金融违规猖獗，员工知情不报怎么办

    加拿大皇家银行的员工们怎能在创造强烈诚信氛围的同时，涉嫌从事此类不法行为？莫纳汉认为，一个组织机构的文化的确能够设立标准，规范行为，但它并不是一个完美无缺的系统。他说：“文化往往无法阻止流氓员工的违规意图。”加拿大皇家银行拒绝对此事置评。

    纽约大学（NYU）斯特恩商学院（Stern School of Business）教授罗伊•史密斯曾在1966-1987年担任高盛（Goldman Sachs）的一般合伙人，他指出，丑闻大多集中在从事高风险交易的大型金融公司，而不是回避衍生品等新奇金融产品的地区性银行。交易的本质就包括冒险和用金融工具押注，并不适用于简单的道德准则。虽然大多数交易是合法的，有一部分交易员还是会寻找捷径，试图在交易中占据上风，由此可能导致逾越道德界限。

    当一家金融公司的合规人员警告交易员不要走得太远，不要挑战法律底线时，交易员往往答以“别告诉我这不能做，那不能做。告诉我怎么才能做到，”史密斯说。交易员肩负客户重托，但他们总是希望能在交易中占据优势，从而可能涉及违规。

    如果希望所有交易都能正当执行，史密斯说：“需要做到的是一群人（也就是交易员）在踩油门的同时，法务合规部负责踩刹车。”遵照每一条道德准则和细微之处，可能导致很多公司取消、减少和限制交易员，而这种情况不太可能出现。

    史密斯说，他的伦理课程重点不是道德说教，因为这不会奏效，他是从领导力角度来看伦理问题。他说：“如果在一家公司工作，却不给员工设立标准，公司就会毫无标准，陷入一片混乱，”

    既然金钱总是比伦理培训更强大，不妨将其纳入薪酬。或许应该给予检举者以奖励。“奖励那些为公司盈利清除了风险的人，”莫纳汉指出。毕竟检举违规行为从长远来看有利于公司的盈利。

    译者：早稻米

    How could RBC staff have allegedly committed these acts despite creating an atmosphere of strong integrity? Monahan says an organization's culture can establish norms and regulate behavior, but it's not a perfect system. "Culture often fails to drive the behaviors of rogue employees' intent on breaking the rules," he says. RBC declined to offer comment for this story.

    Roy Smith, who teaches ethics at NYU's Stern School of Business and was a former general partner at Goldman Sachs (GS) from 1966 to 1987, says that most of the scandals have taken place at the major financial services firms that do risky trading, not at regional banks that generally avoid exotic financial products like derivatives. The nature of trading, which involves the assumption of risk and betting on financial instruments, doesn't fit easily into a simple ethical code. While most trades are legal, a certain percentage of traders will take shortcuts and try to get an edge on a deal and may overstep ethical boundaries

    When a financial firm's compliance staff warns traders about going too far or skirting the edge of what's legal, a trader's typical response is, "'Don't tell me what I can't do. Tell me how to do it,'" Smith says. Traders have a fiduciary responsibility to their customers, but they are always looking to gain the upper hand on their trading partners, and that can turn into evading the rules.

    For all trades to be vetted properly, Smith says, "You'd need one group of people [traders] using the accelerator and legal and compliance using the brake." Following every ethical rule and nuance would lead to firms cancelling, limiting, and restricting traders, and that's not likely to happen.

    Smith says his ethics class doesn't focus on teaching morals, which he says wouldn't be effective, but instead concentrates on looking at ethics as a leadership issue. "If you work at a company and don't impose standards on those who work there, you'll have anarchy and no standards," he says.

    Since money often talks louder than ethics training, making it a part of compensation makes sense. Perhaps people have to be rewarded for citing wrongdoing. "Companies reward people for risk adjusted profit," Monahan notes. After all, he says, speaking up against wrongdoing helps the bottom-line in the long run.

    Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Thomas Monahan's title. He is the chairman and CEO of Corporate Executive Board. A previous version of this story also incorrectly stated that the Royal Bank of Canada received the top score in a recent integrity ranking by the Corporate Executive Board. RBC scored in the top quartile instead.