| As
one trained at Princeton Seminary, with a first
career in parish ministry, I feel very good about
the kind of work in which I have been recently
engaged—as an advocate for principled
business leadership throughout the world. My
positions working with CEOs and senior business
leaders in corporations such as 3M, Honeywell,
and Sprint
have given me substantial opportunities to
improve the lives of citizens with corporate
dollars, volunteers, expertise, and leadership. Businesses
and their leaders have a critical role to play in
our interconnected, global society and economy.
Even more, they have both an obligation and a
responsibility to act as ethical members of this
world community. Many irresponsible business
actions are reported daily; however, that is not
the whole story.
Twenty
years ago, a group of enlightened CEOs including
those at Pillsbury and the Dayton Hudson
Corporation (which was founded by an old
Presbyterian family who brought the ethos of
tithing into the business) decided to preserve a
remarkable Minnesota business tradition of
exemplary corporate citizenship and founded the
Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility.
Today,
the Center’s priorities are business ethics,
a major initiative on work/life (work/family)
issues, and equipping the next generation of
global business leaders. The Center promotes
constructive employee practices, such as flex
time, that lead to more productive organizations.
Believing
that the world business community requires one
standard of ethical behavior applied across
cultures, members of the Center initiated and
developed the Principles for Business. These
principles include seven precepts, the first of
which states that business is not solely about
making money; businesses also have a role to play
in improving the lives of all of their customers,
employees, suppliers, and shareholders.
Because
corporations can be such powerful agents for
positive social change, the authors of the
Principles stressed the necessity of integrating
moral values into business decision making. For
example, the second principle states that
businesses should contribute to the human rights,
education, welfare, and vitalization of the
countries in which they operate.
This
perspective goes back to, among other sources,
the world’s most quoted guru of the free
market system, Adam Smith. His book The
Wealth of Nations is a classic. But Smith
also wrote an earlier and more important,
|
though
lesser known, book titled A Theory of Moral
Sentiments in which he states the case that a
free market system is designed to work on a moral
foundation. This theory needs to be taught in
business circles around the globe.The remaining
principles spell out additional moral guidelines
to which businesses should adhere and include
behaving in a spirit of trust, respecting rules,
supporting multilateral trade, respecting the
environment, and avoiding illicit operations. In
collaboration with the Caux Round
Table, a Swiss-based, presidential-level
business leadership group with representatives
from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the Center
has distributed the Principles for Business
throughout the world. Published in twelve
languages and accessible on two web sites (www.stthomas.edu/mccr
and www.cauxroundtable.org),
they have become the most broadly distributed and
widely used code of business ethics in the world;
they are included in major textbooks and taught
in business schools globally.As I come closer to
winding up this "second career" in
ministry, I assist the United Nations on
global projects and spend extended vacations
volunteering with the International Executive
Services Corps. This group has sent me to South
Africa, Mauritius, Egypt, Lebanon, and the Red
Lake Reservation, the largest American Indian
reservation in Minnesota, to share my
professional experience and to address important
business problems among those in distress, often
with the goal of creating needed jobs to improve
their quality of life. I am grateful to be in a
leadership role in society’s most
influential sector that can bring tangible
solutions to some of the world’s most
pressing problems, including the growing and
unsustainable gap between the rich and the poor,
corrupt business practices that preclude economic
and social development, and both physical and
social environmental issues. This second career
has given me substantial opportunity to apply
Christ’s call to service in practical ways
and to help bring justice and liberty to those in
need. z 
Robert
W. MacGregor (’57B) is president of the
Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility,
which is affiliated with the Graduate
School of Business at the University of St.
Thomas.
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