february 2014
|
magis
09
|
| In first person |
land and water, fish and forests. Our brain
power and cultural diversity are second to
none. But we need more moral willpower
to channel these resources and energies into
the right direction – this is the greatest chal-
lenge that India faces today.
Why institute a foundation for
business ethics?
Any human organisation, academic, eco-
nomic or political, needs a foundation in
ethics and morals. XLRI is no exception.
It already has a strong foundation of ethics
and moral principles in its policies and
strategies of running so many postgraduates
courses. The JRD Tata Chair of Business
Ethics can take this challenge of making the
foundation for business ethics more explicit,
formal, challenging and impacting. Since
1949, XLRI, the first management institute
in India, has taken the lead in ethical and
moral labour relations. In the later de-
cades, XLRI has taken leadership in human
resources management in India and abroad.
Now is the time for XLRI to assume leader-
ship in business ethics and morals.
How do you intend to direct the
foundation in promoting ethical
leadership?
Leadership is a necessary requirement of
communal existence. Mankind can no lon-
ger survive without direction, said Charles
de Gaulle. Leaders, good or bad, great or
small, arise out of the needs and opportuni-
ties of a specific time and place. The need
for ethical and moral leadership is more ur-
gent and compelling in India and the world
today than ever before.
The JRD Tata Chair for Business Ethics
will research, capture, analyse, publish and
disseminate ethical and moral, meanings
and values among XLRI’s stakeholders;
they include students, faculty, non-teaching
staff, administration, alumni, benefactors
and sponsors, and local communities. It is a
daunting task. A great challenge.
What are the initiatives that the chair
plans to undertake in order to pro-
mote this ideal among forthcoming
batches and in the corporate world?
I have not formulated a detailed plan
for the Chair yet. Some pre-plans and
ambitions include:
a) As JRD Tata Chair Professor of Busi-
ness Ethics, I presume that my first call of
duty is to intensify business ethics research
as relevant and applicable to various busi-
ness disciplines taught at XLRI, such as
human resources management, supply chain
management, operations management,
operations research, production, accounting,
finance, marketing, strategy, entrepreneur-
ship, social entrepreneurship, and the like.
There is relevance of and scope for ethics
and ethics research in every branch of busi-
ness.
b) All research must be energised and
supported by research grants, research
projects and programs, newer curricula and
pedagogies, newer courses and continu-
ously redesigned MBA/PGDBM/PGDHRM
programs such that ethics research remains
relevant, practical and action-oriented on
the one hand, and on the other, resulting in
published research in top scholarly journals,
research monographs, and text books of
theoretical and applied business ethics.
c) The Tata Chair needs to establish
XLRI as a National Research Center for
Business and Executive Ethics.
d) A first and planned objective of this
National Research Center for Business
and Executive Ethics would be to compile,
chronologise and edit all extant formal
business letters of JRD Tata as Chairman of
the Tata Business House and subsequently,
based on this edition, to write a full length
book on the Ethics Philosophy of JRD Tata.
Ethical practice in business is more im-
portant today than ever before. What
is your take?
We are currently witnessing high turbulence
in large and small corporations, and in large
and small market economies. Bigger com-
panies abroad, in particular, are failing more
frequently and with gigantic losses. Of the
20 largest US bankruptcies in the two de-
cades, 1985-2005, 10 occurred in 2001-02.
Corporate earnings are more erratic. Even
perennially successful companies are find-
ing it more difficult to deliver consistently
superior returns. Companies like Disney,
Ford, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler,
Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nordstrom and
Sony – one time built to last companies
(Collins and Porras 1997; Collins 2001) –
are performing just around the Dow Jones
Industrial Average (Hamel and Välikangas
2003). What the business world needs
today are not just better tools and technolo-
gies; it needs ethical and moral values and
leadership.
Over the past 30 years, almost all
forward-looking companies have
adopted codes of ethics and training
programs, and many B-schools have
required courses in business ethics
and social responsibility. Still the
graph of unethical business dealings
does not seem to be coming down.
What is your take?
Obviously, we need much more than codes
of business or political ethics, management
development and training programs in ethi-
cal and moral leadership, or just academic
courses in ethics in B-Schools of India and
the world. White collar crime represented
by fraud, corruption, bribery and lobby-
ing is ever on the increase both in India
and abroad, and for decades. Codes and
programs in ethics and moral are primarily
intellectual and conceptual, and intellectual
convictions and conversions are not
enough.
What we need is ethical and moral
willpower of virtue and commitment,
conscience and conscientiousness. We do
not have an intellectual ethical crisis today,
but we have a moral one. We have lost the
sense of values and morals in our day-
to-day practices and behaviors. Mahatma
Gandhi warned us about 80 years ago from
Yeravada prisons in Pune about eight moral
crimes that would destroy India one day,
“Wealth without work, pleasure without
conscience, knowledge without character,
science without humanity, commerce with-
out morality, worship without sacrifice,
and politics without principle.” We need
ethical and moral willpower of virtue and
commitment to avoid all eight capital
sins.
Please write to us at
Need for ethical and
moral leadership is
more urgent in India
and the world today
than ever before
