The New York Times has a great article about Harvard MBA Students and their MBA Oath. As a member of IEEE, we all have to adhere to the IEEE Ethics Code. As an executive and MBA, it is wonderful that our future managers are stepping up. It’s about time.
This is a tremendous achievement in terms of corporate responsibility. As I have told my colleagues, ethics reform starts in the classroom. All MBA students are taught that the role of business is to maximize shareholder wealth. That mantra is how you create greed and scandal. Reversing this requires our business schools to focus on stakeholder value instead of just shareholder wealth.
Every manager, not just MBA’s should sign this. I particularly like the following line:
“I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.”
– MBA Oath
This is exactly what someone that is looking out for all stakeholders should think about. I just signed it (http://mbaoath.org/list-of-oath-signers/) as #338 and encourage every MBA to do so.
