Anderson ’01 explains ‘MBA Oath’ initiative, background

According to Max Anderson ’01, cofounder and chairman of The MBA Oath initiative, there may be a way to prevent the world from falling into the next financial crisis.

In an interview-style lecture in McCormick Hall on Thursday night, Anderson answered questions posed by religion professor David Miller, director of the Faith & Work Initiative.

Anderson’s initiative is based on the idea that making MBA graduates sign an oath pledging to refrain from corruption, unfair competition and business practices harmful to society would start a trend leading to a cleaner and more transparent business world.

As a student at the University, Anderson explained, he was inspired by the Honor Code system and began to wonder how it could be applied to entrepreneurial reality. By the time he graduated from Harvard Business School, the world had entered a financial crisis, disclosing many of Wall Street’s secret dealings, he said.

“One day right before the graduation from the MBA program, I sat with my future wife and asked her if it would be nice if the speaker said, ‘Can we make the commitment that we all would behave with the biggest integrity?’ ” Anderson explained.

With her encouragement, Anderson said, he approached two professors who were writing on the topic of the Hippocratic oath and explained his idea. It turned out they had already considered the proposition, he noted, but they thought the initiative should come from the students rather than the faculty.

Anderson began to work on the content of the oath with around 30 other students, examining the Hippocratic oath and the president’s inaugural oath for inspiration, and ultimately convinced two-thirds of his graduating class to sign it, he explained.

Anderson explained that, on the same day The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof was told about the Harvard MBA student initiative, Kristof also posted a note about the MBA Oath on his Facebook page.

The post received around 400 comments, both positive and negative, but the Times soon contacted Anderson for a proper story, which became the second most-read article on the site.

Today, Anderson added, over 300 institutions around the world have already adapted the oath as part of their graduation policy.

“The oath sets a really high standard,” he explained. “It binds you with the obligation to do everything with integrity and ethically. It is obvious that sometimes it is hard to follow it in our highly competitive environment. Even I have failed it a couple of times. But I always have a copy of it on my table to remind me of my obligation.”

Anderson also touched on the importance of an ethical spirit throughout all aspects of business management.

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“I believe that company’s culture matters a lot,” he explained. “A role of the manager is to set the culture environment that will inspire people to conduct business responsibly and ethically.”

Several students who attended the interview said they accepted the idea of the oath with enthusiasm.

The event was the latest installment of the “Faith & Ethics in the Executive Suite” series, which began in 2008 with the goal of educating people on the ways in which faith and spiritual powers shape the business world.