This comes from a group of second-year Harvard MBAs:
The MBA Oath.
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.
Therefore I promise:
* I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.
* I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.
* I will manage my enterprise in good faith, guarding against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves.
* I will understand and uphold, both in letter and in spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise.
* I will take responsibility for my actions, and I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.
* I will develop both myself and other managers under my supervision so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society.
* I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide.
* I will be accountable to my peers and they will be accountable to me for living by this oath.
This oath I make freely, and upon my honor.
There can be little more dangerous to success of a company than mangers who think social responsibility is their responsibility-using other peoples money, of course. This makes me feel that we need Milton Friedman even more today. Friedman has long suggested that the social responsibility of business is to
maximize profits. As Friedman wrote,
But the doctrine of "social responsibility" taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book Capitalism and Freedom, I have called it a "fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
I'm with Friedman.
3 comments:
Just like candyfloss - lots of sugar, no substance and very difficult to measure.
Yes. But it doesn't taste as good.
You report this quote from Friedman, "(Business should) use it's resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
The oath doesn't argue that businesses shouldn't increase profits. Rather it focuses on the second part of the quote - to re=establish "open and free competition without deception or fraud."
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