“The world is full of imperfect people; if everyone who ever fudged an expense report or flirted with an outside contractor were fired, there wouldn’t be many people left in the American work force. This is not to say that Mr. Hurd should be let off the hook for, in his words, failing “to live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at H.P.” But a firing offense? Really? “ —New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera, in commentary concluding that Hewlett Packard’s stated justifications for firing CEO Mark Hurd— an inappropriate relationship with an adult film star he had hired as a consultant, and his “fudged” expense reports employed to hide his indiscretion—were a pretense. Nocera argues that Hurd was intensely disliked and distrusted throughout the company, and was perceived as being willing to cut core H.P. activities in order to enrich himself.

Nocera might well be correct that H.P.’s reasons for firing Hurd were not what the company claimed them to be. His conclusion, however, that what Hurd did was not a “firing offense” tells us a great deal about the skewed ethical mindset of the corporate culture in America, with which Nocera, as one who has been immersed in it for decades, is clearly infected. Continue reading →