Dialogue: Accent on values emerging in universities, workplace

By PATRICK LYNCH*

The public debate on values education for our young people is mirrored by a growing awareness in tertiary education and the business sector of the need for ethical considerations to become more part of their ethos as well.

In American Ivy League universities, some business management schools, and in Auckland's University of Technology, courses in ethics are now part of the course structures for students.

It is no coincidence that these trends are emerging. For over two generations, we have skidded around acknowledging that people are more than just commodities and their lives have dimensions which cannot be bought and sold.

Human dignity forms the basis of ethical considerations. A strengthened ethical base ultimately will strengthen democracy, although it is run down and dilapidated in too many countries. Ethical benchmarks are not necessarily unrealistic, just as utopia is something we must always seek, based as it is on possibilities we have not achieved.

The digital information, communication, technology locomotive is tangibly bringing home to individuals that they are not only citizens of sovereign nations, but also global citizens who have international responsibilities. These, in turn, are built on their national responsibilities.

Many businesses and corporations are becoming aware that besides delivering a dividend to their shareholders, they also have obligations to environmental care, social equity and the family responsibilities of their workers.

World organisations such as Unesco increasingly refer to the need for capacity building in many of the world's nations. One doesn't have to go very far to see what this means in places like East Timor, Indonesia and most of the African states.

Governments by themselves cannot hope to deliver the human and material infrastructure required by over half the world's population where negative social and economic statistics exist.

Governments obviously need the collaboration of the private wealth- creating sector for capacity-building progress to be made and so enable the scramble to survive to be taken out of people's lives.

Some 500 corporations control one-third of the world's gross national product and three-quarters of the world's trade. These giants control vital resources and influence hundreds of millions of lives.

They have also been responsible for some of the social and environmental problems we face and play a predominant role in the production of images and values which many of us simply soak up.

At the same time, it needs to be recognised that profit is not a dirty word or concept. Governments don't create jobs, entrepreneurs do.

It is interesting to note, as an aside, that 70 per cent of senior Israeli secondary school students aim to set up their own businesses. The percentage of young New Zealanders with a similar goal is probably less than 10 per cent. This speaks for itself and highlights the need to expand productive relationships between schools and the business community.

We have a long way to go in this country to turn around negative attitudes about business so that positive entrepreneurial mindsets become predominant. In so doing, we will solve our balance of payment problems and dramatically drop our unemployment numbers in the process.

The values revolution now making its presence felt here and abroad is being pushed by the increasing sophistication of people as education gains are made, and also by governments which see evidence of environmental degradation and other manifestations of excess, associated with rampant consumerism and a fear of new technologies.

Those businesses with a vision for their sustainability and survival can see they must be honest with their customers, deliver quality products and services and do it in such a way that the broader ethical and spiritual considerations are openly addressed.

Those businesses at the forefront of operating ethically have bottom lines associated with finance, health, safety, environment and, more recently, sustainability.

Being in business can be fun. Honest business is essential for our survival as a species. When business, the wider community, including education, and Government see they are in partnership, real progress will be made.

Widespread attitudinal change will occur when courses in tertiary institutions, in particular, deliver graduates in engineering, management and business studies who are committed to ethical attitudes and who understand the full ramifications of sustainable development. It is possible to be ecologically efficient and ethical at the same time.

As Winston Churchill said during the darkest days of the Second World War: "It is not sufficient to say we did our best, when what we need to do is succeed." This inspiration is compelling today.

At this time of momentous change, with coalitions of disparate groups finding common cause railing against globalisation, it will be possible to enjoy the benefits of globalisation, providing ethics and positive values in business are to the fore of decision-making.

In the final analysis, those who are quick to learn will inherit the future since they will be the ones who are best able to create, share, absorb and make use of the knowledge explosion which engulfs us.

These are exciting times in which hope and integrity are two of the finest gifts we can give one another and to our children.

* Patrick Lynch is executive director of the Catholic Education Office.