MAHONING VALLEY Area business leaders recommend emphasis on ethics

Don't assume employees know the rules about ethics, speakers say -- put them in writing.
THE VINDICATOR, YOUNGSTOWN
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Business owners who take ethics seriously should put those core values in writing and set up some strict consequences for violators.
That's one piece of advice four Mahoning Valley business leaders dished out Tuesday in a discussion on "Ethics in Challenging Times."
Panelists were: Don Cagigas, president of the Youngstown-Mahoning Valley United Way; Phil Dennison, president, Packer Thomas accounting; Atty. Kathy McNabb Welsh, president of the Mahoning County Bar Association; and Andrea Wood, publisher of The Business Journal.
The program was presented by the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber's ATHENA Committee. Betty Jo Licata, dean of the Williamson School of Business at Youngstown State University, was moderator.
In writing
Cagigas said he learned how easily unwritten rules can be ignored when he first came to Youngstown as a bank executive. His first move, when he realized some employees had an ethics problem, was to develop a values code and distribute copies among the staff members.
"If somebody violated those core values, they were history," he said.
"If you don't take the time to develop a set of values, you can't assume that everybody is on the same page as you are regarding business ethics."
Welsh said the Bar Association was wrong to remain silent when local judges and attorneys came under scrutiny for fraud in recent years. Several of its members were eventually indicted and convicted.
The association later issued a public apology for its silence and has begun to put a stronger emphasis on policing its membership. "We can never put that behind us," Welsh said. "Corruption will always be there, and we have to continue to be vigilant in standing up and not tolerating it."
News business
Wood said the news business faces unique ethical challenges in balancing its news reporting against its need to make a profit.
"The news business is a business, and that's our greatest quandary," she said. "How can we make money without bowing to pressures from advertisers and others who want to tell us what to cover and what not to cover?"
Dennison pointed to the November election to illustrate the ethical state of mind that some Valley residents share -- he said 28,000 voters voted for Jim Traficant for Congress even though he's a convicted felon.
"Ethics is a state of mind," he said. "If we want to create ethical behavior in others, we must first look in the mirror and change ourselves."
He said his accounting practice, which last year won the Better Business Bureau's National Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, has proven that honesty pays. "In the long run, if you don't put ethics before profits, there won't be a long run," he quipped.
vinarsky@vindy.com