...or control ethical lapses by employees, but these standards often fail to adequately cover all scenarios. While individuals come to an organization with set of values developed over time, the most influential factor affecting their ethical behavior after they arrive is the way they are led.

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It seems that every few years, the defense acquisition community is rocked by a highly visible ethics scandal. The latest involves Ms. Darleen Druyun, the senior Air Force procurement official who gave favorable treatment to a defense contractor on large defense programs and joined this same firm as a vice president soon after her retirement. Her tenure with the firm was short-lived when it was discovered that she began negotiating for her job before she retired (working through her daughter who also worked for this same company) and then tried--unsuccessfully--to cover it up. While we might be tempted to pass this off as a "one bad apple" example, it should be noted that up to that point in her career, Ms. Druyun had a distinguished record of public service and was very highly regarded by many senior defense officials.

Looking beyond the defense acquisition community, it seems that ethical scandals have risen to a new high and are appearing in all areas of our society. There is the Martha Stewart insider stock trading scandal, and a plethora of large corporate scandals involving companies like Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom. Troubling scandals have emerged from the heart of society: teachers providing answers on standardized tests to improve their schools' performance, a coach altering the star pitcher's birth certificate in the Little...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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