Rethinking Business Management Consultation
Organized by:
The Program in Business and Ethics of the Witherspoon Institute
Sponsored by:
The Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University
The Clayton Fund
The Social Trends Institute
The Philadelphia Trust Company
Under the direction of Professor Harold James of Princeton University, the Witherspoon Institute organized a public consultation titled Rethinking Business Management. This consulation proposed to examine experiences of business school education in light of social and ethical responsibilities. The thesis that was presented for the discussion at the conference was that effective management is grounded both on good business science and on robust ethical and anthropological conceptions of human flourishing. The discussion at the consultation sprang from the following questions:
1.What is being taught in Business Schools?
A single approach seems to dominate management education in most of the world's business schools. While it speaks about values as a driving force behind business decisions, the question remains: whose values? The current cultural atmosphere of neutral morality makes it difficult to identify an objective moral commitment in business decision-making. Consider the following observations:
a) Many Business Schools educate managers to focus almost exclusively on profits and to base their professional careers largely on monetary achievements.
b) Some Business Schools have established new departments of social sciences, but these seem to impart mostly pragmatic values.
2. What are the anthropological, ethical and sociological foundations of business management?
Despite the dominant approach described above, there is also a growing concern for exploring the anthropological, ethical and sociological foundations of management in the context of business. The following notions could begin a discussion about the inclusion of these foundations in mainstream practice and education:
a) Philosophical Anthropology
- There is a growing understanding that humans are at the same time body and spirit, making a substantial unity.
- Humans are social and develop within society, of which business is an integral part.
b) Ethics
- Ethics is affirmative and not only prohibitive: it would be incomplete to apply a reductionist view by referring to ethics only in connection to fraud, misconduct or other pitfalls.
- A general approach to ethics must be applied to business, rather than considering specific subdivisions of ethics, such as business ethics, family ethics, etc. There is only one human ethic that has its own application to different areas of human existence.
c) The Nature and Goals of Businesses
- A business is, above all, a social institution and a community of people, who work and serve society through the production and distribution of goods and services, thereby creating jobs, wealth and contributing to human progress.
- Businesses contribute to the common good when they carry out their mission in a sustainable and conscientious relationship with those who are touched by the activity: shareholders, employees, clients, consumers, local community, etc.
- Is the social responsibility of business limited to the pursuit of shareholder interests (or profits), or should businesses actively pursue the interests of other stakeholders? Do businesses have enough information to pursue the interests of other stakeholders or the common good?
In the course of the conference, speakers will also touch on the critique of capitalism that it lacks the internal mechanisms to care for the poor, and that it is incompatible with a compassionate society.
Consultation Sessions and Presenters:
Management and the Corporate State:
Private Enterprise without Enterprise and Public Service without Service?
Anthony Daniels, writer, physician and psychiatrist
"Management as a Human Activity: Implications for Education
R. Edward Freeman, Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration, Director, Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, University of Virginia Darden School of Business
David Newkirk, CEO of Executive Education, University of Virginia Darden School of Business
"Flourishing in the Organization: Why Do It; How to Do It; How to Teach It
Edwin Hartman, Peter Schoenfeld Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Stern School of New York University
"Invisible Hand to Glad Hand:
Workplace Community and the Problem of False Personalization"
Wilfred M. McClay, SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities, Professor of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
"The Moral Contemptibility of Modern Management"
Ian Mitroff, University Professor, Alliant International University; Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley; Emeritus Professor, Marshall School of Business University of Southern California
"Natural Law, Human Dignity, and the Protection of Human Property"
Rabbi David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto
Profit as by-product, versus profit as goal
Roger Scruton, Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
"Keeping Women in Business:
Examining the Business School Education and Workplace Practices"
Robin Fretwell Wilson, Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law
"Aristotelian Virtue and The MBA: The Odd Couple"
James O'Toole, Research Professor in the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California
Consultation Discussants:
Antonio Argandoa, IESE Business School, Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility
Wesley Cragg, Business Ethics Program Director, Schulich School of Business, York University
Aine Donovan, Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Applied and Professional Ethics, Tuck School of Business
Sam Gregg, Director of Research at the Acton Institute
Harold James, Economic History, Princeton University
Sean Kelsey, Associate Professor of Philosophy, UCLA
Daryl Koehn, Executive Director of the Center for Business Ethics and Cullen Chair of Business Ethics at the University of St. Thomas in Houston
Michael C. Maibach, President and CEO, European-American Business Council
John D. Mueller, Director of the Economics and Ethics Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Douglas Puffert, Leeds University Business School
Charles Stetson, venture capitalist
James Stoner, Political Science, Louisiana State University
Publications from the consultation proceedings:
Rethinking Business Management:Examining the Foundations of Business Education
Edited by Samuel Gregg and James R. Stoner, Jr.
The Witherspoon Institute, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9814911-0-3 | USD $25.00
Profit, Prudence and Virtue: Essays in Ethics, Business and Management
Edited by Samuel Gregg and James R. Stoner, Jr.
St. Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2009
ISBN: 1845401581 | USD $80.00
