Programs : Business Ethics : Rethinking Management
Seminars/Conferences : Rethinking Management

Rethinking Business Management:
An Examination of the Foundations of Business Education

A conference of The Witherspoon Institute
Co-sponsored by The Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University,
The Clayton Fund, The Social Trends Institute,
and The Philadelphia Trust Company

May 17-19, 2007 - Princeton University
Convocation Room of the Friend Center, Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey

Conference Schedule          List of Participants

Under the direction of Princeton University Professor Harold James, the Witherspoon Institute aims to organize a public conference titled Rethinking Business Management. This conference proposes to examine experiences of business school education in light of social and ethical responsibilities. The thesis that is presented for discussion at the conference maintains that effective business management is grounded in good business science and robust ethical and anthropological conceptions of human flourishing.

Below are some considerations that may help frame the conference.


1.      What is being taught in business schools?

A single approach seems to dominate business 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:

  1. Many Business Schools educate managers to focus almost exclusively on profits and to base their professional careers largely on monetary achievements.[1]
  2. Some Business Schools have established new departments of social sciences, but these seem to impart mostly pragmatic values.


2.      Some key ideas on 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 business management in the context of business. The following notions could begin a discussion about the inclusion of these foundations in mainstream practice and education:

  1. Philosophical anthropology (rational knowledge of humans)
    • 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.

  2. 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.


  3. 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 and 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 criticism that capitalism lacks the internal mechanisms to care for the poor, and that it is incompatible with a compassionate society.


CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS

MC: James Stoner — Political Science, Louisiana State University.

To deliver a paper:

  1. Anthony Daniels — Writer, Physician, and Psychiatrist, who frequently uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple.
    • Topic: “Management and the Corporate State: Private Enterprise without Enterprise and Public Service without Service?”

  2. R. Edward Freeman — Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration, and Director, Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and David Newkirk — CEO of Executive Education, University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
    • Topic: "Management as a Human Activity—Implications for Education.”

  3. Edwin Hartman — Peter Schoenfeld Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Stern School of New York University.
    • Topic: "Flourishing in the Organization: Why Do It; How to Do It; How to Teach It."

  4. Wilfred M. McClay — SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities and Professor of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
    • Topic: "Invisible Hand to Glad Hand: Workplace Community and the Problem of False Personalization."

  5. Ian Mitroff — Harold Quinton Distinguished Professor of Business Policy and Founder of the USC Center for Crisis Management, University of Southern California Business School.
    • Topic: "The Moral Contemptibility of Modern Management."

  6. David Novak — J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto.
    • Topic: “Natural Law, Human Dignity, and the Protection of Human Property.”

  7. James O'Toole — Research Professor in the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California.
    • Topic: "Aristotelian Virtue and The MBA: The Odd Couple."

  8. Roger Scruton — Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University.
    • Topic: “Profit as by-product, versus profit as goal.”
    • Preview: “Businesses aim to maximize profits; but human beings do not. Human fulfillment comes in other ways, and often as the by-product of self-sacrificing acts. This is something that businesses must learn, not merely if they are to be on good terms with their workforce, but also if they are to be genuinely competitive.”

  9. Robin Fretwell Wilson — Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law.
    • Topic: "Keeping Women in Business: Examining the Business School Education and Workplace Practices."

To participate in the conference deliberations:

  • Antonio Argandońa — IESE Business School professor, Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility; previously the Ethics and Economics Chair.


  • Wesley Cragg — Business Ethics Program Director, Schulich School of Business, York University.


  • Michael Crofton — President & CEO, Philadelphia Trust Company.


  • 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.


  • 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.


The conference will result in a publication on the foundations of business management, and it is hoped that this line of thought might encourage re-examination of the curricula of business schools and their general approach to business management.

[1] Mitroff, 11: 2004, “An Open Letter to the Deans and Faculties of American Business Schools,” Journal of Business Ethics 54, 185-189.


Updated March 15, 2007