I was ironically amused by a piece in the FT yesterday where it was notedthat:
Taxation is an “open sore” of corporate responsibility, according to the executive at the centre of efforts to boost the contribution of business to society.
Stephen Howard [is] chief executive of Business in the Community (BITC), a business-led charity that puts tax – and executive pay – at the top of the list of issues that are undermining trust in companies.
Controversies about tax avoidance and directors' pay are “gnawing away” at achievements in other areas of corporate responsibility, he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Whatever companies do and say, there is a ‘yes, but why have you paid this person that'? or ‘should you have done something else on tax?'”
Why the ironic amusement? That's because it has taken eleven years for him to notice tax, which is an issue the BITC has persistently ignored for years. And then when he comes to retire he mentions it.
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I was recently sent a new course outline for the MBA I had completed at a midlands university in 2014 to see what I thought.
I complained bitterly that the new curriculum had nothing to say about CSR. Instead, there was a new module on corporate takeovers!!
Nothing. The reading list was also very uncritical of this sort of corporate behaviour and I complained about that too because being a Master level course you’d expect students to be aware of CSR issues in a modern information rich environment and critically analyse this stuff.
But nothing. It was all about ‘how to’.
And I even raised the prospect of the corporations’ own customers turning away from them in disgust because of public knowledge of ‘tax efficiency’ and poor pay and conditions.
I’m still waiting for a response!
And you probably will forever
MBAs are the devil’s curse
You must have been a very mature student – in the best possible sense;o)
Yes Carol – I’d just turned 49 when I completed it.
My dissertation was about knowledge management applied to a new team I had just joined. I got a lot of deep insights out of it – a heck of a lot of learning in what was a micro-level project aimed at the front-line.
But for macro level stuff, I agree with Richard and many others that MBA’s these days peddle the dream that you too can join the 1% and cream off as much as you can for yourself.
No, not MBAs, only a certain kind of young graduate from certain business schools. See Henry Mintzberg’s Manager’s not MBA’s.
I have an MBA among other degrees, and have spent most of my working life working for non-profits working for the poor, the hungry & the environment.
Sweeping generalisations are a bit of a curse.
Maybe
Best
Avoided
I think this is attributed to Henry Mintzberg.
On a wider note ethics should be at the centre of business education but they are not even at the periphery. Truly shocking and disturbing. Ethical Finance is also virtually nowhere on the syllabus.