New York ? At first glance, Boeing Co.’s decision to oust its CEO because of his affair with a female executive suggests a bold new era in corporate politics. Or maybe not.

Elements of the tale hint at dramatic change. Perhaps Chicago-based Boeing’s stern enforcement of its seemingly boilerplate code of conduct means executives now will be held accountable not just for how they run businesses, but also how they conduct their private lives. Maybe the standards often applied to the rank and file will be administered in the executive suite, too.

But 25 years after an interoffice romance in the executive suite at Bendix Corp. dominated watercooler conversation, the only thing made clear by the Boeing tale and the talk it’s stirring is that U.S. companies are still far from certain about how to police sexual relationships in their uppermost ranks.

And the debate might be even farther from being settled than years ago, as companies increasingly weigh the danger of lawsuits and respond to the scrutiny of business practices stemming from the scandals of recent years.

“My concern in the current climate is that boards are acting out of litigation avoidance, and still not acting out of carefully considered principles about how do we make a decision, and what kind of behaviors do we want to reward,” said Freada Klein, a consultant to companies on dealing with sexual harassment and other issues of workplace bias.

Klein said what was most striking about the Boeing case was that it was so atypical. She said she has been called by at least a dozen companies in recent years to deal with affairs in the top executive ranks; not a single one of those instances saw the executives involved lose their jobs, she said.

The biggest question provoked by Boeing’s ouster of CEO Harry Stonecipher on Monday is not what it says about how companies are changing, but whether this particular company would have acted at all if it hadn’t already been shadowed by a series of ethical lapses, Klein said.