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Byline: Mike Kennedy Former Michigan State University dean William Strampel has been convicted of misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty. The Lansing State Journal reports that Strampel is [...]

Ethical behavior is difficult for any researcher to measure and analyze, especially in real-life situations. Results are often imprecise due to the challenges inherent in quantifying what is ethical and [...]

This study explored state-level cases where employees sued their employers because of allegations of misconduct. Using the Lexis-Nexis legal database, employee theft cases from 1960-2004 were located and analyzed (n = 217). The descriptive analyses revealed that most of the cases originated from private corporations. While there were a variety of reasons why employees pursued lawsuits against their employers, the most frequent were to appeal a conviction, to allege slander or defamation, wrongful termination, malicious prosecution, Constitutional violations, and other unemployment-related issues. The employees were victorious in 60 percent of the cases. The research also revealed several patterns in case outcomes based on employee position and gender. Multivariate analyses revealed some of the most significant predictors of employee success in legal suits against their employers.

Some have characterized Oliver North's conviction in federal court, for lying to Congress among other things, as the criminalization of policy differences, whereas others have condemned his actions as subversive of constitutional checks and balances. Within the government, 'designated liar' has become an unofficial title when selecting an agency official to give the 'company line.' for Congress or the public. The commonplace acceptance, even expectation, of official lying as exemplified by North is merely accepted as a fact of governmental life. What is it about the culture of national security decision making that makes lying an acceptable form of behavior? The authors have found that some of the real-world factors that shape individual behavior include organizational indoctrination, access to information, succumbing to that cult-like mystique of routine access to classified information, and national-security policy making itself., At all events, I must keep some consciousness of being somewhere near right: I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself. - Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Donald (1995, [...]

A persistent issue in public personnel is a concern with violations of the public trust by public servants and elected officials. This article (1) examines the public trust concept, (2) [...]