Onus of Ethical Lapses Lies on Business Schools

Concept Paper Seminars in HRM Final Project Bushra Fatima, MBA 2k8 13 May, 2010 th Bushra Fatima, NUST employment School, 2010 2 Ethical Lapses in short letteres Onus lies on B Schools? I joined NUST c eaching School two years back, after(prenominal) I did my engineering science tier. The logical premise, I gave to b arlyify my choice to present a line of work enterprise tutorhouse was not that I was wrathate well-nigh checking occupancy administration in any focusing, b bely was the fact that the MBA is a good tot-on to my degree, ensuring better and well paying c beer options in the long run.In my view back then, a logical argument school was meant to churn out managers, manage so rough(prenominal) medical and engineering schools that churn out doctors and engineers. By the end of my stolon semester of MBA, my perception was budged. get an MBA doesnt make you a manager. Management is more(prenominal) than of a practice, nighthing that needs to be turn ine outside(a) the safe environment of Business school. jibe to one of my professors Its deal swimming you cannot learn it by sitting cozy in an air-conditioned classroom listening to the lecture.However, like nigh professions you need to understand the theory behind the practice. Hence, the case with dogma ethics in backing schools and the communication channel of the institute to instill honor fit values in the savants is contendd. Business deal act in un estimable ways when they start evaluating the risk and rewards of creation a moralistic person. Business school should de bourneine that economic analysis is just now helpful and sort out when all of the options being considered argon morally correct.Aristotle believed ethics was more than just learning a set of rules. Ethics was a way of living. 1 becomes a lute accepter by playing the lute, one becomes a builder by edifice likewise, one becomes undaunted by doing courageous acts (a virtue for Aristotle) Before I h elderly the labor schools obligated for the good lapses that happen in the air world, let us delve into many factuality check. Can ethics be taught? Studies show that MBA alters how students view line of merchandisees and their images and responsibilities as managers.Students bring in their ethics and moral values which whitethorn be solid to transform all together notwithstanding a nice change in military positions may be infused in them during the course of study. However, still if the student learns complete theory associated with ethics, there is no guarantee that what he does outside the class would be in conformance with what he has learnt in class. Unless, the class learning is yield by a value torso structure of the students environment on campus and at stem, a performer of double standards is sent.That brings me to what the student really learns in the championship school and what is exclamatory upon during his tenure there. When a student is taught close leading for example, the fierceness is on business leaders throw out in conditions of wealth and building multibillion dollar trys rather than what they pick out contri yeted to the society or what change they surrender make for the betterment of sympatheticity. The business schools tend to give a myopic view of advantage and leadership to the students equating success with fiscal receive indeed monetization of the design of leadership.A profitable enterprise according to the business schools ar ones which uses towards increasing short term monetary gains for the shareholder sort of of emphasizing on sustainable result and benefiting all stakeholders in long term. Thus, indoctrination of notes mindedness in done to the limit of poisoning the young mind to depend ethics as old school philosophy which stands in the way of success. Overall business schools engender a subtle still lethal message of privilege. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 20 10 3The business school teaching methodology that puts too overmuch furiousness on case study dust gives a false trust to the student that he knows how to solve real carriage problems. He is promote to make use of the economic models without taking into account the variety of problems and issues that may arise as a result of those decisions. The application of the knowledge is taken as a means to a definite end without change him to do critical analysis. He is taught how to solve problems but he is not taught think about the side effects of his decisions.The cases highlight success stories and accent on numerical and financial medical prognosiss without focusing much on the nitty granular mankindistic details. An different problem is that each dimension of business is taught more or less in isolation. The marketing nation emphasize on marketing aspects, the finance good deal emphasize on the financials and the humans pick large number see things through their own c olored glass thus isolating the student from the intricate details of implications resulting from their skewed decisions.The ethics aspect in most case discussions is never emphasized and students are seldom told what not to do. It is Copernican for the students to come up with smart solutions and strategies and they should be able to state their financial vi world power but nobody questions the honorable vi efficacy. For many students ethics equals to norms. Norms they say is how things are done usually which can mean that deal can justify their actions just because it is outsizely acceptable. This leads us to the bandwagon and group think mentality which exists among students. As a society we act upon collectively.So if it is socially acceptable to bribe, people are going to do it without questioning ethical motive of the action. Business schools, or for that matter any school of learning is responsible to bring a change in the trend of blind followership and enable critical t hinking thus, contributing to evolution of societies. We live in an ethically dysfunctional society. We dont teach our children to be responsible citizens instead we emphasize on competing and being the best. We teach children that its a hobo camp out there where selection is that of the fittest.When it comes to making a career choice, we chew the fat that career is one which gives a better return on the currency invested on education thus, forcing them to take up careers not out of passion but out of economic need. This vicious daily round which starts at home makes young minds believe that being successful is equivalent to how much money soulfulness makes. The educational system also reiterates the same fact, when children are dual-lane into art and science group, on the basis of the grades they get. Aptitude and intelligence is quantified by how much marks a kid gets.If somebody is in a profession such(prenominal) as teaching it is undervalued, because it pays less, and is practically the perception that somebody who is a failure otherwise, ends up teaching. Little emphasis is placed on how one can benefit the society by adopting a certain(a) profession same is the case with people going to business schools. Business school students are there to benefit themselves. Through their induction systems business schools hunt for the overtly ambitious, people who are aggressive and who seek to defecate the pennant at all costs.People who once out of the sloshed and fierce system seek quick success and try to set ahead position of importance in top of the greenback firms. While business schools absorb excelled at producing graduates that demonstrate competence in engineering enthronement products ground on complex mathematical models and implementing students exceptional ability at marketing and optimizing productivity, little has been done to enlighten the Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 4 student as to how to use his/her acquired intelle ctual virtues in a manner which promotes morality.Although students come forth the university environment excelling with intellectual imagings, there is no attempt being made to demonstrate how these attributes can be used to habituate excellence of character. Business schools tend to minimize their function to indoctrinate students with a sense of moral obligation or a proclivity towards the pursuit of moral excellence. I am not saying that being ambitious is wrong. Somebody who is taking up MBA is supposed to be ambitious but that ambition raceway into raw greed is dangerous.The lust for success and narrow selfish gain is when a person is forced to resort to unethical behavior. The economic models taught at most business schools take forward the humanistic element and intercourse about bottom line and how important is it to fulfil that. It infuses a dog-eat-dog attitude among students. Altruism and social responsibility is ridiculed and called soft aspects and are often un experienceed. The responsibility of business schools starts from the induction process of candidates.They need to assess that people they are lining up to take up positions of power are ethically hard people and are bent on doing good for all the stakeholders instead of just making money and fame for themselves. Ethical values should be made embark on of the selection criteria and should have more weightage than brilliant schoolman credentials and qualifications. This is under the premise that you cannot transform ethical values of a person by teaching him ethics in classroom. So this is a better way to take out the bad eggs in the first place.The selection committee should see that the student is testamenting to work for the betterment of the society and this should reflect on his profile as part of his credentials. Also the candidates reference checks should be made and the breeding given on his profile should be verified in roll to make a correct character assessment. Howe ver, even if the corrective system is in place it doesnt ensure hundred percent that ethical lapses wont happen. As long as there is big personal stake involved, unethical practices will take place.One would constantly question what is in it for them to act ethical, when the bigger gain and recognition goes to mortal who cut corners and got away with it. The importance of teaching ethics cannot be ignored as it makes us question all(prenominal) actions ethical validity. However, the responsibility of business schools is not just to preach ethics in the classroom but to infuse ethics at all levels and rapprochement the values taught with values practiced. The prevalent belief of innocent until proven censurable gives a chance to students to play around with the system and to get away with questionable behavior.Cheating for that matter is a tolerable action until you are caught. The competition is so tough that students tend to use all means whether fair or unfair to get good gra des. For them, ethical are all those actions for which they dont end up punished. The business schools like any other professional institution should have a Hippocratic professional code of conduct and anybody found to be going against it should be made to pay by dismissal from the profession altogether. In Pakistan where decadence has become a norm an element of change is needed and business schools can play their role in this regard.Top notch business schools should have the power to scrap the degree of those graduates who get involved in unethical behavior such as our ex-prime minister who was an IBA graduate and was allege of being involved in money laundering. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 5 The syllabus in the business schools should not teach ethics as an uncaring course, focusing on philosophy, which end up making the young minds more confused. Rather, ethics should be directed to instruct students to make ethically unspoilt decisions based on rational thoug ht measuring the implications in the real world.Students should be aware of the examples of those who did not comply with ethics and ended up losing everything including their reputation so that they know the dire consequences and think twice forwards engaging in questionable behavior. The strategy class for example should teach the students not just to build a strategic direction of the association in order to maximize short term profits but also to make choices which go hand in hand with callers values that can guide their overall culture on the basis of which sustainable growth of an enterprise is achieved.The curriculum in business schools should be such that it kick upstairss out of the box thinking instead of pass and confining the thought to achieving profits that are investor and company centric. Courses should enable spirit at the bigger picture, looking at not short term gains but long term implications on economic, human and environmental study. The project of bus iness studies should not be just to prepare students to excel in the prevalent business world but also to find faults in it and try to evolve the system for the better.Business students should be able to bump business models viability, they should be able to challenge the canonic assumptions and redesign and re-engineer theories, which in the first place are responsible for the circulating(prenominal) economic crisis faced by todays world. The business school curriculum should encompass courses that ignite students creativity and encourage him to innovate and come up with viable solutions which benefit the society. Projects with focus on solving global problems such as energy crises or greener satellite should be encouraged, as they infuse a spirit of global leadership which is meant to bring a positive change.For a developing earth like Pakistan such a focus is imperative as we have been a victim of the capitalist mind set in which the wealthy have become wealthier and the poo r have become poorer. We are a debt ridden country and sustainable development is answer to all our problems. So, the top notch business schools are responsible to give back leaders who are center on creating wealth not just for themselves but create an luck of living a better life sentence for millions.To sum it all, the burden of responsibility of ethical lapses of business leaders lie on business schools as the system somewhat creates an unharnessed greed for personal success. This needs to be encounterled through redesigning the curriculum and the existing environment, which teaches them to be responsible and creates ethically sound leaders instead of shrewd businessmen. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 6 MBA In Spirit The MBA is meant to be a holistic degree one which infuses analytical ability, provides a sound based of practical knowledge on basis of which decisions can be made.The two year MBA program is challenging and rigorous which does not only infuses a spir it of competition in the student but teaches him to cooperate and work in teams to get greater success. The program is meant to groom a students leadership qualities and gives him courage and knowledge to pursue his ambitions. The MBA is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is a degree designed to give you the ability to develop your career to its fullest potential, at an speed pace. What will you get out of an MBA?Aside from a hefty life experience, the MBA degree should supply three master(prenominal) value propositions Skills, Networks, and Brand. Skills These include the hard skills of economics, finance, marketing, operations, commission, and accounting, as well as the soft skills of leadership, teamwork, ethics, and communication that are so critical for efficacious counselling. MBA students acquire these skills inside and outside the classroom. Since MBA programs attract people from very diverse industries and cultures, a program should be able to supplement these differences and translate them into learning opportunities.Networks An MBA degree program offers access to a meshing of MBA students, alumni, faculty, and business and community leaders. This network can be very useful when beginning a job search, developing a career path, building business relationships in your current career, or pursuing expertise outside your current field. For example, entrepreneurs need access to capital, business mates, vendors, and clients. Artsrelated businesses need access to reinforcement and strategic steering in order to position themselves to be germane(predicate) in the marketplace.Global businesses need access to local business cultures as they expand their enterprises to new territories. Brand The MBA degree is a recognized put up that signifies centering and leadership training. The particular school and type of MBA program you attend also have brand associations that can help open doors based on the schools reputation. The strength o f a schools brand is based on the programs history, its ability to provide students with technical skills and opportunities for personal growth, and the reach of its alumni and industry network.A powerful brand can give you the flexibility to make changes throughout your career. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 7 Concluding Note I believe that MBA should not have specializations in it. It should be a holistic degree in every sense covering courses critical in making arrangingal strategies. in that respect should be emphasis on leadership and ethical practices. The intent of MBA should be to give the student confidence and help him in career growth. fine Analysis of world Resource Management Its a cliche for organizations in todays modern high performance corporate world to say that people are our greatest assets.But today the importance of it is all the more current. gentle capital is a rivalrous advantage that competitors cannot imitate. So, human vision managem ent and the practices associated with it have become accepted by managers in all forms of organizations as one of the most important strategic levers to ensure continuing success. The Origins Traditionally known as stave office management, was largely an outcome of increased government regulations regarding employment conditions, discrimination, employments rights, health and safety concerns etc.In many organizations today, this older capriciousness of effect administration still holds sway with its emphasis on rules and regulation. The modern concept of human preference management finds its roots in the 19th and twentieth century by the end of the industrial revolution in linked States. The notion of employee welfare came into light when managers started to face issues with work force bind mainly due to influx of immigrants in the workforce. During this time methods of workforce swan were devised and F. W. Taylor came up with the concept of scientific management.Later Henry Ford implemented this concept in his automotive factory. He also came up with the first ever employee welfare department which ensured that no part of employees life effected his/her productivity in the workplace. However the methods were more personnel control oriented. By the 1960s, the notion of personnel management had become well- titular with a descend of clear areas of responsibility attached to it including Selection and recruitment Training and development Pay and conditions Industrial relations Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 8 Employee welfare occupational health and safety. In the 1980s, the concept of human mental imagery management began to gain ground. At the root of the new thinking about the management of people in organizations was the perception of the increasing competitiveness of the global economy. The success of large Japanese corporations in export markets for traditional western products such as cars and electronic goods in the 1970s and 80s took many western corporations by surprise. Studies of Japanese corporations emphasized the importance of effective people management in the competitive strategies of these organizations.The studies showed that Japanese employers performed far better than their western competitors in terms of beat back productivity and in process innovation. The tonality to this success lay in the human resource management practices adopted by Japanese corporations such as Toyota and Matsushita. These practices became evident in western countries as Japanese corporations established manufacturing plants throughout Europe and North America. The human resource management practices which had been so successful in Japan were transplanted with great success to these overseas transplants.The practices include Strict and rigorous selection and recruitment High level of training, especially induction training and on the job training Team on the job(p) Multi-skilling Better management-worker com munications Use of quality circles and an emphasis on right first time quality Encouragement of employee suggestions and innovation Single stipulation symbols such as common canteens and corporate uniforms. The integration of these human resource management practices was to create an organizational culture that allowed workers to identify their own success with that of the corporation.Thus, organizational or corporate culture became an important element in understanding the competitive success of firms and was a major theme of management thinking in the early 1980s. These new human resource management practices and the emphasis on the creation and maintenance of corporate culture stood in sharp contrast to the regulatory view of personnel management that had emerged in the mid-20th century. In fact, many of the new practices were not seen as the exclusive state of matter of the human resource manager but were viewed as the responsibility of line managers in organizations. Bushr a Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 The Criticism Although the roots of human resource management might be relatively clear historically, the term itself and the meaning of human resource management has been the subject of fierce debate amongst practitioners, academics and commentators since its emergence in the early 1990s. Some have simply substituted the term human resource management for personnel management and claimed that everything has remained the same. In some cases, this can be seen in the migration of job titles that took place in the last decade as the title of human resource manager has replaced that of personnel manager.Others have argued that human resource management represents a fundamentally new way of managing people at work that goes well beyond the old functional notion of personnel management and emphasizes the creation of a culture in the workplace that harnesses the commitment of individuals to the organization. Yet others, exasperated with the endless defi nitional debate that seems to surround human resource management, have argued that it is simply an illusion, a hologram behind which we may see many techniques and practices in operation but which is essentially decided by the observer.However, the notion of employee commitment is one which appears to be integral to many of the models and theories of human resource management that have appeared. This notion of harnessing the commitment of employees in organizations was first articulated strongly by Walton (1985) who described how modern organizations were piteous their management styles from one based on control, to one based on commitment. Human resource management intelligibly encompasses the older regulatory hangovers, but goes much further in embracing the management of change, job design, socialization and appraisal as the key levers to achieve organizational success.Modern Human Resource Management The aims of human resource management today are not just integration with t he business strategy of the organization, employee commitment, flexibility and quality, but takes commitment as a major integral element. Human resource management is a distinctive cash advance to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a highly commit and capable workforce using an array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques. The main assumptions underlying the modern concept of human resource management shows how much the concept has progressed from the ld notion of personnel management. Firstly, human resource management is clearly not simply the province of the human resource manager. Line managers play a critical role in human resource management and, in fact, could be argued to be the main Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 10 organizational exponents of people management. Secondly, human resource management is firmly embedded in business strategy. Unlike the personnel manager, the HR manager is part of the top level strategic team in the organization and human resource management plays a key role in the achievement of business success.Thirdly, the shaping of organizational culture is one of the major levers by which effective human resource management can achieve its objectives of a attached workforce. Thus, human resource management is concerned not only with the formal processes of the management of people but also with all the ways in which the organizational culture is established, re-enforced and transmitted. Challenges faced by HR as a Profession The sense that HR is somehow failing to deliver is a central theme in the writings of a number of authoritative American writers.Jeffrey Pfeiffer (1997), for example, writing about the future of Human Resource Management, suggests that it would be wrong to conclude that the growing interest in HR and Human Resource Management necessarily means that the future of the HR function (in its departmental form) is bright My advic e is to resist the temptation to believe that HR managers and staff in organizations have a rosy future or a future at all, because there are some profound problems facing human resources as a function within organizations, as contrasted with the study of human resources as a topic area that makes its viability and continued survival problematical. What has emerged so far in this critical perspective on HR is that many of the activities that HR professionals engage in appear not to be valued by managers and employees. This is because there is either no evidence that the activities truly achieve things that matter or because it is very difficult to prove that what HR does actually results in improvements in behavior and performance.If the latter is the reason, then the task of HR is to look carefully at the way in which it measures and evaluates military capability if the problem is more to do with what HR does and how it carries out these activities, then the challenge it faces is more fundamental. The HR function is generally criticized to be an accomplice in trends such as downsizing and contingent work arrangements that are often blamed to undo much of the progress made in managing employee relationships in the past several decades. Also HR professionals are accused of covering omit of leadership in demonstrating the business impact of managing people effectively.Writers such as David Ulrich have suggested redefining HR role not by what it does but by what it delivers results that enrich the organizations value to customers, investors and employees. The four key roles that HR professionals need to play to deliver the contributions are as follows ? A partner in strategy execution This doesnt mean that HR should take responsibility for HR and business strategy, which is rightly the domain of the brain executive, but that the head Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 11 of the HR department should be an equal partner with other senior managers and should have a seat at the top table. An administrative expert This is about acquire the underlyings right and adopting a much more instrumental approach to the use of procedures. The emphasis needs to be on the efficiency of the HR department reducing its cost base and speeding up its cycle times, without compromising on quality or effectiveness ? An employee champion This is about HR recognizing that work intensification and an increased sense of insecurity are bonny the new reality for many people and that this is associated with weakened levels of employee commitment.This, in turn, affects the eagerness of employees to contribute more than their contracted level of effort and performance. The role of HR here is to ensure that employees remain engaged and committed, or become re-engaged, either directly through the activities of HR or by HR working(a) with line managers to ensure that they can create a positive psychological and emotional working environment. ? A change age nt According to Ulrich (1997), this role involves HR in building the organizations capacity to report and to capitalize on change.Given that change is the norm for most organizations, the ability to implement and manage the change process is seen as critical to the organizations ability to function during the change process and to reap the benefits from the changes that have been made. Reducing resistance to change is seen as a key HR contribution. Gaps between HR Academics &038 Practice Theres an incontestable gap between whats mishap in scholarly research and whats happening in the world of practitioner.However, theres consensus among academics and research-savvy HR professionals, that HR managers who follow evidence-based principles are best positioned to optimize the success of their organizations. Still, most HR professionals have little time, interest or tolerance for memorizeing researches. Practitioners focus on solving problems and getting tasks done in time- and pressu re-packed settings. Academics explore, hit the books and pursue research that can take three years or more in the first place culminating in a journal article. HR practitioners dont care about the theory behind the practices.They dont care wherefore processes, tests, or other instruments or procedures work, just that they do. If wearing plaid instead of polka dots on Tuesdays increases retention, theyll do it. According to a business school professor, People essential to Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 12 see cost-benefit analyses before they implement. Its not enough to know structured interviews will give you better-quality people. Practitioners want to see how it affects the bottom line. Research and academic findings may not incessantly have concrete outcomes.For practitioners ambiguity doesnt help. They want concrete solutions supported with business outcomes something translated into profits, often missing in HR research. Academics tend to be interested in diff erent subjects than practitioners. For practitioners, those subjects may be too conjectural or too esoteric, or may not be a need-to-know priority. But for academics, whose careers rise or fall on their success at achieving tenure and promotion, the topics are influenced by what the academic reward structure requires. severance lies with HR curriculums. HR curriculums should develop the competency in all HR professionals to know what is and is not a scientifically based finding or conclusion. We need to audit our curriculums to make sure students are being taught to estimate the importance of evidence-based management and the role of research in advancing HR. That requires basic understanding of math and statistics. Most undergraduate business and industrial psychology curriculums feature at least one course in statistics, and some observers say that should suffice.In recent years, faculty members have been reluctant to add more quantitative requirements to HR curriculums for fea r of losing students. According to my observations most people choose HR because they are math-phobic. Also there is little emphasis on doing research and supporting it quantitatively. In most MBA programs graduate students are not being asked to do research or even read it. When I asked an MBA student his point of view about research, he utter MBA students dont like reading research, so instead students are just discussing cases and practicing being a leader. The HR curriculum should be designed in a way that forces students to engage in consulting. Thus, forcing them to connect the taught courses with field knowledge and enabling them to do hands on research and get comfortable with statistics. This will force them to do analysis and make interpretations. Academics who moonlight as consultants are more likely to relate to the realities of the workplace. Encourage faculty and practitioners to develop and partner in research. Establish conferences or thinktank sessions that bring them together. Encourage exchanges.Cross attendance does occur, but not in enough numbers to create a shared comfort zone. Businesspeople should also cooperate with researchers to enhance body of knowledge and include practical aspects rather than unworkable theories. Another way to increase practical knowledge base is to support sponsored research. Corporations should invest in academics doing research that practitioners need. Experts agree that applied research should meet three criteria. It should be ? ? ? Rigorousconducted scientifically so the results can be validated and replicated. pertinentdirected at learning more about, furthering or solving some HR-related problem. Readableaccessible to practitioners who stand to benefit. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 13 Conclusion As a profession HR needs to defend its value by aligning itself with organizations strategy and focus on achieving business strategy instead of just working as a support function. The HR academia su ffers in terms of creating practical value because of its lack of collaboration with HR practitioners. The two can benefit each other and enhance body of knowledge which is far better applicable in real work environments.