Business learns to deal with ethical dilemmas.

• Position: Economic Outlook

Peter Browning, 60, is dean of the School of Business at Queens University in Charlotte. Browning, who earned a bachelor's in history in 1963 from Colgate University and an MBA in 1976 from the University of Chicago, is a former president, chairman and CEO of Charlotte-based National Gypsum. He retired in July 2000 as president and CEO of Hartsville, S.C.-based Sonoco Products and became a Queens dean in March 2002. He discussed corporate ethics as an educator and a former CEO.

One North Carolina company under scrutiny is Duke Energy, which has admitted that one of its energy traders made bogus trades. Should CEO Rick Priory be held accountable?

Duke has been very candid and forthright, and you've got just a few trades being looked at. (Duke fired the trader and his supervisor in August.] And I have the highest regard for Priory and the management team. I trust them. Duke happens to be an energy company. And any energy company is being overcriticized in the wake of Enron. The market is overly punishing them. I thought the stock had been pushed down so far I bought it a couple of weeks ago.

Otherwise, no Tar Heel companies have been challenged. Why not?

It may be the mix of businesses we have. We don't have many companies in the telecom business. But it also may be the character of the individuals in our businesses. But really, the bulk of corporate America wasn't engaged in these misdeeds. What we're looking at is exceptions. I really think we've got fundamentally ethical individuals running the businesses in North Carolina who are trying to do the right thing in a very difficult, global economy.

Is it fair to hold a CEO accountable for a company's financial statements?

The bigger the organization, the tougher it is to know everything. But the CEO is the ship's captain. The CEO sets the tone by how he values employees and how he does business. He can't know everything, but he's responsible for letting everybody know how you do business. And he has to instill responsibility all along the chain of command.

So the new corporate-accountability law makes sense?

I need to better understand what the audit committees will be asked to do. I suspect that will be the most significant part of the reform. CEOs and CEOs are already signing the financial reports. They're going to be looking to everyone who passes it up the line to take responsibility.

Is this law substantive, or is it just a feel-good measure?

When people will go to jail, that's...