February 22, 2000
Contact: Lew Harris, (615) 322-NEWS
Business owes significant obligations to society, moral leadership professor says
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Business is the most dominant social organizing force in the world today and, as such, it owes significant obligations to society, according to a Vanderbilt University professor.
"Business is far more powerful and deeply influential than any competing ideological force, political force or environmental force," said Bart Victor, the Cal Turner Professor for Moral Leadership at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management. "From that perspective, I think it is a new experience for business. Business now has to see itself and its responsibilities and obligations in a new way."
Victor believes that there are two pillars of obligation that business owes to society. The first is to meet the expectations of the community, obey the laws and be good keepers of the community's faith. These obligations have been the primary concern of business ethics in the past.
The second pillar, and one that is much more important in Victor's eyes, are the many positive obligations of business.
"Business can do extraordinary things to enhance the quality of life and the community and to assure the character and future of our shared environment," Victor said. "It is going to require social intervention, innovation, creativity and what I call `moral imagination' in business. There are lots and lots of things that business ought to do because it can. Those are the things that, in my optimistic moments, I get very excited about."
Victor plans to focus on the second pillar with his Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions. The mission of the program is to foster understanding of moral behavior, ethical practices and individual responsibility in such professions as law, medicine, business and ministry. The interdisciplinary program involves the Vanderbilt Divinity School, the Owen Graduate School of Management and the Vanderbilt School of Law.
"One of the things we're working on is how to understand how we exercise our moral imagination, our ethical judgement, under conditions that are highly unpredictable and complex in dynamic environments," Victor said. "I don't think it makes any sense, particularly in this day, to separate our ethical concerns from our business concerns because they simply won't come apart. The world is too complex, too interdependent, moving too rapidly to parcel these things out."
Indeed, Victor believes business has changed dramatically in the last decade with the end of the mega-corporation being perceived as emblematic of business progress.
"We're seeing that break down and I think that's one of the real sources for optimism," Victor said. "I see little companies, emerging market companies, new economy companies that are doing things to redefine the nature of work. For about 70 years we were trying to fit human beings into jobs that were better suited to machines. That's over in many ways. Now what we're much more about is to fit the work to the fundamental character of humanity because humans are far more able to handle complexity, change and innovation than any machine."
In addition to his work on business ethics, Victor has also focused on business strategy. He co-authored a strategy book, Invented Here: Maximizing Your Organization's Internal Growth and Profitability, published by the Harvard Business School Press in 1998.
Before coming to Vanderbilt, Victor spent three years teaching at the Institute for Management Development International (IMD), a 50-year old business school which he said is generally considered as one of the three best in Europe. In addition to his teaching duties at IMD, located in Lausanne, Switzerland, Victor also served as director of the program for executive development.
Prior to his stint at IMD, Victor was a member of the faculty at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School
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