#Occupy The Boardroom

by Angela Bacca

Pursuing a higher degree in business these days is beginning to feel increasingly dubious. How did we get to the situation in the world of Business and Finance that we are in today? Didn’t all these bankers and politicians start out right where we are now, writing idealistic papers about the benefits of creating and running a profitable business?

For today’s unethical CEOS and middle-upper management I am forced to wonder if they corrupted the system or if the system corrupted them.

For today’s unethical CEOS and middle-upper management I am forced to wonder if they corrupted the system or if the system corrupted them. 

Tension from the #OccupyWallStreet (#OWS) protests has boiled down into direct finger pointing. At OccupyTheBoardroom.com, you can choose a Wall Street “pen-pal” or “BFF,” so that without sleeping in a patchouli-soaked tent in the middle of town, you can show your support in the form of regular contact with executives.

At the Lokey Graduate School of Business, social responsibility is notably never absent from any business conversation, be it accounting, marketing or economics. When we are (hopefully) working in the field, will we too compromise our ethics and ideals to the point which drives hundreds of thousands of people to the streets in opposition of our satanic greed?

I sure hope not.

I don’t think the #Occupy demonstrations are pushing for government regulation (they actually want change). What we really need is a legitimate reaction from the people– not the hypothetical “corporations” or “government”– who caused the recession. Bankers need to whistle-blow on whoever made the decision to start issuing predatory loans. College boards need to be pressured by students and teachers to stop paying bureaucrats high salaries at the expense of students and teachers. Insurance companies should be penalized for selling insurance policies on workers to the corporations they work for.

You can still make a lot of money without stomping all over all the proverbial little people. There really is enough for everyone, and solutions in a digitally and financially interconnected world are global in nature. The entire planet is responsible for solving our problems together but until corporate social responsibility becomes a bigger part of the business dialogue economies will continue to be volatile and hurt us all.

We need to be educated about what has happened to solve the problem, but most importantly we need to make sure we don’t become it.