Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article)

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Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article) [#permalink]

16 Apr 2009, 20:44

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In order to assure that the people they line up for positions of power do good for all stakeholders, business schools should drastically revamp their admissions processes. Schools should make sure that they admit a larger proportion of individuals with the right values in the first place. In my book, a demonstration of ethical values is more important than brilliant academic and even professional credentials.

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Admissions committees should check to see whether applicants have in the past demonstrated altruistic values in practice - on the job, in their personal activities, in contributions to valuable social causes, and in community service. In order to correctly assess this evidence, proper interviews and reference checks should be a must before any final admission decision.

Interesting article. I don't quite know how they'd check all this? More essays asking about an ethical decision you had to make?

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/how-to-fix-business-schools/2009/04/make-ethics-an-admission-requi.html

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Re: Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article) [#permalink]

16 Apr 2009, 22:44

There's a new b-school that has started in India called SOIL (School Of Inspired Leadership) that is mostly geared towards developing ethical and socially responsible leaders. Their screening process for candidates is based on what they call 'CALIPER' test - which tests for your ethical and leadership qualities along with quantitative and other academia related skills.

CALIPER supposedly is a well established name in organizational development. Am not sure how efficiently this process can be used to screen leadership and ethical qualities though. Since the company's been for a long time - it can be presumed that their process works.

http://www.caliperonline.com/
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Re: Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article) [#permalink]

17 Apr 2009, 04:55

I disagree with this. Not with the idea of admitting ethical people to business school, but with the practicality of making it a greater focus of admissions. First, we're talking about applicants who have only been in the workforce a few years. There's not a whole lot of evidence available from that time of whether people have demonstrated altruistic behavior, beyond the questions currently asked about teamwork, leadership and ethical dilemmas. Second, personal values and ethics is a real tenuous concept on which to base admissions decisions. There can be a lot of variety between person to person and culture to culture. And so who defines ethical? Would a hypothetical MBA who follows all applicable laws and regulations, but only cares about personal gain and maximizing profit be ethical? What about another hypothetical MBA who does a lot for the community, but is very bad at managing the business and destroys shareholder value (thereby neglecting their fiduciary duty to shareholders)?

I think it's just too subjective, and am not convinced that a greater focus on ethics in admissions will be any more effective at weeding out the bad apples.
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Re: Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article) [#permalink]

18 Apr 2009, 21:20

Unethical people didn't get to positions of power because they didn't know how to hide it.

RF
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Re: Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article) [#permalink] 18 Apr 2009, 21:20

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Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article)

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Make Ethics a B-School Admissions Requirement (article)

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