AIRAN SCRUBY
News Editor
Board of Regents member William Swanson will face no consequences from the university for plagiarism in his booklet, “Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management.”
The booklet, which was distributed within Raytheon Company, a defense contracting company of which Swanson is CEO, and to Pepperdine University free of charge, consisted of 33 rules for management.
Seventeen of these rules appeared to be taken, without citation, from “The Unwritten Laws of Engineering,” which was published in 1944 by W.J. King. a UCLA professor.
Others of Swanson’s 33 rules strongly resembled statements and rules published by others, including four by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and one by comedian and columnist Dave Barry.
In April, after the last edition of the Graphic for Spring 2006, Swanson apologized to the public and to Raytheon.
“I regret that over the course of the years and in the process of compiling the ‘Unwritten Rules,’ any reference to Professor King’s work was not properly credited.”
Pam Wickham, a spokesperson for Raytheon and Swanson, wrote in an e-mail that Swanson regretted the incident and had moved immediately to correct his mistake. Wickham also said the booklet is no longer in use.
Swanson was named CEO at Raytheon, which is based in Massachusett, in 2003. He had already served as president of the organization for one year.
Well-known as a knowledgeable voice in the corporate management world, Swanson’s booklet received widespread praise, including positive comments from tycoons like Warren Buffett. Since his apology, the book has been pulled from use in companies nationwide.
The booklet was part of an education campaign as well, in which any group requesting more than 50 copies of the booklet was asked to make a donation to Math Counts, a non-profit organization for improving math and science curriculum, Wickham said.
“Within just three months, the organization had received over $50,000 in contributions related to the Unwritten Rules,” Wickham said.
Swanson has been a member of Pepperdine’s Board of Regents since 2002. He is also a member of the Graziadio School of Business and Management Board of Visitors, and he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from Graziadio in 2002.
His position at the university has not changed since his apology. When asked for comment, a representative of the Board of Regents said it was the policy of the body not to make comments to the Graphic.
However, University President Andrew K. Benton said action was not taken against Swanson because he had already been penalized by his company.
“He was punished by the Raytheon board, to which he is accountable,” Benton said. “No one feels worse about this incident than he.”
According to a May article in The New York Times, Swanson’s pay was docked by the company. Raytheon made Swanson ineligible for the 2006 pay raise and withheld 20 percent of his annual stock award from the company, an estimated loss of nearly $1 million.
The New York Times also reported that Swanson would not lose many other benefits, including his position as chief executive, his company car and access to corporate aircraft, and his 2006 bonus. In 2005, Swanson’s bonus totaled $2.96 million.
Among the rules taken from the original publication were “strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports” and “be extremely careful of the accuracy of your statements.”
Swanson said in his statement and in an address at the Raytheon Company annual meeting in May that material from King’s book had long been a part of his presentations within his company, and that they were eventually included in his book unintentionally, as his own unwritten rules.
For students at Pepperdine, plagiarism, whether intentional or otherwise can result in suspension from the university for one semester, as well as long-term academic probation and notation of the offense on a student’s permanent academic record.
08-28-2006