Mainstream corporate business lost credibility and trust worldwide. Conventional legitimizing arguments for corporate business do not work anymore. Referring to efficiency or job creation is not enough for stakeholders who are angry with corporations destroying livelihoods, displacing people, and destructive of communities and nature.
The basic assumptions of the corporate management model became questionable. The dominant model of today's corporate business is based on a materialistic conception of man. Human beings are considered as creatures having only materialistic desires and acting out of solely egoistic motivation.
The painting by Paul Klee represents the angel of ethics for me. The title “Senecio” refers to the botanical name for a genus of plants that includes ragwort and other plants with round flower heads. One interpretation is that there is a parallel between the flower being the crowning glory of a plant and the human face being the flower of the human body. As this genuine and transparent face sees us, we can feel a deep spiritual inspriration for honest living and acting in the world of lying and deception.
The Occupy Wall Street phenomenon clearly shows the crisis of the materialistic management paradigm. Materialistic management is based on the belief that the sole motivation of doing business is money-making and success should be measured by the generated profit only.
Psychologists have discovered the serious side-effects of materialistic value orientation. In his book "The High Price of Materialism" Tim Kasser demonstrates that the more people prioritize materialistic goals, the lower their personal well-being and more likely they engage in manipulative, competitive, and ecologically degrading behaviors.
I was active in fighting agains the Bős-Nagymaros Dam project in the 1980s and 1990s. The project aimed at constructing a huge, artificial system consisting of a canal and two dams for electricity production. It was not only highly destructive in environmental and cultural sense but also economically irrational because it required about USD 3 billion for the completion, but this investment would never recovered through the benefit of electricity production.
As a student (and later as a professor) of economics and business I was not ready to accept the centrality of self-interest in motivating business actions and evaluating the performance of companies. I have never shared the belief of mainstream economists and businessmen about the benefitial effects of the "invisible hand" of the market. I always felt that something fundamentally wrong with the self-interest doctrine.
The painting "Pilgrimage to the Cedars of Lebanon" by Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary is a celebration of the magficence of nature and the dignity of human spirit. Let us hope in the renewal of humanity in the years to come.
Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary: Pilgrimage to the Cedars of Lebanon, 1907
Since the late 1980s mankind has been operating in overshoot. Our ecological footprint has exceeded the world’s biocapacity by about 30 percent. This means that the planet’s resources are being used faster than they can be renewed. The problem is especially acute for the Western countries which use 600 – 300 percent of their fair earth share.
On 19 January 2010, Henk van Luijk passed away at the age of 80. Professor van Luijk was one of the pioneers of business ethics and is considered as the patriarch of business ethics in Europe. He was the inspirational chairman of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN), an organization that was set up on his initiative, and which he co-founded, in 1986. (See In Memoriam)
"Taormina" by the Hungarian painter Tivadar Csontvary represents the state of the world and the state of the soul. What we have today is a partly destroyed world and a much disturbed soul but fantastic cultural heritage and still magnificent nature. Much to preserve and renew.
In July 1797 Nelson led a doomed assault on the Spanish island of Tenerife in which he was hit in the right arm by a musket ball shortly after stepping ashore. Bleeding heavily, he was taken back and his injured limb was amputated. Within 30 minutes Nelson was again issuing orders to his men. (See the full article.)
Imagine a today's CEO who suffers a similar job-related accident. What would he or she do? Almost certainly, he or she would claim a huge compensation for the injury and give up the job forever Admiral Nelson returned to work in half an hour and did his duty. "That was a man."
In his major books Edward Goldsmith ("The Blueprint for Survival", "The Way") he relentlessly argued that for achieving real sustainability greening of business is not enough. People and communities should radically reduce their ecological impacts and try to live within the bounderies of their environment. (See full article.) This approach is reflected in our book "Business within Limits" and my paper "Green Business or Community Economy?".
The Financial Times ranking presents the Masters in International Management program of CEMS the best in the world in 2009. As CEMS Business Ethics Faculty we contributed significantly to raising the ethics profile of the program in the last 12 years. Our various contributions are reported under the heading "CEMS Projects".
Dr. Rowan Williams, Head of the Church of England speaks about climate change and its spiritual meaning. According to him we have to change our all-consumerist lifestyle and reconnect ourselves with nature and our deeper self. (See the whole interview) His view strongly supports the position we presented in our book "Frugality: Rebalancing Material and Spiritual Values in Economic Life".
