An explanation for Tressel’s termination was that Meyer was on the market and Ohio State knew it had a chance to get the coach it always wanted.

The info is here.

Gag Orders on Sexuality

By Allie Grasgreen

Inside Higher Ed

Originally posted on May 23, 2013

When Brittney Griner, Baylor University’s star basketball player and one of the most celebrated athletes in the history of the sport, came out publicly as gay last month, she was rather nonchalant about it. She didn’t write a Sports Illustrated cover story – à la professional basketball player Jason Collins, a few weeks later – she just sort of mentioned it in media interviews. Griner is “someone who’s always been open,” she said, with family, friends and teammates.

But, as Griner revealed a few weeks later, she wasn’t allowed to be open as much as she might have liked. That’s because Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey told her and her teammates not to talk publicly about their sexuality.

“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner told ESPN. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”

Griner's account followed on the heels of speculation that her coming out signaled a new age at Baylor – a private Christian university whose nondiscrimination policy does not cover sexual orientation and whose student handbook entry for “sexual misconduct” includes as examples of inappropriate actions "homosexual behavior" and participation in “advocacy groups which promote understanding of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Read more here.