An expose of bad businesses and their unethical practices

It is probably an odd twist on business ethics, but the Mafia is a business and its rules of behavior constitute ethics, of one flavor or another. Italian police found a list of what they believe to be the rules of the Mafia in the possession of a captured mafia boss. These rules are apparently seen as the blueprint for being a good member of the Family. I would submit they would have worked equally well for the management team at WorldCom, Enron, and Westar, to name a few.

They implore members not to consort with the police, always be ready to do your duty to the company, tell the truth to other member, do not steal from other members, and so on. It is not at all difficult to see similar conversation going on outside corporate boardrooms, at private clubs, and at business lunches. These rules, or the corporate version of them, would be perfect for any charter member of the Bad Business Hall of Fame.

In context, these rules are easy to see as poor ethics, intended to benefit the members of a very small club at the expense of all others. The Mafia is simply corporate fraud writ large, although in recent years corporate fraud has begun to eclipse organized crime in scope and dollar volume. Through popular books and films, the Mafia has been romanticized. This probably is not a good thing. It makes it more likely that persons needing just an excuse to pilfer will do exactly that. And that's Bad Business.