Viewpoint October 15, 2009, 1:32PM EST

Why Management Needs a Code of Conduct

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At the 2009 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the community of Young Global Leaders agreed to produce and adopt an oath for business leaders that would serve as a guide when facing difficult trade-offs. A few months later, a group of students at Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile) asked MBA graduates to sign a voluntary pledge "to serve the greater good" and to "create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide." Over half of the graduating class signed an "MBA Oath," which has since spread to dozens of business schools worldwide.

The time seems ripe for the establishment of a global code of conduct for business that will cover the most critical areas of value creation and potential social harm associated with management as a profession. If such a code is going to succeed, though, it will have to be rooted and grown in business schools throughout the globe. It is there that new young managers first develop their value systems, and it is there where we can instill a more responsible approach to management—one that emphasizes sustainable value creation over short-term greed.

Not Incompatible Goals

Other professional disciplines have long adopted codes of professional conduct defining how they serve the greater good and how they avoid potential harm. Management may be younger than medicine or law, but it is mature enough to have produced collegiate schools of business in universities around the world, well established academic disciplines and journals, professional associations, and a degree, the MBA, that is widely accepted as a professional qualification by many business corporations.

As educators, we need to come to terms with the fact that management is indeed a true profession. A profession that, like the most honorable of professions, exists to improve the lives of our fellow human beings through the creative application of technical knowledge and personal skill to complex social problems. As management educators, we are responsible for advancing, transmitting and perpetuating not just the technical knowledge, but also the values and service attitudes that should be driving this profession.

It is time that we reject the fallacy that being a steward of the greater good is incompatible with creating competitive returns for shareholders. Or that the values of professionalism and social responsibility are inconsistent with innovation and entrepreneurship. And it is time for the business community and business schools worldwide to step up and work collaboratively to develop and adopt a professional code of conduct that will help restore the management profession the respect and recognition it deserves.

Ángel Cabrera is president of Thunderbird School of Global Management. He is also a member of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, an Aspen Institute H. Crown Fellow, and a senior adviser to the U.N. Global Compact for academic matters. Cabrera's blog, "Global Leaders Can Be Made," can be found at: http://knowledgenetwork.thunderbird.edu/cabrera .