Profit and morality not mutually exclusive

It seems that a recession is never a good time for morals. Such was the extent of the rapacious self-interest manifested by much of the financial and banking community in amassing huge personal fortunes at the expense of society's poor and less fortunate, that even hardened cynics admitted to feelings of shock.

For Professor Jeffrey Gandz, managing director of the Richard Ivey School of Business, executive education division and teacher on the Richard Ivey Executive MBA programme, this put into stark relief the role of the business schools in preparing managers for future leadership.

'I'm a teacher, not a preacher. As such I try to steer away from moral absolutes. I won't say this is wrong and this is right, but I will say that you have choices.'

Any element of influence he has, Gandz maintains, can only be to help the student make more reasoned or more broadly informed choices. 'I think that's what a business school can and should do. And it's what a theology college does, too.'

One of the major challenges facing business schools in the wake of the all-too-evident excesses revealed by the credit crunch is how to address a widespread perception that the accumulation of wealth, and therefore capitalism in general, has become divorced from all social moral imperatives.

A widespread belief was taking hold that business was corrupt, grasping and immoral by default. Gandz is quick to refute the notion.