MBA Students Take Oath of Conduct for Managers
Almost a third of Harvard Business School's graduating MBA class have so far signed an oath pledging them to conduct their business dealings with integrity, lawfullness and to serve society as a whole.
The pledge, crafted by several HBS students and now spreading across other business schools, attempts to mirror oaths taken in other professions such as the Hippocratic Oath in the field of medicine. It is a partial answer to what many see as unethical, unlawful and just plain greedy decisions by business leaders that contributed to the economic crisis.
The pledge starts with a preamble:
As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can create alone. Therefore I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term. I recognize my decisions can have far-reaching consequences that affect the well-being of individuals inside and outside my enterprise, today and in the future. As I reconcile the interests of different constituencies, I will face choices that are not easy for me and others.Read the rest of the oath on the mbaoath.org site.
The oath developed out of a recent Harvard Business Review article by HBS professors Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana calling on reforming business management education.