Presenting a book in French titled  “Le Management de l’Ethique et de la Responsabilité Sociale des Entreprises” by Daniel Dossou.

(Ethical Management and the Social Responsibility of Businesses)

Les Editions OBA, March 2007, 240 pages

My book, Ethical Management and the Social Responsibility of Businesses, is designed to help African students, businessmen and political leaders recognize and understand the weight of ethical issues in Africa’s economic downfall. It claims and seeks to share the belief that Africans can deal with their ethical dilemma in a more academic and scientific manner. The book is written to ‘lift up,’ in a more authoritarian and innovative way, topics of ethical dilemma in most business, political and school environments. Managerial decision-making requires the ability to spot and analyze ethical issues more rigorously. But in order to develop individual ethical standards, and to promote actions consistent with positive ethical beliefs, one needs some formal orientations. One of the main objectives of my book is to provide guidelines for a deeper thinking on new ways to deal with the issue of ethics in business and society in Africa.

My works initiate fundamental thinking on corruption from a management or scientific viewpoint, bringing to light the necessity to raise the debate of ethics above the classical considerations of consciousness and simple trust in human being. The business environment in Africa needs more management orthodoxy, with a better understanding of the usefulness of the mechanism of planning, organizing, evaluating and controlling the resources within an organization or a country. Most students or people don’t understand the general ethical considerations embodied in courses such as business law, accounting, finance, or the ethical imperfections in their own reasoning. A major work in the school settings will certainly help improve African managers’ outlook on the decision-making process in their organizations.

Broken down in seven parts, Ethical Management and the Social Responsibility of Businesses highlights major ethical considerations in Africa:

1. The Context and Tendency of the Problematic of Ethics and Corruption in the Business Setting

2. Why Do the Major Ethical and Cultural Reforms Initiated Fail so Often?

3. Where to Look for and Find Ethical Problems Within an Organization or a Nation?

4. How Does a Person Choose his Ethical Orientations in an Organization?

5. Ethics and African Leadership: New Hopes and Major Difficulties

6. Ethical Management: Strategies and Fundamental Orientations

7. Cultural Paradigm and Africa’s Development

After a few years’ experiences in teaching management courses at universities and business schools, I found it astonishing how quiet African educational systems have been on issues relating to ethics. Indeed, despite the widespread corruption and ethical dilemma in African business settings, very few researches have been done to suggest a newer and better way to deal with the issues.

One may wonder:  “Is it possible to teach or debate ethical issues inside a classroom?”

One of the most convincing answers came from Thomas Piper, a Harvard University business professor who, after asking that same question in a more remarkable way, concluded that ethics can be, and should be, taught in universities or business schools. To the same question, Sir John Shad gave a more powerful answer with his donation, in 1987, of 20 million dollars for major studies for the promotion of topics related to ethics in Harvard business school.

But even though I found those positive answers in Havard Business School — one of the most renowned institutions of higher learning in the world — it is in the works of eminent authors such as Linda Ferrell, John Fraedrich, Lynn Brewer, Robert Chandler, and O.C. Ferrell that I got the ultimate motivation to start working on the topic of ethics.

After my first researches, I quickly got the appealing confirmation that one big missing link in African higher educational systems are courses focusing on ethics in management. The school, then, appears to be one of the best settings for the deep mental and ethical refocusing widely needed in African political, legal and economical environment. More researches in that critical area are, thus, needed, to define a well-suited business ethics curriculum. African schools must continuously struggle to raise their students and citizens’ ethical standards.

This is just the starting point of the fundamental researches required to write a well-thought and academically-oriented textbook. Although the social engineering and researches needed for the betterment of African business environments cannot be left to people other than Africans themselves, African researchers need to learn from other experiences. For that reason, I urge universities, businesses, religious groups, political leaders or simple citizens to contribute to a specialized research, for the conception and the writing of some academic books on the subjects of ethics for African schools.

About the Author

Daniel D. Dossou, who holds an MBA from the University of Colorado, is a consultant in strategic management, marketing, and human resources management. After serving at the ITIC International Firm in Washington, D.C., and at the Escalante International in Denver, Colorado, he held the position of general manager of Genex International, and later that of delegate general representing the Fondation Espace Afrique, a Switzerland-based NGO. He is the founder of the Oracle Business Administration firm (OBA). Dossou also teaches management courses in several  institutions of higher learning. Following the publication of his book Ethical Management and the Social Responsibility of Businesses, he has been invited to appear on many radio and television talk shows and to conduct seminars for medium- and high-level managers. Dossou would welcome comments about his book. He can be reached by email at Dossdaniel62@yahoo.fr