New course challenges business ethics
World renowned New York-based global corporate ethicist, Professor Prakesh Sethi, recently launched the University’s new Graduate Certificate of Corporate Responsibility to a national audience at the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility annual conference in Sydney. La Trobe University was a conference sponsor. Professor Sethi, a keynote speaker, is an adviser to the new La Trobe course, which he described as ‘a real ground breaker’. Taught in the Graduate School of Management and aimed at senior corporate managers, the course emphasises the importance of ethical behaviour, sustainability and exemplary values in business.
Professor Sethi has been an adviser and consultant to corporations and industry groups world-wide. He chaired the multinational Mattel corporation’s Independent Monitoring Council for Global Manufacturing Principles and has worked for US and other global government agencies and NGOs.
‘I feel privileged that La Trobe University has asked me to be part of this,’ he said. ‘I will add something to the program and hopefully it will become the Rolls Royce of corporate social responsibility programs.’
Professor Sethi said programs of this nature were now imperative, and the days of businesses being able to bypass their wider obligations were long gone.
‘Companies are very aware the world has changed. They can’t simply give money to the local orphanage and say “oh yes, we are the good guys” because now we ask them other questions: What are they doing about global warming and climate change? What are they doing about pollution? What are they doing about lead in children’s toys?’ he said.
‘Corporate social responsibility is related to everything they do – whether they lend, buy, sell or manufacture,’ he said.
Program Director, Associate Professor Suzanne Young – who recently attended the inaugural forum for Responsible Management Education hosted by the UN Global Compact at UN headquarters in New York – says the economic crisis illustrates what happens when business has the wrong values and ethical standards slip.
‘Students graduating from the new course will have the tools to challenge unethical behaviour and the skills to help them build responsible organisations and bring exemplary values to the centre of business practice.’
Dr Young says the UN forum underscored the critical role of business schools as vital agents of change. Closer to home, business leaders such as Dr Noel Purcell, former Group General Manager of Westpac, have also called for universities to help create a new generation of leaders conscious of corporate responsibility.