Global networks can be used for both Good and Evil
If the creation of global networks with the dynamic and interactive participation of groups is essential to the future of entrepreneurship and education, it seemingly cannot be realized without the adoption of a commonly acceptable code of ethics and moral behavior, participants in an international colloquium at the Academy of Athens concluded late last month. The colloquium was organized by James Seferis, professor of the University of Washington in Seattle and Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens – the two institutes were joint sponsors of the event – and attracted a large number of participants from profit-oriented and non-profit organizations and the world academic community with extensive experience in the areas of business, education, design and research (BEDR). They included the Boeing company, British-based easyJet, Lufthansa, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Athens Laboratory of Business Administration (ALBA), and lecturers and/or students from universities and technical colleges in Greece, Switzerland, France, Italy and the USA. The colloquium’s title, «Global Networks for Good and Evil,» referred in part to the events of September 11 which highlighted the unwelcome impact of the activities of clandestine networks. Besides the subject itself, the event was also interesting in that it was based on an inclusive and participatory procedure, breaking down the division between speakers and audience. «I always follow Confucius’s advice, ‘If you tell me, I will forget it; if you show me, I will remember it; if you include me in the process, I will understand it,’» says Seferis, who specializes in composite materials for aircraft and has served as a consultant in big corporations. «In my classes and seminars, I apply this process of empirical learning by creating dynamic and heterogeneous groups with international participation from the business and academic community; non-profit organizations serve as links,» he adds. Firms have a proven capacity for entrepreneurship and planning, while non-profit-making concerns such as universities or academic centers carry out research and teaching but also try to optimize this process irrespective of sector, product or client, he explains. «For instance, the process of introducing new materials into an aircraft has many similarities with that of launching a new medicine or medical apparatus onto the market; in both cases, the aim is to provide the safest, most efficient and most economic solutions for the consumer,» Seferis says. Ethical rules September 11 brought formerly ruthless competitors such Boeing and Airbus closer for discussions on hot issues such as security and aircraft operation. «Of course, they are not direct, face-to-face discussions but through our sectoral associations, under specific conditions and with much care taken, we can discern possibilities for cooperation and mutual benefit,» said Borgie Boskov, president of Boeing Business Jet. Such contacts naturally do not mean a watering-down of competition, but globalization has certainly facilitated the creation of huge networks for the exchange and transfer of technology and know-how, both at academic and business levels. The future belongs to networks, which constitute the advanced and expanded form of entrepreneurship while also providing a basis for new relationships between workers and managers. In this new context, employees maintain laxer ties with their company and closer ones with their counterparts in other firms, and are therefore more vulnerable to «corruption onslaughts.» The great challenge is to formulate internationally accepted codes of ethical behavior that transcend cultural, religious and racial factors. In modern corporate governance, moral principles go hand-in-hand with high performance and competitiveness. «Governance in accordance with moral principles is seen as a driving force for the growth, profitability and viability of a networked enterprise, but also works constructively for its human resources,» noted Olga Epitropaki of ALBA. Certain questions arise, however, as in the case of pharmaceutical companies, in which research into new drugs require huge sums without guarantees of success. Huge investments are made in research for cancer or AIDS, yet not one euro goes on other rare diseases which affect less than 200,000 people globally. «The answer here is related to incentives,» said Costas Axarloglou, of ALBA and Babson College in the USA. «For instance, pharmaceutical companies researching drugs for such diseases may be granted tax incentives and marketing facilities of a monopolistic type for other medicines of theirs which are consumed widely.» Profitable universities The use of networks has been financially beneficial to universities. «The use of technology and the Internet in the organization and delivery of classes made a great contribution to the financial health of universities, which saw their revenues shoot up by 3,000 percent while costs also fell drastically,» said Frederick Betz, professor of Technology Management at the University of Maryland and former director of the US National Science Foundation. In the new international environment of open networks and free access to information, universities can no longer monopolize the production and dissemination of knowledge. At the same time, a parallel interactive communication is growing between the academic community and companies and/or the State as in the new trends, knowledge is viewed as a private rather than a public good. «Of course, apart from the fact that in the new context, universities are much more open to communication, ethical questions arise due to the connections which academics have with the outside world,» said ALBA’s rector Nikolaos Travlos. An MIT professor, for instance, was recently reported to have accused two of his partners of falsifying the results of tests on ballistic missiles as a favor to their funders in the Pentagon. Nevertheless, open and networked academic communities have their positive points. National borders no longer have the power they had in the past and this can benefit countries with inadequate infrastructure, such as Greece, which can emerge as centers for the production and dissemination of knowledge.
