Photos: Julie Thériault, Canal Lachine (Montréal), 2012
1.2.12
22.12.11
23.11.11
Récit de la Havane
Je suis arrivée le 4 novembre vers 9 heures du soir à Cuba. Sur la route vers l'hôtel, l'obscurité de la ville m'a surprise. Le conducteur devait utiliser les « hautes » pour éclairer les piétons et il me semblait qu'il passait souvent trop près d'eux. Le lendemain, le chauffeur de la navette qui me conduisait avec d'autres touristes à la vieille Havane a rigolé en disant qu'une visite officielle devait certainement se pointer en ville puisque des ouvriers étaient affairés sur des échelles à installer les ampoules aux lampadaires; donc, si la Havane nageait dans l'obscurité la veille, c'était une particularité de la ville remarquée également par les Cubains. Un autre exemple de cette particularité est que quand je sors manger aux restaurants près de l'hôtel, je dois marcher à pas prudents puisque je n'y vois rien. Bien que je sache qu'il n'y ait pas de trous, dans le noir, la moindre déviation ou inclinaison pourrait être dangereuse. Je croise parfois quelqu'un, souvent des gens qui attendent un taxi collectif, ces taxis qui sont privés et partagés par plusieurs; on les paie en peso cubain plutôt qu'en peso convertible.
J'ai remarqué aussi que les Cubains fument beaucoup, mais surtout qu'ils approchent toujours d'autres Cubains pour leur demander du feu. J'ai fini par conclure que, comme tout dans ce pays, les allumettes et les briquets sont des denrées rares. L'autre jour, je mangeais seule lorsque deux étrangers m'ont offert de les accompagner pour le souper. J'ai apporté mon assiette à leur table et nous avons parlé un peu de tout, surtout de notre impression de Cuba. Cela faisait déjà quelques mois qu'ils étaient ici, ils travaillaient pour une compagnie brésilienne à la construction d'un port. Ils étaient brésilien et péruvien. Nous avons parlé de l'embargo: apparemment, les bateaux qui se risquent à poser l'ancre en port cubain ont l'interdiction d'aller aux États-Unis pendant six mois. Conséquence: peu s'y risque ce qui explique la rareté des denrées. Je ne sais pas si une étude a été menée sur la cause principale de la pauvreté à Cuba, le communisme ou l'embargo, mais je gagerais sur ce second.
L'étranger peut penser qu'ils sont heureux; bien sûr, ils ont le sens de l'humour, sont créatifs, dansent et chantent. C'est ce que m'a dit un Mexicain que j'ai rencontré à la Bodeguita del Medio, le bar où aurait été inventé le mojito et qui accueillait Hemingway. Je n'ai pas voulu le contrarier; j'ai donc acquiescé, mais à mon sens, des gens qui sont prêts à prendre le risque de mourir en s'embarquant dans une chaloupe sont désespérés. Encore une fois, je ne crois pas que ce soit le communisme qui ait créé leur désespoir, c'est la situation économique, le chômage, les piètres salaires, de vivre sur une île où ils y sont confinés, obligés, le désarroi de ne pas pouvoir choisir et des rêves qui y sont si restreints.
L'autre jour, je suis allée au Cimetière Christophe Colomb. Une des particularités du cimetière est que sa cinquantaine d'hectares est traversée par deux longs chemins qui forment une croix; au centre de la « croix » se trouve l'église qui reçoit encore des fidèles. Pendant mon tour guidé, j'ai assisté à une scène unique et drôle malgré la situation: une voiture funéraire est passée, elle était pas très récente, elle devait dater des années soixante-dix ou quatre-vingt, mais elle était suivie d'une voiture américaine des années cinquante débordante de monde. J'ai eu le temps de remarquer qu'une dame sur la banquette arrière pleurait avec grande expression. Suivait cette voiture, un taxi Lada aussi vieux que son égale américaine, encore une fois bourré de monde. Finalement, le taxi était suivi de deux autres vieilles voitures américaines. J'ai pensé que cela avait dû impliquer beaucoup de logistique pour regrouper toute la famille dans les quelques voitures disponibles. De fait, il semble qu'elles n'aient pas été suffisantes et l’aide d'un taxi exhalant le gaz a été requise.
22.11.11
15.11.11
30.8.11
26.8.11
‘Have Business Schools Failed Society? How and why?’
Enron, Arthur Andersen, Sotheby's and Christie's, Martha Stewart and, most recently, the Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch are most known examples of ethical lapses. Some academics, such as Ghoshal (2005), Giacalone and Thompson (2006), Mitroff (2004) and Pfeffer (2005) make most responsible for the recent scandals the influence of the theoretical underpinnings of business education on managers, teaching a profits-first perspective. Others affirm that MBA programs are irrelevant to the needs of practicing managers (Mintzberg 2004; Pfeffer & Fong 2002 as cited in Slater & Dixon-Fowler 2010). However, are these critics justified? Have business schools failed society? I answer: ‘Certainly’. The aim of this essay is to provide a critical analysis of the ideas I explored through my readings of academic literature about the responsibility of business schools in the past corporate scandals. To do so, I identify how business schools have contributed to perpetuate the wrongness of our society. Nevertheless, I finally depict some improvements encountered in current and for future practices.
Statement of claim
MBA graduates who have achieved positions of power and influence have made decisions with disastrous consequences on society. So what is going on here? Should business schools be more accountable? Yes. Indeed, they have propagated institutionalized and amoral economic theories valorizing economy over social concerns, have denigrated the usefulness of ethics studies to focus on ‘hard skills’ and have accepted corporations to dictate to them the orientation of their teaching.
What is wrong with our society?
Yes, what is wrong with our society? and not only with the modern society, witness of multiple corporate scandals. Our past and modern societies have accepted and allowed different aspects of slavery, dictatorship, disrespect of human rights, endemic poverty, and corruption. Why is it so? The problem is deep, thus the causes are complex, but here is an attempted response through a reflection on our modern society.
The first main problem relies on the neoclassical perspective of economics propagated by some corporations and scholars that ‘contains a significant ideological bias including:
[neutral conception of economic], very limited treatment of environmental and ecological problems, […] of income and wealth inequality, acceptance of current institutional structures as given, misrepresentation of these institutional structures as being consistent with models of perfect competition, ignoring concentrations of economic power, and acceptance of increased consumption as the primary measure of wellbeing’ (S Grob 2010, pers. comm., 2010).
Moreover, our society is based on an ‘ethic of personal advantage [in which] the centrality of business leads to a short-term viewpoint […], ultimately deemphasizing the community and societal perspectives. (Mitchell & Scott 1990 as cited in Giacalone & Thompson 2006, p. 267). Therefore, society focuses on ends rather than means, be it dumping of toxic and electronic wastes in Africa to get rid of dangerous products cheaply, labour abuses to supply the market with low cost products or failures in terms of security resulting in injuries and mortalities of workers to reduce operations’ cost. At a micro level, people tend to act on their own interest, encouraged by a neoclassical perspective on wellbeing, in which money, status and power define their degree of achievement and success.
Neoclassical economic models have also transformed characteristics of cultures around the globe. Indeed, most industrialized and powerful countries, especially United States and United Kingdom who have advocated neo-liberalism, possess a high individualistic dimension (Itim International 2009). Therefore, individuals tend to place their personal ambitions before collective goals as they value individual welfare over that of the group and ‘use personal characteristics and achievements to define themselves’ (Adler & Jelinek 1986, p. 79). As a consequence, some executives have been found, for example, having ‘used secret partnerships to hide debt, inflate profits, and enrich themselves at others' expense’ (Bartunek 2002, p. 138).
Finally, individual moral philosophies embedded in our society concerned me. Forsyth (1992) explains that many ‘personal moral philosophies’ can be contrasted in terms of relativism and idealism. Encouraged by a neutral conception of economics, highly relativistic individuals ‘generally feel that moral actions depend upon the nature of the situation and the individuals involved, and when judging others they weigh the circumstances more than the ethical principle that was violated’ (Forsyth 1992, p. 462), while those who have low idealism ‘assume that harm will sometimes be necessary to produce good’ (Forsyth 1992, p. 462).
The following depicts the business schools’ accountability in perpetuating these problems.
Responsibility of business schools
The Association of Business Schools Professionals (2009) have, indeed, recognised that numerous MBA graduates work in Financial Services and that the companies who were suspected of fraud were perhaps managed by graduands from the 1980s and 1990s. Obviously, not all criminals or immoral characters have a business degree in their hands: Jack Abramoff earned a Juris Doctor, Muammar al-Gaddafi attended a military academy, and Bernard Madoff did, as I did, a bachelors in political science. However, regarding the extent of corporate scandals in the recent years is worthwhile to wonder what could have been done by business schools to improve how corporations are handled, especially because a lot of people of power and influence have an MBA in their hand.
Business schools have to accept responsibility because of their influence in shaping students’ thinking.
Business schools, marionette with neoclassical perspectives’ voices
Business schools have contributed to spread economic theories that favour immoral capitalism – in reference to the comment made by Professor Rosabeth Kanter of the Harvard Business School of a need for ‘moral capitalism’ (Stern 2010).
Ghoshal (2005), Giacalone and Thompson (2006), Mitroff (2004) and Pfeffer (2005) argue that business schools have actively freed their students from any sense of moral responsibility propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories. Business schools have taught students, on the basis of neoclassical perspectives, utilitarian theories of scholars who stipulate that the corporations are left without responsibility for citizen’s welfare and have as their only goal to make profit (Secchi 2007). Milton Friedman, who is the main scholar representing the utilitarian theorists, separates business from society, enabling this approach to deny the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Clarkson 1995) to focus exclusively on profits, dollars, and returns. The first directive of corporations has been to demonstrate these kinds of returns for the benefits of managers and their organizations (Gioia 2002). Business schools have been responsible to take for granted view of "greed is good"; but while is only good for shareholders, is bad for other stakeholders’ who voices are ignored.
Of course, corporations are necessary, as they provide goods and services, employment and economic growth. However, the illusion of growth is also underpinned by the worldview we have been dominated and how GNP and GDP are measured. Voices presented in this essay – and others - have started to dispute dominant views in our world. What has been institutionalized started to be questioned by scholars, but business schools have not stopped replicating the same old economic templates. They have, so far, taught to future business leaders that financial gains are the primary objectives (Giacalone & Thompson 2006).
25.8.11
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