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Harvard Business Students are joining "150 other business school students and faculty worldwide to campaign for the acceptance of an MBA ethics pledge modeled on the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors. The aim is to get as many as 6,000 graduates at 50 MBA programs to swear they won’t put personal ambitions before the interests of their employers or society". Some students thought that it was just a cosmetic change and it will not have any effect unless there is a structural change in business. What do you think? Will this help curb unethical practices in business or will people just get caught up with greed and revert back to them?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a1lZrOzMxnMM&pos=10
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Taking an oath means almost nothing. People lie under oath all the time. Taking an oath also does not nothing to curtail natural motivations. If someone is going to be greedy, this will not stop them. It is simply a superficial move to try to make the business world look less shady and deceitful after this crisis.
ReplyDeleteI think the oath is a step in the right direction but it does worry me that the aim is to get graduates "to swear they won’t put personal ambitions before the interests of their employers or society." The main defense that these firms used throughout the financial crisis was that they were bettering society by making those bets. Although the oath is a nice idea I think its still very easy to justify away your behaviors as being for the good of society.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool idea/initiative. However, when a physician goes against the Hippocratic oath, they can lose their job and may never be allowed to practice again. There are consequences, and right now that isn't true so much for the business world. Ethics need to become an more important part of business, but until structural change occurs with punishment for anyone who is unethical, people will continue to try and get away with whatever they can.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for the hypocratic oath's importance is the symbolic role it plays in the culture of medicine. Medicine aims to attract the kind of people who want to "do no harm." Until business seeks to attract people with the ethics expressed in the oath innate in their character, this oath means basically nothing. Additionally,like Chloe pointed out, a lot of these people really were working in the best interest of their company, just not society. Those things are not mutually exclusive. I think this is a nice token measure, but nothing more.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the oath may be a step in the right direction. However, our financial system is based on people acting capitalistically. If we did not have this system, we would not have reached our current superpower status. Additionally, I don't think that a pledge will necessarily hold unless it is has consequences/ repercussions for its violation. For instance, children sign pledges for resisting alcohol everyday; however, without legitimate consequences they will continue to break those pledges and turn to substances. It is basic component of human nature; if something does not yield negative outcomes it will be done without much thought.
ReplyDeleteThis may be a step in the right direction but I do not think that It will make much of a difference. If there are not consequences assigned with this oath what is the point? Even though I think its great they are trying to inject some moral codes into the system, money can change the thoughts of a young business graduate pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteAt the very least something like this can't hurt. We've seen throughout this course that people knew they were doing bad/sketchy dealings with the CDOs and MBSs from the housing bubble but they couldn't help themselves. If this makes a few more people think twice in a similar situation in the future, then it's a great thing that should be implemented.
ReplyDeleteI feel that by taking an oath should mean something but it really doesn't and that is why I agree with Noah in that it almost means nothing because people do lie all the time under oat.People are going to get what they want so by taking an oath doesn't mean they are going to stop.
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