{"id":1287,"date":"2009-06-07T11:16:32","date_gmt":"2009-06-07T15:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/judykat.com\/ken\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2010-09-06T06:26:38","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T10:26:38","slug":"an-mba-oath-another-non-professions-search-for-a-standard-of-ethical-conduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/an-mba-oath-another-non-professions-search-for-a-standard-of-ethical-conduct\/","title":{"rendered":"An MBA Oath – another non-profession’s search for a standard of ethical conduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a movement among the students of the MBA program of Harvard Business School for an MBA Oath<\/a> of ethical conduct. Read the oath here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From a June 4th article in the Economist<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The student oath is part of a larger effort to turn management from a trade into a profession…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the exact debate going on in Software Development — emerging profession or craft?<\/p>\n

One of the two main criticisms of the oath and of the whole idea of turning management into a profession, particularly in business-school faculties, is that it is either unnecessary or actively harmful… (by) promising to “safeguard the interests” of colleagues, customers, and society, are the future captains of industry simply short-changing their shareholders?<\/p>\n

Defenders of the oath reply that the goal of maximising shareholder value has become a justification for short-termism and, in particular, rapid personal enrichment. They are concerned about managers doing things that drive up the share price quickly at the expense of a firm’s lasting health.<\/p>\n

The second complaint is that the oath’s fine words are toothless.<\/p>\n

Even these cheerleaders admit there are differences between practising management and, say, medicine. They concede that no self-regulating professional body for managers could possibly monopolise entry to the profession<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"DSC00689We can debate that a practice has ethical consequences, i.e. that it has a larger array of stakeholders who can be harmed or benefited by the daily decisions of practitioners – without calling for accreditation, lincensing, certification, standards bodies, and regulation.<\/p>\n

Developers should consider end users, society and our common reputation even as managers consider long-term investors, employees, their industry and the larger economy.<\/p>\n

Name a widespread activity that isn’t abetted\/enabled by software systems. Even the debate over an MBA Oath: <\/p>\n

As for punishing unprofessional behaviour, Mr Khurana (Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard Business School) is inspired by the internet rather than by a closed council of grandees. From open-source software to eBay and Wikipedia, new systems of self-regulation are emerging based on openness, constant feedback and the wisdom of crowds. These could be adapted, he thinks, to provide effective scrutiny of managers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If anything about this strikes you as not true, I’d love to hear why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a movement among the students of the MBA program of Harvard Business School for an MBA Oath of ethical conduct. Read the oath here. From a June 4th article in the Economist: The student oath is part of a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30],"tags":[88,665,664,51,15,6,662,661,667,663,666,607],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software-development","tag-add-new-tag","tag-ebay","tag-economist","tag-employment","tag-ethics","tag-good-work","tag-harvard-business-school","tag-harvard-business-school-for-an-mba-oath","tag-open-source-software","tag-professor","tag-rakesh-khurana","tag-software-systems"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t