At Harvard Business School,a vow to be ethical: greed is not good

We want to stand up and recite something out loud with our class, said Teal Carlock,who is graduating from Harvard and has accepted a job at Genentech. Fingers are now pointed at MBAs and we,as a class,have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders.

At Columbia Business School,all students must pledge to an honour code: As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community,I adhere to the principles of truth,integrity,and respect. I will not lie,cheat,steal,or tolerate those who do. The code has been in place for about three years and came about after discussions between students and faculty.

In the post-Enron and post-Madoff era,the issue of ethics and corporate social responsibility has taken on greater urgency among students about to graduate. While this might easily be dismissed as a passing fancy,business school professors say that is not the case. Rather,they say,they are seeing a generational shift away from viewing an MBA as simply an on-ramp to the road to riches.

At Harvard,about 160 from a graduating class of about 800 have signed The MBA Oath,which its student advocates contend is the first step in trying to develop a professional code.