HEC
chair in "Ethics and spirit at work"
We are currently involved in a financing campaign to fund the creation
of an academic chair at HEC Montreal in "Ethics and spirit at work".
The creation of such a chair is invaluable in order to develop high-caliber
scientific work. The existence of this university chair would be a first
for management schools anywhere in the world. The creation of a university
chair requires a significant investment of at least $1.5 million Canadian.
This amount would be invested and the chair would receive regular financing,
generated through interest income, of about $100 000 Canadian, per year.
This amount would enable the undertaking of high-level research projects
on the integration of ethics and spirituality in organizational settings
and in the economic system in general. The chair's activities as well
as the utilization of funds will be supervised by an orientation commitee.
Below, we present a letter by Jean-Marie Toulouse, Director of HEC, as
well as a short description of this chair.
Letter of invitation to subscribe by J.M. Toulouse,
Dean of HEC
Presentation
of the chair
Letter
of invitation to subscribe by J.M. Toulouse,
Dean of HEC
January 25th, 2001
Every year, HEC attracts more than 9000 students from 60 countries for its undergraduate and graduate programs and organizes over a hundred seminars in professional executive training. The international reputation of HEC is attested to by the fact that in 1999, it received the EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) Award, granted only very selectively by the European Foundation for Management Development, a first for any University in America. Its reputation is further supported by the success of its MBA students who won the Grand Prize in the Televised: The Economist Business Challenge. The HEC team successfully defeated the teams from Wharton, Harvard, Northwestern (Kellogg) and New York (Stern).
The current campaign "A world of projects; projects for our world" intends to support research projects and develop teaching programs. We will also create University chairs for research groups, in particular, the university chair of ethics and spirit at work, proposed by the professor Thierry C. Pauchant.
This chair will be the first of its kind in a Business School. It will lead to a better understanding of the integration of the deepest values and inspirations in work and will help bring together the notions of management, spirituality and ethics. Speaking of spirituality doesn't imply the renewed hold of religion or the rebirth of dogmatism; it simply means that life includes supernatural facets, which transcend the individual and the use of reason (See attached documentation).
Knowing how important management and ethics are to you, I am sure that you will find it within yourselves to generously contribute to this ambitious project. As well, in order to encourage you to generously contribute, we will send on to anyone making a donation of at least $1 000, an autographed copy of M. Pauchant's new book: "Ethics and spirituality at work."
I thank you for your participation in this campaign, which will undoubtedly bring us great success in the future.
Respectfully yours,
The DEAN,
Jean-Marie Toulouse
Participating in the financing of
this university chair
As the philosopher Charles Taylor proposed, our era is characterised
by greatness and by misery. The efficiency of our sciences, our technologies
and our organisations has enabled tremendous progress. Along with this
progress however, have come tremendous problems in terms of human dignity,
social justice, poor working conditions, ethical issues and ecological
devastation. It has become apparent lately that an increasing number of
leaders, managers, professionals and employees wish to integrate ethical
and spiritual values into their work. They do so for several reasons :
the need to rediscover reference points in an increasingly complex world
or the search for meaning when faced with paradoxical challenges; the
wish to better be able to handle daily stress levels or to integrate deeper
values at work ; the desire to maintain the organisational social legitimacy
or to collaborate with people from divers cultures and religions in our
global world.
In 1998, HEC was the first business school in the world to organise a conference on these subjects, The International Forum on Management, Ethics and Spirituality. The goal of the proposed chair is to deepen still further this reflection and to do so along three central axes. While maintaining the central tenets of innovation and efficiency within organizations, the chair aims to produce multidisciplinary scientific knowledge of a very high standard, to transfer this knowledge to managers, and to develop management training programs. More specifically, this chair will work towards the two following objectives :
In the domain of ethics, we will transcend the "politically correct". We will propose ethical practices that are efficient in guiding the decision-making and action-taking in organizations. This vision of ethics, which is larger in scope, includes the notion that all organised work should contribute to both efficient production and equitable redistribution of wealth (an economic and socially just ethic); should contribute to the happiness of individuals and to the development of our organizations and our communities (professional, organisational and social ethics); should promote the physical well being of individuals and of the environment (bio-ethics, medical ethics and environmental ethics). According to KPMG, 90% of managers in Canada are requesting more practical ethical tools. In concrete terms, the work of the chair will contribute to define a new applied philosophy in management, to propose a different governance structure based on values or to integrate ethical committees into the formal decision-making process.
In the domain of spirituality, a recent study conducted in the US revealed that 92% of managers wish to live a more integrated life at work, based on their spiritual values. The notion of spirituality does in no way mean a return to the control of daily affairs by religious organizations, nor is it a renewed dogmatism, nor does it imply that a CEO should become a spiritual leader. It does express however, the belief that certain aspects of life are not only materialistic in nature, nor are they only individualistic nor are they purely rational. The notion of spirituality includes a supernatural component that transcends both the individual and instrumental reason. In Canada, 85% of the population hold this belief as does 82% in the world at large. In concrete terms, the activities of the chair will help managers to better integrate their spiritual values at work, to inspire mutual respect between people from different traditions and to prevent the creations of sectarian cults within organisations.
In summary, this chair - the first of its kind in a business school - will respond to the search for meaning and values in which more and more people are engaging within organisations of all kinds.