When Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn resigned suddenly in April over allegations of inappropriate personal conduct, it reminded many in Corporate America of the resignation of Mark Hurd from Hewlett-Packard, an episode widely considered to have been poorly handled by H-P’s board of directors.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...