Interview with Roy J Lewicki on Building Ethical Organizations
August 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Prof. Roy J Lewicki
Irving Abramowitz Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Management and Human Resources Max M Fisher College of Business

• Many have argued that during demanding times (downturns, crises) people tend to be highly unethical. What is your assessment of business ethics practices during downturn? What do you think the companies should be really weary of?
  So many things can happen. Disgruntled or about-to-be laid off employees can do a lot of damage on their way out. There may be more pressure to ‘cheat’ to make quarterly numbers, or retain customers, or compromise product quality because of the bad economy. But afterwhatwe have seen happen in GOOD times, I am not convinced that things will necessarily be any worse in bad times. In bad times, we have the economy to blame. In good times, power, greed and fear have turned out to be equally potent forces!

• What about business ethics practices amongst business schools? Is it time to conceive and conceptualize an ethical code for all the business schools?
  There are two questions here. One is whether business schools should have an ethical code for students and for the faculty. In most cases, these already exist. Business schools have academic and professional honor codes for the students, and standards of professional conduct for the faculty. The second is whether students should be ‘affirming’ some kind of integrity standards for their work as professionals. I have heard more discussion of this recently. There was an article in a Harvard Business Review about having a ‘code’ that MBA graduates should sign. I have not heard much more about this—again, there is no organization that can monitor this effectively—but I predict that there will be grassroots momentum to encourage this development.

• What kind of leadership is required during a downturn? Any best practices that you suggest for leading through a downturn?
  Compassionate leadership. Leadership that understands how this economy is affecting every employee differently, but in a significant way. Lots of listening to people and their struggles, and being sensitive to themand helping in ways that are possible. Job sharing or job rotation rather than layoffs. Humane HR practices. But at the same time, leaders should return their organizations to their fundamental purpose and mission: paying attention to core customers, core suppliers and core values. Companies that are doing this well will sustain their employees, customer base and market share.

• HBS has pioneered the case method and became highly successful in exporting it to rest of the world. Any updates on this? Do you think it has overlived its life?
  I absolutely do not think it has overlived its life. I think it is a core teaching practice for any good business school and for a solid business education (particularly at the MBA level). But I think instructors have to be consistently creative in introducing new cases (and courses), and innovative in the way cases are taught. More roleplaying, more debate, more simulation, more internships, and more confrontation of a student’s personal values and assumptions about effective practice. Case teaching has only outlived its useful life when instructors teach courses mechanically, don’t vary the cases they use, and don’t actively consider how to teach them in order to assure high levels of student involvement.

• What is the importance of alumni in enriching and upholding the legacy of a business school?
  They are critical. They are essential for helping students find jobs and internships, for spreading the reputation of the school, for helping the school recruit new students, and obviously for financial support. At Ohio State, our alumni were not ‘organized’ for many years and it hurt the school considerably. This has been a high priority for us in the past 15 years and it has significantly improved the school.

• How do you see the next few decades for MBA programs across the globe? Do you think there is toomuch of proliferation of business schools and, therefore, dilution in the delivery?
  I think there are already too many business schools, but that the market remains sensitive to educational quality and reputation. Just having an MBA degree is not sufficient any more; a job applicant needs to have a degree from a solid program, and be able to demonstrate that s/he actually learned some skills and capabilities from that experience.