This ethos is in-step with the current business environment in which corporations are embracing stakeholder capitalism and moving away from profit-at-all-costs — a transition highlighted by last year’s headline-making statement from the Business Roundtable. Wicks believes that profit cannot be decoupled from purpose, even if the relationship between the two can be complex. “It’s rarely a zero-sum game,” he says. “There are a number of studies that show if you focus on core stakeholders, it contributes to your financial success.” The latest research from Morningstar found two-thirds of sustainable investment funds outperformed their benchmark. The study highlighted no performance penalty from responsible investing, which potentially reduced risk or added alpha.
Will Values Be Pandemic-Proof? There are concerns that the race to cut costs in response to the coronavirus pandemic could roll back progress toward sustainability. “It’s in hard times when we figure out what organizations really stand for,” says Wicks. “The presence of scarcity doesn’t mean we cease to care about others. It just means we have fewer resources to provide for them, just like with a family.” This current business landscape has thrown up a wide range of ethical dilemmas that Wicks is incorporating into his teaching at Darden. “Is it better to fire 30 percent of your workforce to save the other 70 percent, or should I try to keep everybody on with a temporary wage reduction?” The right answer may be found in talking to the workforce. “A lot of managers would make the decision in isolation, but it makes sense to draw on the perspective of all the stakeholders.” He sees it as his responsibility as an educator to help produce future business leaders who care about more than profit maximization — this was a common charge levied at business schools in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. But Wicks says the split between ethics and economics goes back to the 1800s, when tighter mathematical modeling led many economists to develop language and ideas that separate money and people. “Business and capitalism are among the greatest forms of collaboration ever. But in moral terms, the language of economics tends to kill the sense of the humanity of business,” says Wicks. “Some critics compare corporations to sociopaths — they will do anything to make a buck, but that is deeply problematic logic,” he adds. “At Darden, we are about training leaders to create organizations that actually help people
and make the world better through their products or services. And they are well paid if they do this, which is fair.”
Continuing the Legacy of Ethics Leadership at Darden Ethics has been a formal part of the mandatory curriculum at Darden for decades, and Wicks has been at the heart of this teaching since joining the business school in 2002. He obtained a master’s degree and Ph.D. in religious ethics from the University of Virginia. During his graduate studies, he spent time working in health care and teaching medical ethics to doctors and At Darden, we are nurses. He knew he wanted to stay about training in a setting that leaders to create allowed him to do applied ethics organizations that and became actually help people interested in business after and make the world taking a graduate better through their seminar from Darden Professor products or Ed Freeman. services.” Wicks ended up writing material PROFESSOR ANDY WICKS for Freeman’s seminar, which led to work as a research assistant at Darden. Wicks applied for a place on the faculty at the business school because of its commitment to ethics. “We have resources that most schools could only dream of,” he says. “I am one of four tenured faculty who are trained in business ethics. Very few business schools in the world can make that kind of claim.” He holds several leadership positions at Darden, including director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, academic director of the Institute for Business in Society and director of Darden’s doctoral program. He hopes to continue to play a central role in driving forward the business ethics agenda at Darden and in the corporate world through his research, teaching and prose. “Teaching ethics has been going on here for a long time — before the corporate scandals made it fashionable for business schools,” he says. “This is the place I’ve been for a long time, and I would find it very difficult to leave. This is home.” WINTER 2021
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