During the 1980s, attention began to be focused not only on what business companies were in, but on how that business was conducted. Insider trading, mergers and acquisitions, health related issues at Love Canal and Three Mile Island all became rallying points for considering the ethics of how organizations are run. Businesses discovered that it was not important just from a theoretical moral standpoint how they conducted their operations, but also from a very real financial aspect. Individuals and groups who felt they had been wronged began to seek redress from the courts, and often received large settlements. This research examines one company, BellSouth Corporation, aspects of its ethical behavior during the 1980s and early 1990s, and the effect of its behavior on its financial performance.
BellSouth Corporation is one of seven regional holding companies (RHCs) spun off from American Telephone and Telegraph (ATT) in 1984. There were 22 Bell operating companies that were combined to form the regionals. This divestiture which begun the company was itself the result of an antitrust suit, and can be considered the first ethical issue that confronted the company. The antitrust suit was brought by what is now MCI, which charged that ATT violated antitrust and monopoly laws through its control of the nation's phone system. MCI held that the monopoly effectively prohibited competition, an unethical (and illegal) position. After many years of legal wrangling, the courts finally agreed with MCI and broke up ATT's local telephone operations.
BellSouth is the largest of the regional holding companies providing local exchange telephone service in none southeastern states. It is still heavily regulated in the telephone industry, but also participates in nonregulated operations, including directory advertising and publishing, mobile communications and the sale and service of telecommunications and computer systems. BellSouth has i...