1 BUSINESS ETHICS - PARABLE OF THE SADHU ETHICS IN PRACTICE: Parable of the Sadhu Adapted from Beyer, J. M. and Nino, D. (1999), ‘Ethics and cultures in international business’, Journal of Management Inquiry, vol.8, no.3, pp. 287-297. A U.S. businessman named Bowen McCoy (1989) recounted a challenging experience. He called his story the "Parable of the Sadhu" - a sadhu being a holy man in India or Nepal who goes through the countryside begging for food. As the story begins, McCoy was in the mountains of Nepal on his way to a village considered a holy place, with an American anthropologist named Stephen, a Sherpa guide, and a group of porters. To get to the village, they had to climb across a mountain pass at 18,000 feet (about 5500 meters). The night before the planned climb they camped at around 15,000 feet near several other groups: four young men from New Zealand, two Swiss couples, and a Japanese hiking club. At 3:30 the next morning, the New Zealanders got the first start up the mountain. The American party left next, followed by the Swiss, while the Japanese lingered in their camp. When the Americans reached about 15,500 feet, Stephen began to feel ill and they stopped to rest. Soon thereafter one of the New Zealanders appeared with a body slung over his back. It was a sadhu he had found on the mountain-almost naked and unconscious, clearly suffering from hypothermia, but still alive. The New Zealander suggested the porters traveling with the Americans take the old man down the mountain and then went back to join his group. Stephen and the Swiss couples attended to the sadhu, stripping off his wet clothes, wrapping him in clothing from their packs, and giving him food and drink when he revived. Meanwhile, the businessman McCoy was growing anxious about the delay because he feared if he waited any longer to resume his climb, the sun would melt the steps carved in the snow that he needed to help him cross the mountain pass. Adding to his worry was the fact that he had previously suffered quite severe altitude sickness at a lower altitude. Neither of these concerns, however, led him to abandon his goal. He was still determined to cross the mountain pass and reach the sacred village. So he left to catch up with some of the porters who had gone ahead to prepare the way. His friend Stephen, who was still not feeling well, and the Swiss couples stayed behind with the sadhu. An hour or so later, after climbing most of the way, McCoy himself became dizzy and stopped to rest, allowing the Swiss to catch up with him. He asked them about the sadhu and was told he was fine and that his friend Stephen was on his way. When Stephen finally arrived he was suffering from altitude sickness and could only walk 15 steps at a time before resting. He was also very angry and accosted McCoy, saying, "How do you feel about contributing to the death of a fellow man?" 2 BUSIN ...

1. 1 BUSINESS ETHICS - PARABLE OF THE SADHU
ETHICS IN PRACTICE:
Parable of the Sadhu
Adapted from Beyer, J. M. and Nino, D. (1999), ‘Ethics and
cultures in international business’, Journal of
Management Inquiry, vol.8, no.3, pp. 287-297.
A U.S. businessman named Bowen McCoy (1989) recounted a
challenging experience. He
called his story the "Parable of the Sadhu" - a sadhu being a
holy man in India or Nepal who
goes through the countryside begging for food.
As the story begins, McCoy was in the mountains of Nepal on
his way to a village considered a
holy place, with an American anthropologist named Stephen, a
Sherpa guide, and a group of
porters. To get to the village, they had to climb across a
mountain pass at 18,000 feet (about

2. 5500 meters). The night before the planned climb they camped
at around 15,000 feet near
several other groups: four young men from New Zealand, two
Swiss couples, and a Japanese
hiking club.
At 3:30 the next morning, the New Zealanders got the first start
up the mountain. The American
party left next, followed by the Swiss, while the Japanese
lingered in their camp. When the
Americans reached about 15,500 feet, Stephen began to feel ill
and they stopped to rest. Soon
thereafter one of the New Zealanders appeared with a body
slung over his back. It was a sadhu
he had found on the mountain-almost naked and unconscious,
clearly suffering from
hypothermia, but still alive. The New Zealander suggested the
porters traveling with the
Americans take the old man down the mountain and then went
back to join his group. Stephen
and the Swiss couples attended to the sadhu, stripping off his
wet clothes, wrapping him in
clothing from their packs, and giving him food and drink when
he revived.
Meanwhile, the businessman McCoy was growing anxious about

3. the delay because he feared if
he waited any longer to resume his climb, the sun would melt
the steps carved in the snow that
he needed to help him cross the mountain pass. Adding to his
worry was the fact that he had
previously suffered quite severe altitude sickness at a lower
altitude. Neither of these concerns,
however, led him to abandon his goal. He was still determined
to cross the mountain pass and
reach the sacred village. So he left to catch up with some of the
porters who had gone ahead to
prepare the way. His friend Stephen, who was still not feeling
well, and the Swiss couples
stayed behind with the sadhu.
An hour or so later, after climbing most of the way, McCoy
himself became dizzy and stopped
to rest, allowing the Swiss to catch up with him. He asked them
about the sadhu and was told he
was fine and that his friend Stephen was on his way. When
Stephen finally arrived he was
suffering from altitude sickness and could only walk 15 steps at
a time before resting. He was
also very angry and accosted McCoy, saying, "How do you feel
about contributing to the death

4. of a fellow man?"
2 BUSINESS ETHICS - PARABLE OF THE SADHU
McCoy was stunned and asked if the sadhu had died. "No,"
Stephen replied, "but he will." He
then explained that the Swiss had departed not long after
McCoy, and that the Japanese, when
asked, refused to lend a horse they had with them to carry the
man down the mountain to the
nearest village. The Japanese then went on their way, taking the
horse with them. When Stephen
asked the Sherpa and the remaining porters if they would take
the sadhu, they also refused,
saying that they would not have the strength or time to get
across the pass if they first carried
him down the mountain. Instead, the porters took the old man a
short distance down the
mountain, where they laid him on a large rock in the sun, and
left him there, awake but weak.
No one in the four groups of climbers ever found out whether
the sadhu lived or died, but all got

5. over the pass and on to the holy village that was their goal.
Some Parallels With Current Business Practice
In the story above, no one assumed ultimate responsibility for
the sadhu. The members of each
group did only what did not interfere too much with reaching
their initial goal. Ironically, by
focusing so heavily on reaching a holy place, they ignored their
ethical responsibilities.
Their framing of the situation and their response is similar to
what we see all too often in
business today. Business often seems to pursue single-minded
goals to the exclusion of other
considerations. The unremitting competition of the global
economy seems to have led to a
revival of the sentiments of social Darwinism, which celebrated
the idea of the survival of the
fittest.
According to this idea, it is natural that as some succeed, others
are left behind. In a social
Darwinian world, keeping up is essential; getting ahead is
better. Maximizing self-interest is
clearly justified; acting according to higher ethical principles by
avoiding doing harm to others

6. or "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you"
could be suicidal.
Furthermore, social Darwinism enables its adherents to ignore
the moral consequences of their
behavior because the weeding out process supposedly happens
through the operation of natural,
impersonal forces. This philosophy thus encourages people to
set self-interested goals and
pursue them relentlessly without concern for the effects of their
actions on others. In business,
some form of winning (e.g., getting a new product to market
first, making assigned targets for
sales or profits, or taking over another firm) can become goals
that overwhelm ethical principles
and impulses.
The second parallel between the parable and current business
practice is that the groups
involved had no prior experience or model for jointly arriving at
a consensus about what to do.
They came from four different cultures and thus lacked a
heritage of mutually accepted values
that would indicate appropriate collective action. It seems likely
that similar crosscultural gaps
may occur in many multinational firms unless the firm has a

7. strong culture that bridges cultural
differences and thus provides a basis for collective decision
making and action. In the parable,
each group passed the problem on to yet another group,
expecting another to take care of the
sadhu. Similar buck-passing between departments or
multinational divisions is not uncommon
in corporations, especially when managers succeed or fail on
the basis on reaching departmental
or divisional goals.
3 BUSINESS ETHICS - PARABLE OF THE SADHU
Third, this parable illustrates a failure to act that then became
the decision. This often happens in
business, especially when the issue is whether to stop something
that has been going on.
Repeatedly, we have seen glaring examples of hands-off
management that seems to have
allowed and perhaps even encouraged serious wrongdoing. The
lack of oversight and guidance
given to Nick Leeson (1996), an inexperienced financial trader
at Barings Bank in Singapore, is

8. one tragic example. Another is the apparently widespread sexual
harassment that was ignored by
management at the Mitsubishi plant in Illinois. A third is the
sexual exploitation of women staff
members by local managers that occurred in the U.S. branch of
the Swedish Astra Corporation
(Maremont, 1996). Note that all of these instances occurred in
multinational firms, and that the
behaviors that management failed to stop severely damaged the
corporation as well as many
individuals within it.
The fourth parallel is that the decision makers were physically
and mentally stressed, and they
felt that they were under time pressures. Many business
decisions in a hypercompetitive world
are made under pressure and in stressful circumstances. It is
precisely under such circumstances
that personal and corporate values are most severely tested. As
we have all seen, current
pressures for profits and cost reductions have led to large-scale
layoffs in many of the developed
countries. Even the Japanese, long admired for their
commitment to their employees, have

9. begun to downsize their workforces. But, as Hamel and
Prahalad (1994) inform us, downsizing
does not necessarily yield long term benefits to either firms or
stockholders. Their research
shows that large firms that restructured had only temporary
improvements in the price of their
stocks, and three years later, were lagging even further behind
in both stock price and overall
performance than they had been before the restructuring began.
Other studies have shown the
demoralizing effects on employees who remained, as well as
those who were laid off (Brockner,
1988; Brockner, Grover, Reed, DeWitt, & O'Malley, 1987).
Nevertheless, the practice
continues. Someone may profit from temporary gains in stock
prices, but it seems possible that
either ideology or imitation is also playing a significant role in
motivating this deplorable trend.
The final parallel is that, although one of the persons present,
Stephen, saw through all of these
considerations to his ethical responsibility, he did not get the
support he needed from the others
present to rescue the sadhu. Sadly, it was beyond his individual
capacity, a circumstance that

10. often occurs in business. We want to emphasize this point as
perhaps the most obvious and
important business lesson of the "Parable of the Sadhu." Many
ethical decisions require the
cooperation and support of the corporate community. We cannot
expect even ethically sensitive
and courageous individuals to be able to perform ethically
without the support of others. It is
management's job to be sure that such support is an
unquestioned part of the corporate culture.