The demise of Enron, the once-vaunted energy and trading company, is a complex affair. On December 2, 2001, the company filed for bankruptcy. Last week, its shares were delisted from the NYSE. The financial press is awash with speculation on the cause and ramifications of what has been dubbed “the largest bankruptcy case in American… Continue reading Outspoken Alumnus Blames HBS for Enron Debacle
Tag: ethics
Auntie's Back…With a Vengeance!
Hello, Mouseketeers, I know you’ve all missed me, but don’t worry. I’m back with an Intraview that’s not to be missed. In many ways, this is the best Intraview yet-classy guys, charming women, and a car incident that’s not to be missed. There were a few speed bumps on the way, which led this article… Continue reading Auntie's Back…With a Vengeance!
The Intraview:
What is the Intraview and why should you care? For the uninitiated, the Intraview is a bizarre Harbus concept in which a professional matchmaker scours the campus for the perfect couple, sends them off on an evening of their dreams, and lets the entire Harbus-reading student body learn about the results. Unfortunately, the Harbus’s ad… Continue reading The Intraview:
Foundations Reflections
In our continuing attempt to document the reactions of the Class of 2003 to their new experiences at HBS, we asked the whole class to reflect on its experiences to date. Here are their replies:On the case method: Class commentary ranged from highly insightful to very fluffy. The case method can be an incredibly frustrating… Continue reading Foundations Reflections
Shades of Gray
I am so relieved our Negotiations course is over. What a painful learning experience. I’ve never been in a situation that so clearly exposed differences in ethical standards. At the least, the class laid bare the differences in people’s standards about lying. Early in the course, the faculty acknowledged that ethical differences would emerge and… Continue reading Shades of Gray
Ethicists At the Gate
Harvard Business School made an unusual choice when it let me in. A little of the due diligence it so assiduously teaches would have revealed a few disqualifiers: I studied socialist history in college. I’m not entirely certain how to turn on one of those fancy calculators that investment bankers carry around. I don’t even… Continue reading Ethicists At the Gate
Viewpoints: Shades of Gray
I had a strange dream last week. I was sitting in a dingy room at a long table with four of my section-mates. We were trying to solve a murder, and we were getting nowhere. I was convinced someone had the answer, and that everyone was trying to hide something. In fact, I knew a… Continue reading Viewpoints: Shades of Gray
HBS Launches Leadership and Values Initiative
The Leadership and Values Initiative (LVI), launching fall 2002, is an assemblage of classroom instruction, such as LVDM, LEAD and The Moral Leader, and extracurricular programs that integrate ethics and leadership training into the standard curriculum of the Harvard Business School. The initiative is an outgrowth of Dean Clark’s conviction that teaching ethics at the… Continue reading HBS Launches Leadership and Values Initiative
Business School: The Ethical Dimension
The arrival of the MBA Classes of 2004 on campuses across the country has been accompanied by much commentary in the popular press on the rising emphasis on business ethics in the curricula of leading business schools. Increased Attention on B-Schools In the aftermath of recent corporate scandals, attention has been focused on the role… Continue reading Business School: The Ethical Dimension
Improving a Great School
Nearing the end of the first year at HBS seems like a good time to reflect on how to make the first year HBS experience even better for students who will come after us. After all-if there is one enduring lesson from the case method it is that every situation can be improved. But it… Continue reading Improving a Great School
Editorial
Will it ever end? The RC recently completed yet another case on Microsoft, bringing the grand total of first-year cases dealing with the PC market to an appalling sum. (To be honest, we’ve lost count, and it’s too late in the semester to be running the numbers anyway.) We don’t deny that the PC has… Continue reading Editorial
HBS Starts UNstudying
A few weeks ago some HBS students and faculty did a great thing-they got together over lunch and had an organized, thoughtful conversation about Enron. The conversation was the first in a series of what are being called “UNstudy Groups.” (See below for information on how to join the next one.) Now, of course, HBS… Continue reading HBS Starts UNstudying
Hogs and Sharks
While I agree with Nick Will’s premise in “The All Too Visible Hand” that Washington’s $15 billion bailout of the airline industry was largely unnecessary, I feel the need to at least partially defend my former employer, Continental Airlines. First, Will points out that Continental reported third quarter earnings last year with the help of… Continue reading Hogs and Sharks
Ethics in Negotiations: Maybe, maybe not
It was with a lot of interest that I read the example cited by Richard Shell in his book “Bargaining for Advantage”, recommended reading for the RC Negotiations course. Shell quotes the example of Stifford, a man who finds a globe that he really likes in a store, for 500 dollars. When he states that… Continue reading Ethics in Negotiations: Maybe, maybe not
Business as Unusual
Anita Roddick, CEO of The Body Shop, presented an alternate view to Harvard Business School students last week: business is not about money, it is about responsibility. Several students who left early in the presentation, mostly likely wishing that they had attended the Color Squad games instead, were probably not ready for Roddick’s healthy dose… Continue reading Business as Unusual
Patrick Kuhse, Former International Fugitive and Convicted Felon, Addresses HBS Students
Patrick Kuhse first started to feel dissatisfied at Arizona University. The Iowa country boy joined a fraternity where he confronted the painful contrast between his plain replica watches ordinary roots and his friends’ wealthy families. Despite growing up in a “very tight family unit” Kuhse began to believe, “I didn’t grow up so good.” As… Continue reading Patrick Kuhse, Former International Fugitive and Convicted Felon, Addresses HBS Students
A CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison:
Recently, the Leadership & Ethics Forum invited a most unusual guest to come to speak at the Harvard Business School. You might expect a well-known CEO to lecture about how stealing is bad, or a respected Sr. VP to analyze why it’s wrong to hold your competitor’s children as bargaining chips. You might even hope… Continue reading A CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison:
A Minute With Kevin Rollins, President and COO of Dell
The Harbus recently participated on a conference call with several university newspapers in a conversation with Dell’s President and COO, Kevin Rollins. Rollins, in a candid conversation, spoke about the economy, ethics, technology trends and more. Kevin Rollins on how the economy has affected Dell: [Our] company fortunately has weathered the economic downturn both in… Continue reading A Minute With Kevin Rollins, President and COO of Dell
Golf as Part of EC Curriculum?
Most of us here on campus want to learn golf while at HBS or want to improve his/her game. I would guess that 90% or more of us have, at one point or another, thought about taking a lesson through Shad or through a sectionmate. Here is my proposal: Why don’t we consider it as… Continue reading Golf as Part of EC Curriculum?
Minoru Makiharah, Former Chairman Mitsubishi Corporation, Recieves Alumni Achievement Award
There is more than one way to get an education at the Harvard Business School. Minoru Makiharah attended the Executive Education’s 75th Advanced Management Program and used his knowledge to turn around the Mitsubishi Corporation, which had stumbled during the Japanese recession. The company’s key problem? Previous management had focused too exclusively on Japan, missing… Continue reading Minoru Makiharah, Former Chairman Mitsubishi Corporation, Recieves Alumni Achievement Award
Recent Alumni Perspective: Model Behavior
Jeetendr Sehdev (HBS ’04) is a Brand Strategist at the world’s leading advertising agency in New York. Not your typical HBS alumnus, Jeetendr is a self-confessed pop-culture junkie with looks more suited to a fashion runway than a 40th floor office cubicle. He was born and raised in the United Kingdom where he attended a… Continue reading Recent Alumni Perspective: Model Behavior
The Free-Market Solution to Ethical Problems
For well over two years now, we have been wringing our hands about ways to make businesspeople act more ethically. We’ve tried criminal prosecution. Legislative action. Public opprobrium. Enough. We have missed the obvious. As with many of civilization’s most intractable problems, there is a very simple answer: the free market.Our problem is that we… Continue reading The Free-Market Solution to Ethical Problems
Do We Need an MBA Oath? And Should MBAs Take It?
The oath defined a social contract between business leaders and society as a whole to effectively behave in an ethical fashion. Was the oath a good idea, and should graduating students take it? Two HBS students take opposing views.
The Politically Incorrect Guide
For some RCs it is the end of the Great Internship Hunt, while for others that great wave of relief and exhaustion is still elusive. Thanks to the Great Recession this year, it appears “hunt” is a rather apt word for the elaborate courtship that HBS students perform each year. But don’t despair, especially if… Continue reading The Politically Incorrect Guide
Volunteer Consulting Organization – A Different Kind of Club
The Volunteer Consulting Organization (VCO) is unique among what seems like millions of student clubs at HBS. The reason: it makes a significant impact on people outside of HBS. VCO attracts students that are interested in volunteerism as well as many interested in consulting, and a wide variety of non-profit organizations hosted VCO projects last… Continue reading Volunteer Consulting Organization – A Different Kind of Club
MBA Oath: An Oath and Its Flaws
“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” -Milton Friedman The “MBA Oath” was crafted by a few members of the Class of 2009 here at Harvard Business School. On the Oath’s official website, I count 478 members of last year’s graduating class that have signed the Oath… Continue reading MBA Oath: An Oath and Its Flaws
Notable Alumni-Ronald Cohen, MBA '69
Chairman of Great Britain’s Social Investment Task Force, Bridges Community Ventures, and The Portland Trust. Cofounder and former chairman of the venture capital and private equity firm of Apax Partners L.P. MA in Politics, Philosophy, & Economics (PPE) from Oxford University. What was your most memorable experience as a student at HBS?My most memorable moment… Continue reading Notable Alumni-Ronald Cohen, MBA '69
Looking Back-The First Graduating Class
Editor’s Note In 1908, the world was vastly different. Henry Ford gave the world the Model T, the Sixteenth (allowing federal income tax) and Seventeenth (requiring direct election of Senators) Amendments to the United States Constitution were adopted, major railroad companies were consolidating and oil was discovered for the first time in Persia. Harvard Business… Continue reading Looking Back-The First Graduating Class
We Might Have Been Crushed in Football, But At Least We Still Have Debate
The HBS debate team scored a crushing victory over the Yale School of Management at the recent HBS-Yale SOM debate. The motion before the crown was “This House believes that the US Government should impose a windfall tax on US oil corporations.” Adrian Brown, President of the Leadership and Ethics forum, began the evening by… Continue reading We Might Have Been Crushed in Football, But At Least We Still Have Debate
The Role of Case Studies in Understanding Ethical Theories
Clay Christensen writes that a case study is simply an examination of a situation. Humanity’s religious scriptures, which have collectively survived several dozen centuries, contain thousands of parables that can be examined for both ethical and unethical behavior. Since these manuscripts have been revered as holy books by billions of people over the centuries, they… Continue reading The Role of Case Studies in Understanding Ethical Theories
