How Online

Imagine an airline people actually like to fly. A low-fare carrier that provides friendly service as well as numerous amenities. That’s JetBlue. JetBlue also makes money. That alone makes it an anomaly in the dismal airline business. The company does this by following a simple philosophy: Treat your people well and they’ll treat your customers well, says HOW contributor Marc Gunther.

The recent signing of an ethically minded “MBA Oath” by hundreds of Harvard Business School graduates is a powerful gesture, “but oaths (and codes) are empty, even hypocritical rhetoric, if they're not backed by more,” says HOW Online contributor Ben W. Heineman Jr. in a recent Harvard Business Review column.

The long-standing debate rages on over whether it’s fair to pin the blame for the current financial crisis on the failure of business schools to teach MBAs about values and integrity. So why did some of the graduates behave so badly? A new point of view suggests the questionable behavior may actually flow from the students themselves.

While some point fingers at business schools for the flawed financial structures that led some to behave very badly, as HOW Online contributor Steve Kerr says, “The notion that management education has such a massive influence upon its students that it can be blamed for today's … economic crisis is absurd.”

Many companies are making a commitment to corporate responsibility by contributing to education. These programs often enrich curricula in everything from science and technology to literacy. This changing role of business in society moves beyond just maximizing returns to shareholders to include being good corporate citizens equally responsible to different constituencies and diverse communities.

Instead of rationalizing in the face of the current financial crisis that has refocused the public's reproachful eye on the degree programs that "turned out" ethically challenged leaders, a number of business schools are part of a trend now taking shape for their efforts in making distinct strides to embed ethics into the core of their curricula.

We often hear that the next generation must be saved from the effects we've waged on the environment. But how about teaching them to save themselves as well? We need a national natural resource curriculum that includes lessons on climate change for students — kindergarten and above — and we need it now.

Who are the most prized employees in corporate America? If you ask their top bosses, it's those inspired by a company's mission and organizational values. Unfortunately, corporate cultures and practices don't seem to be keeping pace with that vision.