Group Creates a ‘Pulitzer’ to Reward Ethics in Business

While many Americans think of business people as unethical and greedy, a group that researches corporate ethics is trying to change that image by spotlighting corporate heroes with annual awards.

Kirk O. Hanson, president of Business Enterprise Trust, said Wednesday that his group is soliciting nominations from the business world and public nationwide for five new Business Enterprise Awards to be presented early next year.

In the next two days, 11,000 nomination forms are scheduled to be mailed to businesses and organizations. The deadline for nominations is June 1.

“Our desire is to create some heroes and some heroic behaviors that . . . serve as symbols of what can be,” said Hanson, who is also a professor of business ethics at Stanford University, where the trust is headquartered.

He called the award “the Pulitzer Prize of American business.”

Television producer Norman Lear founded the national organization last May to reward examples of positive and responsible business behavior. Lear provided $200,000 to publicize the awards in publications.

The group’s 18 board members are looking for candidates--public and private companies or people--who have demonstrated courage, integrity and social consciousness in business. Hanson cited as an example of responsible capitalism Johnson & Johnson’s decision in 1982 to recall Tylenol, a headache remedy, after cyanide-laced capsules killed seven people. Corporate “whistle-blowers” might also qualify, he said.

“Many in the public have come to believe that it isn’t possible to be both a successful business person and a responsible person,” Hanson said. “We hope the award will demonstrate to the skeptical that it is possible.”

Winners will receive a trophy bearing the organization’s diamond-shaped symbol and a cash prize.