With Nitin Nohria’s appointment as dean of Harvard Business School (HBS) came reams of newsprint on the MBA Oath – a ritual conceived by a few Harvard students and given prompt fillip by Nohria. Nohria holds the view that the MBA Oath needs to be as ritualistic (and hopefully meaningful) a practice like the Hippocratic Oath which doctors take worldwide. In an address to media after becoming the dean, he said that the oath sought to help those “who have power and privilege in a society to conduct themselves in a way where they exhibit the highest standard of personal conduct… then they will endorse society’s trust and be able to fulfill their responsibilities that come with their positions of power in a way that will benefit society.”

According to Dr Rakesh Khurana, a professor at HBS, the concept behind ethics in business can actually be traced back to the initial formation of management education in the early 20th century. Khurana explains in his book ‘From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession‘, that the original intent of instituting a management degree was to educate a managerial class that would run America’s corporations in a way that would serve the broader interests of society rather than the narrowly defined interests of capital or labor. “Business schools have strayed away from their initial intent,” remarked Dr Khurana in an interview. “The university-based business school of today is a troubled institution, one that has become unmoored from its original purpose and whose contemporary state is in many ways antithetical to the goals of professional education itself.”

The MBA Oath became a familiar term in b-schools only post the economic meltdown of 2008, though some like The Richard Ivey School of Business, Canada have had the practice going since 2004 and has had some 4,000 of its students signing to “act ethically and honestly in all their activities.” Both Harvard and the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa began the Oath movement in 2009. In India, the movement has kept lethargic pace with just a couple of schools such as Mumbai Business School (Mumbai) and Great Lakes Institute of Management (Chennai) institutionalizing the MBA Oath.

Hearing about the MBA oath for the first time, India’s renowned cardiac surgeon Dr BK Goyal says that oaths are a must in a profession.  He affirms that if doctors take it, then MBAs also should. When asked whether the oath is of any consequence today with so many doctors caught on the wrong side of law, Dr Goyal says that the oath is mandatory. “Doctors must take oath. The oath reminds you of your duties at all times. It also helps keep a check on those who want to engage in unpleasant practices. Whatever be the case, an oath helps firm up one’s attitude in the right direction.”
According to Carol Stephenson, Dean, Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario, “While there are no foolproof guarantees that people will act ethically, pledges and oaths remind them to aim for the highest professional standards. The oaths serve as a reminder for business school graduates to act with integrity, prudence and transparency.”