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Whither Business Ethics Teaching in India?

Volume 14, Number 4 Article by R C Sekhar December, 2002

Whither Business Ethics Teaching in India? :

In his effort to analyse the state of business ethics teaching in India, R C Sekhar, Professor Emeritus, T A Pai Management Institute and author of Ethical Choices in Businesses, begins by identifying the six different segments of stakeholders involved and their differing expectations. While conceding that it is a ‘desirable but daunting task’ to establish congruence of interest between teachers, students, Indian employers, global employers, Indian society and global society, he takes the pragmatic first step of devising a strategy of teaching ethics, which would consider the interests of teachers and students.

From the salient trends in Indian teaching and writing on ethics, Sekhar generalises that ethics teaching needs to be relevant to the Indian context; the empirical, problem-solving approach with student participation must be used; the market segmentation between ‘elite’ and ‘less endowed’ schools of management and managers must be recognised and that the material and methods developed for the former cannot be used with equal felicity for the latter; while appreciating the need for an ‘Indian’ ethos and identity, non-sanskritic idioms and institutions must not be neglected, and Indian academia with its preoccupation with neo-classical economic theories, is alienated both from Indian reality as well new Western ideas. The failure of Indian writers to build upon each others’ work and the different frameworks used by various schools, prevent meaningful dialogue.

A ‘balanced, flexible, effective’ manager, who could satisfy the expectations of all six segments of stakeholders, can be fashioned by several alternative philosophic bases, social means, instruments and pedagogy. Sekhar’s own successful pedagogic approach is based on the philosophy of ‘optimistic pragmatism’ where the concept of business is introduced as a socially desirable activity and the structure of ethics is spelt out in the form of thirty lessons from history packed in six bundles. More complex concepts linking ethics with economics using transaction cost concepts are then introduced. The model used by the author to integrate business ethics with other ‘virtues’ includes the approaches of Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas and the Bhagvad Gita. Prof S K Chakraborty’s ‘chitta shuddhi’ exercises and a self-examination of students’ values and ethical attitudes are conducted right through.

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