This week the Sentinel shares a British perspective on "the mission of business."

EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

In recent years, people have become increasingly disturbed by the evidence of unethical and immoral behavior in the corridors of power. This has led to the establishment of special courses in ethics at several prominent colleges and universities in the United Kingdom, too, there has been a surge of interest in ethical and moral training through organizations such as the Institute of Business Ethics, which is helping to underpin the standards and reputation of business life, and the Christian Association of Business Executives (CABE), which nurtures and reinforces initiatives in other and reinforces initiatives in other sectors of society.

Last year, in an address to the Annual General Meeting of CABE, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, said that he would like business to be seen as a calling to serve society like any other occupation on which a flourishing and civilized society depends.

He said: "We have suffered from a destructive polarization between those who are interested in wealth creation and those who are interested in wealth distribution; between those who espouse success and those who espouse the good society. The result of such beliefs has been to hamper our ability as a society to think and pull together."

Dr. Carey suggested we go back, literally, to the beginning, to see that God created us with distinctive skills and ingenuity. He said: "[It] is inherent in the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves that we will use those skills, among other things, to fashion from the world's resources new products which bring protection, comfort, delight, and edification to our fellow human beings..... From a Christian viewpoint the mission of business cannot be detached from the wider community in which it is set and which it must either directly or indirectly serve."

Dr. Carey continued: "[Wherever] we are and whatever we are doing, we are called to try our best to live up to our Christian ideals ... because work—and by that I mean something much wider than paid employment—is itself part of God's purpose for us."

He said: "When we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, that implies that we should not despise or disregard ourselves, but make sure that in loving ourselves we fully love other people too."

Dr. Carey suggested that we cannot solve the problems of poverty, undereducation, sickness, hunger, and unemployment, without harnessing all the ingenuity, enterprise, and skills of which business are capable. One way, he said, of overcoming the polarization he had spoken of, would be to insist that qualities such as enterprise, flair, efficiency, and hard work be seen as central concerns for all those who want to build a better society.

He went on to enumerate some of the issues which, from a Christian point of view, need to be heeded as business develops—among them, awareness of the moral dangers of unbridled consumerism; consideration of the interests of the developing world as well as those of the industrialized nations; the environmental and ecological implications of wealth creation; and a widespread recognition that a healthy and prosperous society requires firm moral foundations.

Dr. Carey concluded: "We continue to need as a society the role models of prominent Christian business people who show through their whole lives that they are committed to serving their fellow human beings, that they understand as well as anyone else that the most precious things in life cannot be bought and sold, and that they know that the market is an excellent servant but a bad master.

"We need people whose obvious integrity and self-giving is greater than the temptations which the power and wealth of some business people can bring. These days, a service ethic is perhaps commonly seen as something different from a business ethic, but it is time for the two to be brought together."