Comments on: MBA Pledge: What About the Other 80%?

By: Charles Robinson

Charles Robinson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:56:22 +0000

@Tim – Unfortunately that’s not for dramatic effect. Thinking about every person I have worked with who has an MBA, there is not a single one I could say behaves in an overall ethical way. Maybe that’s me having unrealistic expectations or a warped world view. Maybe it’s where I live and the people who live here. Maybe it’s the kinds of companies where I find myself working. I’m willing to consider all those, as well as the possibility it has something to do with the kind of people who go into MBA programs.

I truly don’t mean this as an attack against you. I know *of* some people who have MBA’s are are not unhinged narcissistic sociopaths. I just haven’t worked with them and don’t know them personally.

By: Audrey Wyatt

Audrey Wyatt — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:03:38 +0000

Perhaps the 20% are future social entrepreneurs who will use what they learned at Harvard to transform communities by creating new systems of economic sustainability.

By: John Peden

John Peden — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:38:13 +0000

So those that didn’t sign are basically saying that they will act unethically in the future.

I think that’s pretty disgraceful given the level of power these people are hoping to achieve.

By: Garrick Infanger

Garrick Infanger — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:10:53 +0000

When I was finishing up my MBA at Maryland I had dinner with a lawyer friend from Duke. I told him about the ethics program at Maryland that included a Q&A with a US Attorney and a trip to a minimum security prison to discuss white collar crime with the inmates. I told him I thought it was a great program and I learned a lot, but then my friend interrupted and said, “Wait, they talk about ethics in business school now?”

By: Tim Berry

Tim Berry — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:58:23 +0000

@Charles whoa there, don’t push. Exaggeration for effect, I hope. Tim

By: Charles Robinson

Charles Robinson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:42:39 +0000

I will be magnanimous and simply say that in my mere 15 years in corporate America I have yet to work with an MBA who was even the slightest bit ethical. Based on this I’m not at all surprised that 80% of MBA graduates don’t want to sign a “do no evil” pact.