“AS a manager … I promise I will take responsibility for my actions, and will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.”

That’s just one of eight pledges in a Master of Business Administration oath. The oath was first proposed by graduating MBA majors at Harvard, and it has since been signed by more than 1,000 MBA graduates of several schools in the United States and across the world.

Last time I checked (Thursday morning), there were 1,200 who had signed the oath, but I didn’t see anyone from Philippine MBA schools yet. So I thought I’d feature the document, hoping to entice people—MBA or not—to at least look at the oath.

The oath has been drawing a lot of attention in business circles because the pledges are not the type you would expect from managers, or business people in general. Look at the item I picked out to start my column and some of the words: “responsibility for my actions,” “accuracy” and “honesty.” They don’t quite fit into our stereotypes of business people, especially with the mega scams that have been uncovered in recent months in the US and the global financial crisis that they helped to trigger.

Constituents

But it is the current crisis in capitalism that seems to have spurred the Harvard faculty and students to wonder if a more ethical capitalism could be developed. The oath still puts complete faith in capitalism, with the subtitle, “Responsible Value Creation.” The preamble proposes that a manager can “serve the greater good by bringing together people and resources to create value that no single individual can build alone.” But it then proceeds to recognize that the manager will face difficult choices because they have to serve “different constituencies.”

That dilemma of constituencies is captured well in one pledge: “I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.” That’s considered very radical because it has always been presumed that the goal of business is to maximize profits, period. If we use that kind of thinking, it means the manager only needs to serve the interests of business owners and shareholders. The MBA oath instead proposes that a manager must think too of his co-workers and, amazingly, the customers.

Another pledge in the oath goes: “I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide.” Again this idea of sustainability (which could mean cutting down on consumption), with a view not just of economics but of society and the environment as well, is quite radical for capitalists who are too often concerned with profits, here and now.

The oath has sparked discussions in several business magazines, blogs and websites throughout the world. I reviewed some of the articles from business publications, together with readers’ reactions, and can classify them into three broad categories:

The first type of reaction is totally negative, dismissing the oath as nonsense. Kinder comments dismiss the oath-takers as young and idealistic. Corporate profits remain paramount, as far as these people are concerned.

A second view is more hopeful but cynical, one that I’d describe as the “just words” type. Several point out that doctors, lawyers and other professionals have their oaths too, complete with sanctions from governments and professional organizations, yet the oaths are constantly being violated. An MBA oath, they say, has no teeth and is therefore not very useful, but they do concede that the oath does carry useful suggestions of what MBA graduates should be.

The last view sees the oath not just as a positive development but a necessary one, given the crisis in capitalism. One German business site posted a photograph of a billboard from a business school that says, “Ethics will become the defining quality of 21st century business,” to accompany the article about the oath. The managers of the site obviously believe in the oath, which they had translated into German.

I, too, see the oath as positive. I know the limitations of oaths, but as someone who teaches bioethics at UP, I see these statements as valuable pedagogical tools. Whether it’s the Hippocratic oath for doctors, or the code of ethics of the American Anthropology Association, or this MBA oath, discussing these statements with students is important.

MD/MBA

My particular interest in this oath stems from my involvement with the Ateneo medical school, whose graduates will be getting both an MD and an MBA. The MBA oath could help students to think more seriously about how a physician might also become a more socially responsible business manager.

The oath is especially important, given that an MBA graduate is often seen mainly as a marketing person, someone who has picked up more tricks of the trade to push sales, with no room for “responsibility,” “accountability,” “sustainability,” “transparency” or “greater good.”

Many of our local business schools already include ethics in their curriculum, and “corporate social responsibility” has become quite fashionable. But having a codified statement like this MBA oath could provide a heuristic framework, a way of uncovering new issues. In the Philippine context for example, our business managers need to be able to address issues of national welfare as well, and to be able to respond to political challenges, from the issue of corporate bribes and corruption to governance (and, yes, the attempts to modify the Constitution which, after all, is being proposed supposedly for economic development).

There are two versions of the oath. The short one simply gives the preamble and eight pledges, each in one sentence. The longer one elaborates on each pledge. Thus, one pledge, about understanding and upholding “the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise” is elaborated on in the long version: “If I find laws that are unjust, antiquated, or unhelpful, I will not brazenly break, ignore or avoid them; I will seek civil and acceptable means of reforming them.”

This particular pledge, I suspect, will spark lively discussions in a Filipino MBA class.

Whether you are in business or not, do visit the website mbaoath.com and see for yourself. You might want to pick up Newsweek’s latest issue as well, which has a cover “A Capitalist Manifesto” and an article inside explaining that “manifesto”: “Greed is Good (to a point)” by Fareed Zakaria.

The world is changing. Let’s hope capitalism is keeping pace simply by posing more questions about what is “good.”

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Email: mtan@inquirer.com.ph