Creation of the Chair in Ethical Management
Inaugural Speech by Thierry C. Pauchant
March 20th, 2003, HEC Montréal
Hope...
This is the spirit in which the work of the Chair is
deeply rooted.
Hope.
That people will find their work a source of fulfillment
and not of a cause of illness.
Hope.
That corporate profit will be more fairly distributed
and will thus close the growing gap between the rich
and the poor.
Hope.
That the products and services of organizations do not
harm the environment, so that we don't bequeath a poisoned
chalice to future generations.
Hope.
That men and women in the workplace will be able to
lead more integrated lives and thereby realize their
aspirations and make the most of their talents.
I'm happy that it is here, in Quebec,
and at HEC Montréal, that the first chair of
ethics in a francophone Management School has been created.
I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to Jean-Marie
Toulouse, the dean of the School, for his commitment
to hoisting this fine flag on our building.
But on this 20th day of March 2003, when
war has begun in Iraq, I am also deeply saddened. I
grieve for the thousands of people who will lose their
lives for interests which are not theirs, whether these
people are Americans, Iraqis or others.
HEC Montréal already has a number
of Chairs, Research Centres and Groups that deal with
the social and ecological responsibilities of managers.
I have particularly in mind the Chair of International
Economics and Governance, the MacClean Hunter Chair
of Entrepreneurship, the Walter J. Somers Chair of International
Strategic Management, the Pierre Péladeau Chair
of Leadership, the Desjardins Financial Co-operatives
Management Study Centre, the Centre for Research on
Social Innovations, the Non-Profit-Making, Community
and Cultural Organizations Research Group, the Humanism
and Management Group, and the Management and Ecology
Study and Research Group that I was instrumental in
founding at the School, in 1990.
The existence of this Chair will buttress
the work already accomplished by collaborating with
these Chairs, Centres and Groups. I will also invite
those of my colleagues of the School who so wish, as
well as our students, to become members of the Chair
in all managerial aspects, namely, communication, accounting,
organizational development, law, entrepreneurship, finance,
innovation, leadership, marketing, production, human
resources, health and safety, strategy, information
technologies, and corporate governance. The field of
ethics is cross-disciplinary and gives rise to research
in trans-disciplinary activities.
Through its work, the Chair will try to
answer the threefold question now haunting our societies
in this world of wars, crises and scandals, namely:
what to do in order for "good" managers to do "good"
work in "good" organizations? This threefold question,
which concerns the growth of maturity in people, the
refocusing of our organizations' missions and the invention
of new democratic management practices, will be the
driving force in all the projects of the Chair.
For example, we have started a broad research
project that already employs 9 masters and doctoral
students. This project, called "great-values leadership,"
seeks to better define the type of leadership established
by the leaders that we, the peoples of the Earth, belonging
to different cultures and religions, most admire, and
as determined by a recent study conducted by Time magazine.
These leaders include the Dalai Lama, Mohandas Ghandi,
Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt,
Rachel Carson and Mother Teresa.
To these seven cases, we will subsequently
add other leaders in all fields of activity, namely,
business, politics, the sciences, the arts, religion,
and this, over time and space. This research project
will make it possible to create the first systematic
database on this type of leadership, based on a hundred
or so cases, and which goes far beyond codes of ethics,
business ethics or the "politically correct." By systematically
studying the profound motivations and visions of these
leaders, the behaviours that they have developed with
their associates, the values and attitudes that they
encourage, as well as the practices and organizational
structures that they put in place, we will be able to
show that ethical leadership is neither a romantic idea
nor a utopian dream, but a reality experienced by men
and women of great values throughout history. This project
will also make it possible to propose management practices
that reject violence but seek to increase shared wealth.
The Chair, with the help of many colleagues
of the School, will also assist in creating a new degree,
an Ethical Organizational Development in the DESS program.
This degree exists nowhere else in Canada. Based on
adult education pedagogy and using avant-garde learning
technologies, it will be a model incubator where young
people can come to develop their skills and managers
upgrade theirs, thus becoming "great-values leaders."
The Chair is also very fortunate in being able to rely
on an advisory Committee, which can advise it wisely
in its activities.
The chairman of this committee is :
- Mr. Robert Dutton, Chairman and Chief Executive
of Rona Inc.
The Members of this committee include :
- Mr. André Beauchamp, Executive Chairman of
Enviro-sage;
- Mr. Denis Beauchamps, Major in charge of the development
of the ethics program, Department of National Defence;
- Mr. Pierre-Marie Cotte, Vice-President, Philanthropic
Development, United Way of Greater Montreal;
- Mr. Hubert Doucet, visiting professor at the Faculty
of Theology and the Faculty of Medicine, Université
de Montréal;
- Mrs. Diane Girard, Head of the Ethics and Integrity
Department, KPMG;
- Mr. George Khoury, Director of the Canadian Centre
for Relations between Companies and the Community,
Conference Board of Canada;
- Mrs. Linda Plourde, President of Adecco Québec;
- Mr. André Riedl, former president of Boc
Canada;
- Mr. Robert Savard, Director General of the Association
des Cadres Supérieurs du Réseau de la
Santé et des Services Sociaux du Québec;
- Mrs. Sylvie St-Onge, Head of the Research Department,
HEC Montréal; and
- Mr. Pierre Vinet, Senior Vice-President, Leadership
Development, CGI. I thank them in advance for their
invaluable assistance.
Recent scientific research clearly shows
that Management Schools, and perhaps even HEC Montréal,
are sometimes an integral part of the problem of the
lack of ethics in organizations. Although students often
begin their programs with a broad conception of life
and business, including the economic, the political,
the social, the ecological and the spiritual-existential,
they sometimes emerge from these programs with a more
fragmented view, which is instilled in them for the
purpose of maximizing short-term efficiency, whether
this efficiency is financial or logistic.
Fortunately, HEC Montréal, as a
major international Management School, seeks to maintain
a balance between specialization and education, as Jean-Marie
Toulouse often reminds us.
I am therefore hoping that this Chair,
with the help of the School's other dynamic elements,
will make it possible to decrease the trend towards
fragmentation and to better understand that work activity
does not boil down to employment; work is also a labour
which situates the human being in the reality of the
planet; It is a deed through which humans are able to
fulfil themselves; and a vocation through which men
and women can assume their destiny.
I invite you to join in the work of the
Chair. May we do "good" work!
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