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TECHFOCUS CYB E R S PACE in ethics WHEN IT COMES TO BUSINESS ETHICS, THERE'S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. THE OLD-FASHIONED LESSONS OF FAIR-DEALING AND FORTHRIGHTNESS STILL HOLD TRUE IN THE NEW ECONOMY. importance of ethics in business to an audience of very young and successful e-com- merce entrepreneurs. They offered a chilly reception for my discussion on the impor- tance of honesty and keeping one's word in business. When I had finished, one young man approached me and said, "You're just going to have to face the fact that with new ways of doing business, these old rules don't work. You can't expect us to live by them." I left the speech with significantly increased self-doubt. I questioned whether my n the so-called "new economy," it may seem that the rules of business have changed to suit the faster pace of the technological times. Certainly, the landscape for business is different from what it was ten years ago. But as we examine the conduct and consequence of the new companies that rode the tidal wave of the new economy, one thing becomes increasingly clear: There is nothing new under the sun. There is no such thing as "cyberethics" or "ethics in e-commerce." There is simply the practice of business ethics. I have found that this idea is not always an easy sell, especially to new- economy converts. For example, early in 2000 I gave a speech on the expectations about ethics in business were unrealistic or old-fashioned. I feared I had become one of those stodgy professors who fails to grasp business trends and simply continues teaching the irrelevant. However, over the next year increasing revelations about the practices of companies by Marianne M. Jennings illustrations by Sarah Wilkins in the "new economy" and the market's downturn renewed my commitment to teach- ing traditional ethical values and principles in business, no matter what trends surround it. Those basic principles I discussed nearly two years ago with that somewhat hostile crowd still hold true today. And judging from the ethical missteps of companies in the new economy, as noted in the discussion and lessons that follow, we have not done as much in academia as we should have to help future business leaders under- stand the whats, whys, and hows of business ethics. A look at these ethical missteps offers a perfect teaching opportunity for lessons in business ethics. Students can see for themselves the consequences when these basic principles are violated—the same principles that have been labeled by too many as out- moded or inapplicable to new forms of business. 18 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002