Ethical Conduct and the Professional's Dilemma: Choosing Between Service and Success.

by Banks McDowell (Quorum Books, 1991).

Reviewer: Norman A. Baglini, President Emeritus, American Institute for Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters.

Because the greatest loss exposure facing an organization is sometimes the adverse outcome of unethical acts by employees,

ethics and compliance issues are becoming more important in the management of risk and should play a larger role in the teaching of risk management and insurance. Additionally, since many insurance and risk management students will eventually be bound by professional codes of ethics, the ethical implications of certain practices of underwriting, claims and reserving, for example, should be included in appropriate courses.

Ethical Conduct and the Professional's Dilemma: Choosing Between Service and Success is written for "individual professional practitioners who face the dilemma of choosing right versus success, for students entering a profession who bring both idealism and cynicism to their studies, and for professional educators who must strengthen the ethical commitments that will help students serve as professionals rather than act as purely profit-driven business people." Those ambitious objectives are addressed in 175 thought provoking pages filled with carefully worded concepts and detailed examples.

The first chapter explains the nature of the professional's dilemma which is the conflict between the professional's role as adviser to clients who ask whether certain products and services are necessary and the professional's role as a provider of those products and services for which he or she is compensated. The lifelong struggle to meld the contradictory drives of altruism and selfishness is recognized, as well as financial pressures and intense competition.

While the elements of a profession are reviewed (including adherence to a code of ethics) in the second chapter, the major discussion is about the commitment to serve others and the autonomy of the professional.

The conflicts between the professional and clients, employers, fellow professionals and society are explored along with the pressures for financial success in chapters three and four. Rationalization and conflict of interests are carefully analyzed in chapter five while the cost of unnecessary services and the "whistler's purgatory" are the subjects of the next two chapters.

Perhaps the best-written chapter is "Restructuring the Professional Roles" in which peer review is examined along with the impact of technology. The book concludes with the challenges of teaching ethics and training for judgment.

Unfortunately, the examples used to illustrate concepts and ideas are generally medical or legal, and the lack of business orientation is sometimes a distraction. The author should have applied his keen analytical thinking to a wider range of ethical issues instead of limiting his scope to the problem of providing unnecessary services.

Despite these serious limitations, this book is worth reading by risk management and insurance educators who should attempt to raise ethical consciousness in students to help prepare them for those times when their ethics will be tested.