The ethical concerns of contemporary Zimbabwean managers: A preliminary sounding

An MBA course has recently been introduced in the Department of Business Studies at the University of Zimbabwe. Applications for the course are numerous, so selection can be very rigorous. Thus the students admitted to the course comprise many of the country's most promising junior managers. As an assignment for a course on business ethics, the students were asked to discuss an ethical problem they had met in the course of business. An analysis of the problems discussed is quite revealing. Besides several miscellaneous issues, the problems discussed focussed on sexual harrassment, nepotism, political pressure and particularly public corruption. The emphasis on public corruption is probably explicable in terms of the particular individuals admitted to the MBA course; it should not be explained by claiming that Zimbabwe is just one more corrupt third world country. Most surprising is the total absence of any problems relating to issues of race or to trading with South Africa, which might have been considered the major ethical issues in Zimbabwe business life. The lack of problems relating to these two issues is more difficult to explain.Paul Gifford is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Zimbabwe. He has published several articles on the cultural and religious developments of Southern Africa. Peter McBurney is a Doctoral Canadidate at the Australian Graduate School of Management in the University of New South Wales. He was awarded the University Medal in Statistics, Australian National University (1980). He is co-author of The Construction of an Index of Socio-Economic Status.