The Xavier School of Management hosted the 24th Annual JRD Tata Oration on Business Ethics with eminent journalist Shekhar Gupta, Chairman & Founding Editor of Mediascape Group delivering the the oration at the Tata Auditorium at XLRI Campus on November 24.
In his oration, Gupta delved into the “Changing Role of Media in Today’s India” through an interactive session with the students. He shared his experiences from his 40-year long career in journalism and spoke about the evolution of the media and its role through the years. He observed, “The truth never hurts anybody, but where there is nobody to tell the truth rumours become the truth.” Discussing the positive and negative sides of media, and the news reporting system in India, he said that ‘a painful and noisy media is anytime better than a bunch of lies’. He said that any normal citizen with a smart-phone can have access to media, thus becoming a part of the media. He also expressed his concern that anybody with money and power to start a media house use it as a tool to further their own vested interests.
The session was attended by TV Narendran, Chairman, Board of Governors, XLRI & MD, Tata Steel India and South East Asia, Fr. E Abraham, SJ, Director of XLRI, Dr Pranabesh Ray, Dean (Academics), XLRI and Fr. Oswald Mascarenhas, SJ, JRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics at XLRI.
In his welcome address, Fr. E Abraham, SJ, Director of XLRI spoke about ethics, the importance of ethics in business. He said, “Ethics, in most of cases, runs parallel to law and shows due consideration to others’ rights and interests in a civilised society. The culture of an organization is set by the tone at the top. Chief executives must lead by example. The senior management also needs to be trained to develop ethical sensitivity - an understanding of fairness, openness, transparency, integrity, responsibility to others and the ability to recognize conflicts of interest.” He added: “XLRI has always emphasized on the importance of adopting an ethical code of conduct within the corporate world. We believe that no management education curriculum is really complete, unless and until the students are instilled with a set of values that are necessary decision-making ingredients for the corporate manager today.”
In his address, TV Narendran observed, “Ethics encompasses the entire spectrum of human conduct. However, today, ethical deficit and lack of integrity in public affairs has become a major issue that public confidence in public officials and others has taken a severe beating. The slow growth of the Indian economy in recent years is also partly attributed to the policy-making stalemate as a consequence of greater scrutiny and focus on unethical transactions. Therefore, it is most fitting that we pause for a while to dwell upon the impeccable legacy of ethical public life left behind by giants of industry like JRD Tata.”
XLRI, in association with select Tata Group Companies, had established the JRD Tata Foundation in Business Ethics in 1991 to mark their long-standing commitment and contribution to business ethics in India. The Foundation seeks to address itself by publicly affirming the urgent need for ethics in business and the need to bring about a conducive culture in which it can thrive.
XLRI is the first B-school in the country to introduce a core course on “Managerial Ethics” for both its HRM and BM programmes. Each year, the institute confers a medal on the best student in Managerial Ethics at the annual convocation.