A Virtuous Cycle

New institute aims to improve business ethics

HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE ETHICAL STANDARDS of different professions? According to a 2014 Gallup poll, most of us put medical professionals at the top (80 percent of those asked ranked nurses as having high or very high standards). Bankers and business executives didn’t fare nearly as well (23 percent and 17 percent, respectively). Business, it seems, has an ethics problem—or at least an ethics perception problem.

Questrom plans to tackle the thorny issue of corporate conduct with its first permanently endowed institute. The benefactor behind the Harry Susilo Institute for Ethics in a Global Economy hopes it can have a positive influence on the world economy. “If we want a sustainable business environment, then we must establish a virtuous cycle in business ethics,” says Susilo, a leading Chinese-Indonesian businessman and founder of the frozen seafood corporation Sekar Bumi.

Susilo’s gift provides funding for research, the hiring of a world-class scholar as director, and an annual symposium to be held in Boston and Asia in alternating years. The institute will foster collaborations between Questrom experts and researchers across Asia.

“My earnest hope is that the University can promote the study of business ethics to serve as the compass for future commerce, to instill more caring in the world, and to allow everyone with a dream to be able to realize that dream and achieve their lifelong goals,” says Susilo.