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    Nitin Nohria: Can He Restore Ethical Behavior in Business?

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    GRK Murty
    It is no sin to be a businessman. But it certainly becomes a sin if businesses are carried out in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. For, in the absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the country would collapse soon. That is what indeed happened in 2008, when businessmen lost trust in Lehman Brothers: the very financial architecture of the US collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the woes of which it is still struggling to come out of.

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    Nitin Nohria: Can He Restore Ethical Behavior in Business?

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    GRK Murty
    115 views5 pages
    It is no sin to be a businessman. But it certainly becomes a sin if businesses are carried out in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. For, in the absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the country would collapse soon. That is what indeed happened in 2008, when businessmen lost trust in Lehman Brothers: the very financial architecture of the US collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the woes of which it is still struggling to come out of.

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    Nitin Nohria

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    It is no sin to be a businessman. But it certainly becomes a sin if businesses are carried out in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. For, in the absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the country would collapse soon. That is what indeed happened in 2008, when businessmen lost trust in Lehman Brothers: the very financial architecture of the US collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the woes of which it is still struggling to come out of.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    115 views5 pages

    Nitin Nohria: Can He Restore Ethical Behavior in Business?

    Uploaded by

    GRK Murty
    It is no sin to be a businessman. But it certainly becomes a sin if businesses are carried out in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. For, in the absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the country would collapse soon. That is what indeed happened in 2008, when businessmen lost trust in Lehman Brothers: the very financial architecture of the US collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the woes of which it is still struggling to come out of.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    Nitin Nohria

    Can He Restore Ethical Behavior in Business?

    GRK Murty
    It is no sin to be a businessman. But it certainly becomes a sin if
    businesses are carried out in an atmosphere of ‘no trust’. For, in the
    absence of trust and cooperation between businessmen, the country
    would collapse soon.

    That is what indeed happened in 2008, when businessmen lost


    trust in Lehman Brothers: the very financial architecture of the US
    collapsed, pushing it into one of the worst recessions since the Great
    Depression of 1929. With it, the global economy was derailed, the
    woes of which it is still struggling to come out of.

    Business is an ethical activity. With globalization, the need for


    ethics in business has only become all the more important. But this
    simple truth does not appear to have had any bearing on the conduct
    of business leaders. At least, that is what one infers from the current
    Congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs: lawmakers accused
    Goldman Sachs of betting against investments they had sold to
    customers. Nor did the happenings at JP Morgan Chase have any
    comfort to offer to the common man about the businesses and
    businessmen’s conduct. Bernard Madoff, by depriving his clients of
    their hard-earned savings of around $50 bn in a decade-long fraud,
    further intensified the aversion of the public for financial
    professionals.

    The general mood of the nations, following the mess created in the
    global financial markets by business leaders, was well captured by
    Nitin Nohria, the newly appointed Dean of the century-old Harvard
    Business School, when he said in the sidelines of his prestigious
    appointment: “Throughout history, there has been this notion of the
    honorable business person. Business people have taken pride that
    they can do business on a handshake. I don’t know where we lost
    that....”

    Similar feelings were echoed by Drew G Faust, University President,


    when she said that HBS students are “very concerned about the
    image of business and its place in American life and the world in
    general.” Nonetheless, it is encouraging to note that Nitin Nohria,
    whose perspective is said to be ‘innately global’, is seized of the
    gravity of challenges that he and his Business School face today, for
    he said: “With business education at an inflection point, we must
    strive to equip future leaders with the competence and character to
    address emerging global business and social challenges.”
    Indeed, he is one of the first to suggest that Business School
    students take a professional oath of conduct. In an article co-written
    with Khurana in 2008, he observed that managers had ‘lost
    legitimacy’ in the past decade, and suggested a ‘code of ethics’ for
    the management profession, like the Hippocratic oath, hoping that it
    would “create and sustain a feeling of community and mutual
    obligation that members have toward each other and toward the
    profession.”

    Though he feels disturbed by the missing leadership bond with


    employees and the public, as is revealed by the recent multiplication
    of business scandals, he says it can be reestablished: “What we have
    to do as a school is usher in what I think of as a new century of
    innovation, to really remake business education,” so that businesses
    can have leaders “with the competence and character to fulfill their
    positions of power and privilege.”

    While being happy with his appointment as the Dean of HBS on the
    one hand, and being aware of business schools’ failure to develop
    leaders who are up to the challenge of grappling with the problems
    of businesses that “spill over boundaries”—whose “goals are not
    clear, pathways haven’t yet been established, stakeholders are
    politicized, and no one is clearly in charge”—on the other, every
    Indian wishes Nitin Nohria good luck at HBS and all success in his
    endeavor to provide the business world with leaders of character
    and competency.

    *****

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