Date:
Location:
Organized by David Korn and Max H. Bazerman
Conflicts of interest have emerged as a core ethical challenge in business, government, law, medicine, and academia, among others, undermining public confidence and breeding public cynicism. Typically, under the constructs of traditional economics, conflicts of interest are thought about purely as an issue of corruption, that is, as deliberate, self-serving behaviors of knowing actors. This symposium challenges this assumption by exploring the role of implicit cognition in generating conflicts of interest. The presentations demonstrate that people who consider themselves quite ethical can still exhibit behavior corrupted due to conflicts of interest that are substantially unwitting. The collective of presentations will show that both explicit and implicit corruption need to be considered to develop optimal educational strategies and institutional and professional policies to address conflicts of interest.
Schedule of Events
3:00 - 3:15 p.m.
Opening Comments
David Korn
Vice-Provost for Research, Harvard University
Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School
Introduction to the Symposium
Max H. Bazerman
Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
3:15 - 3:45 p.m.
"Mind Bugs: The Hidden Biases of Good People"
Mahzarin Banaji
Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Department of Psychology, Harvard University
3:45 - 4:15 p.m.
"The Neurobehavioral Basis of Judgment Bias and Its Mitigation"
P. Read Montague
Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute Professor; Professor of Physics, Virginia Tech; Senior Wellcome Trust Fellow, University College London
4:15 - 4:30 p.m.
Coffee break
4:30 - 5:00 p.m.
"Bringing Ethics Into Focus: From Conflicts of Interest to Dishonest Behavior"
Francesca Gino
Associate Professor of Business Administration: Negotiation, Organization, and Markets, Harvard Business School
5:00 - 5:30 p.m.
"Disclosing Conflicts of Interest Can Exacerbate Bias: Moral Licensing and How Disclosure Increases Distortion"
Don Moore
Associate Professor of Management of Organizations, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
5:30 - 6:00 p.m.
"The Burden of Disclosure"
Sunita Sah
Post-Doctoral Associate, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
6:00 - 6:30 p.m.
Comments by Max Bazerman and discussion with audience
6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Wine, Cheese and Conversation