CENTRE FOR BUSINESS ETHICS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Objective

About

The mission of LIBA as an institution is to pursue Excellence with Ethics. In line with this ideal, LIBA established the Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance in 2005. It has also been recognised by the Government of India as a Centre for Corporate Governance.

The goal of the Centre is to promote Business Ethics and globally recognized Corporate Governance Principles for the benefit of students, who are the future leaders of business world. The Centre’s mission is to develop a cadre of socially responsible leaders dedicated to the betterment of society.

The Centre has been involved in initiatives that promote business ethics, effective Corporate Governance and the development of Ethical Leadership. The Centre organizes conferences, seminars and panel discussions to raise awareness on ethical issues. The Centre also organizes BEACON, the Annual Ethics Conference, a flagship event of LIBA to create awareness among the firms that embrace Ethics and Corporate Governance in their business.

The Centre continually works to build bridges between businesses and society, between competence and compassion and between profit making management and ethical conduct. And to achieve this goal, the Centre is engaged in activities that aim at propagating business ethics and good corporate governance in companies and organisations.

Vision

To be a responsible Centre that promotes Good Governance and Ethics.

Mission

To build ethical leadership among the top professional across organisations
To raise awareness on need for good governance in organisations
To inspire socially responsible leadership
To enrich ethical knowledge and societal obligations
To promote principle based Corporate Governance among top level business professional

The Team

1	Rev. Dr. G. Victor Roch, SJ.	Assistant Professor, Dept. of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, Director- PULCS & LSSS Loyola College, Chennai -34
2	Prof. P. C. Lakshmi Narayanan	Professor of Finance and Law & Dean- Academics, LIBA
3	Mr. Mahadevan	Chairman, Oriental Cuisines
4	Dr. S. Uma Priyadharshini	Assistant Professor of Finance, LIBA & Chair – Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, LIBA
5	Dr. Chitraa Venkataachalam	Counsellor of Well Being, LIBA
6	Dr. A. Siluvairaja	Assistant Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Chair – C.K. Prahalad Centre for Emerging India, LIBA
7	Dr. Akanksha Jaiswal	Assistant Professor of Human Resource, LIBA

CHAIR PERSON / CONTACT

Dr. S. Uma Priyadharshini

Assistant Professor of Finance, LIBA & Chair – Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, LIBA

Dr Ajit Singhvi

ABOUT THE CENTRE

Dr Ajit Singhvi Micro Centre for Good Governance was inaugurated during BEACON – the annual Business Ethics Conference of LIBA on 8^TH February 2019 by Mr. Jochen Tewes, Founder, Inter-Mission Industrial Development Association.

This Micro Centre is a part of the Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance. The Micro Centre will promote Good Governance through research, publications and conferences.

This year, BEACON – the annual Business Ethics Conference of LIBA, held on 8^TH February 2019, witnessed the launch of Dr Ajit Singhvi Micro Centre for Good Governance by Mr. Jochen Tewes, Founder, Inter-Mission Industrial Development Association.

Mr. Jochen Tewes, Founder, Inter-Mission Industrial Development Association Inaugurated Dr. Ajit Singhvi Micro Centre for Good Governance. Commenting on the occasion, Mr Jochen further added saying” I am very glad to be a part of this noble initiative of LIBA in inaugurating the Dr Ajit Singhvi Micro Centre for Good Governance. The three values of our organization are Integrity, Inspiration and Dedication. Our mission is to help the underprivileged and equip them lead a quality life.”

Fr. P. Christie, SJ, Director, LIBA said, “We are starting this Micro Centre as a part of Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance. The Micro Centre will promote Good Governance through research, publications and conferences. I would like to thank Dr. Ajit Singhvi for his generous contribution to LIBA and we assure him to do our best and promote Good Governance.”

ABOUT DR. AJIT SINGHVI

Dr. Ajit Singhvi has donated a large sum to promote ‘Good Governance’ at LIBA. We are honoured to have received an amount of Rs.65 lakhs for the Centre for Governance for enhancing the activities of the centre. He has written a handbook in management inclusing concepts on Transformation and Renewals for Sustainability, which can help employees in the Industry and students in professional courses fast tarck to CEO roles. This initiative will be taken care of by the Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance at LIBA.

Dr. Ajit Singhvi is a UK based Indian Philanthropist and comes from a philanthropic family in Jhodpur. He has donated a large portion of his earnings towards educational projects, mainly to promote good governance. He is best known as professorial chair donor at IIT Roorkee and IIT Madras. A Management Thinker – Dr. Singhvi is the Alumnus of Harvard Business School, Institute of Chartered Accountants and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He is the founder and promoter of the Ajit Singhvi Education and Training Trust. He has held key managerial positions, such as financial controller with many multinational companies such as British Insulated Cables (BICC), British Leyland, GEC Alsthom, Carnaud Metalbox Groups and Argo Pantes Group., in various countries such as Africa, UK and India.

He is passionately involved, committed and interested to promote Good Governance. For him good governance is not just corporate governance in business but needs to be in terms of accountability, transparency and democracy in any organization. He had put forward the concept and methodology, titled PSR (Personal Social Responsibility) for a voluntary movement to raise some more resources for societal good by providing structure where middle and rich alike have an equal chance of receiving recognition and reward for sacrificing a small portion of their earnings during the ages (50 to 60 years).

OBJECTIVES

Enhancing good governance in public and private sectors can leverage it with State Governments and Business Enterprises, medium or large.

ACTIVITIES PLANNED FOR THE YEAR

MOOC course on good governance by experts followed with a certificate.
Leadership Capability Building –Best Practices in Strategic Management for State Governments and Bureaucrats.
Good Governance Practices –Case Study to be disseminated: Competition: Cash prizes
Social Inclusion Governance: Ref: Fr.Roch: Dalit Leadership Vs. Tribal Leadership

PROPOSED PLAN OF ACTION

1. Good Governance: A basic certification

A series of 5 talks addressing, Good Governance, Transparency, Participation, Responsiveness, Rule of Law, Equity and Inclusiveness

Impact factor: Register and spread the message at least 50-75 participants

2. Leadership Capability Building –Best Practices in Strategic Management for State Governments and Bureaucrats

– Should we collaborate with MDC?

– Best practices for Good Governance and Leadership workshops

3. Good Governance Practices –Case Study to be disseminated: Competition: Cash prizes

Corporate presentations on Good governance

4. Social Inclusion Governance: Ref: Fr.Roch: Dalit Leadership vs. Tribal Leadership

Events

S.no	Event	Date
1	Students’ Conference and Panel Discussion on Good Governance Practices	12^th February 2021
2	Advisory Council Meeting	15^th July 2021
3	Webinar on ‘Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) – A Key to Sustainable Development’ – Guest Speaker: Mr.Valliappan Nagappan, Founder- Foundation of Financial Freedom	18^th September 2021
4	Inauguration of Honesty Shop by Mr. Vetrimaaran, Film Director	1^st November 2021
5	Intra College Case Competition on “Upholding Ethics and Good Governance during Post Pandemic Times” Guest speaker: Mr V Nandakumar, IRS	22^nd November 2021
6	Integrity Pledge in accordance with AICTE	3^rd December 2021
7	Stationary Donation Drive	3^rd December 2021 to 17^th December 2021
8	100^th Day Celebration of Honesty Shop	8^th February 2022
9	Webinar on Ethics in Board Process – Autonomy of an Independent Director Guest Speaker: Mr. Gaurav Kumar, Practicing Company Secretary and Founder- K.Gaurav Kumar & Associates	8^th February 2022
10	BEACON 2022 – ‘Media-ting Ethics’	12^th March 2022
11	Mother Teresa Award 2021	12^th March 2022

Honesty Shop

HONESTY SHOP

The Honesty Shop is an initiative by the Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, which is an inhouse store that caters to the needs of the Students, Faculty, Research Associates, Teaching Assistants and the staff of LIBA. The store operations are self-managed based on the principles of Honesty and Ethics instead of the conventional stores supervisory model. The objective behind this initiative is to demonstrate and nurture ethics in-line with the vision of LIBA i.e., “Excellence with Ethics”, and form ethical leaders to the industry. The “Honesty Shop” was opened by the noted Film Director Mr. Vetrimaran, with the gracious presence of Rev. Fr. C. Joe Arun, SJ, Director of LIBA, on 1^st November 2021. The profit earned from the store will be contributed to the welfare of the economically weak and marginalized. The concept of honesty shop has been well perceived and the response has been overwhelming.

TESTIMONIALS

In the new Building with all the modern facilities, you will find a nostalgic corner with a beautiful wooden cupboard. A place that carries the nostalgia of your childhood, innocence grew up to ethics. To all of us, who has been called to excellence with ethics, this aligns perfectly with our mission. I have always found honesty shop fascinating, of course it has been a provider since its inception to all of us here at LIBA but above all that it is ecstatic to see something so accurately in place!

-Gagul Toby, F20

The honest shop is my favourite spot to buy my stationery because it is hassle-free, has no lines, just pick and pay and also due to its proximity to my classroom. I appreciate CEG from the bottom of my heart for bringing up such initiatives in line with LIBA’s excellence with ethics and solving problems we students face every day on campus, especially with masks and chocolates to satiate our sweet tooth. I’m sure anyone in LIBA would be happy to embrace it open arms.

-Augusto Josi V, F20

The Honesty shop is a wonderful initiative. We would often run out of stationary such pens or A4 papers. Not only stationary but at a point even ORS was available which we very much needed. The honesty shop had all these available at a convenient time and place. Even though there was no one to monitor the and check whether we are paying, we all ensured that we paid as per the rate provided in the list.

-Sreya Scaria F20172

The honesty shop is entirely new way of teaching the empathy to our fellow mates this ensures the moral values of one own self and this shop helped us in many such ways to fulfil our petty needs. I hope this initiative will lift our values even better

-Romulus F21167

The Honesty shop inaugurated at the LIBA, has all the basic necessities for a college student ranging from pens to books, chocolate etc. and also during the Christmas time, the shop had gift items. It was a great use for hostellers. This shop is playing a part in encouraging the students for living with honesty. It also a key characteristic of a business because it sets the tone for the kind of work culture that you want to create, provides consistency in workplace behaviour, and builds loyalty and trust in customers and prospects.

– Avila Porshiya X F21016

The honesty shop has been very much useful for us and I believe everybody will agree that this initiative is a very big success. We get the necessities at the right time be it notebooks, pens, files, etc., The candies in the shop gave us a good start for the day. The biscuits are really life saver in a tight scheduled day. The idea of donation theme during Christmas is awesome and overwhelming, almost everyone took a part in donation. The honesty shop has become very popular among us… whenever we require any item, we go stand in front of the shop. Ultimately this initiative is very beneficial and thanks to everyone who is working behind this.

-Kruthika Nivasini A S (F21152)

Past Activities

S.no	Event	Date
1	Advisory Council Meeting	5^th August 2020
2	Topic: Mindful approach to Business Ethics, Corporate Governance and Personal Excellence Webinar Speaker: Dr. Chitra Venkataachalam	3^rd September 2020
3	Topic: Insolvency of Corporates – Corporate Governance issues or Ethical issues? Webinar Speaker: MR. K. Gaurav Kumar	5^th October 2020
4	Webinar Speaker: Dr. Jessica Tillipman Topic: Best practices in Corporate Ethics and Anti-Corruption Compliance Programs	9^th December 2020

Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA) has been organizing various programmes and activities to promote business ethics and good corporate governance among its stakeholders, particularly the students. Some of the events include :

One such program is the annual Business Ethics Conference (BEACON) which we have been organizing since 2007.

From 2007, BEACON has been deliberating on various issues including inclusive growth and sustainability in all spheres of management. The topics focused on at Beacon include –

BEACON – 2018	Sustainable Business Practices for a Better Tomorrow.
BEACON – 2017	Leadership and Ethics for the New India.
BEACON – 2016	Leadership and Ethics for the Emerging Future.
BEACON – 2015	Ethical Challenges in Financial Management.
BEACON – 2014 BEACON – 2014	Ethical Challenges in Marketing – The Power and Responsibility Equilibrium”. (Ninth edition) Social Entrepreneurship – A Calling. (Eighth edition)
BEACON – 2013	Accountability and Responsibility.
BEACON – 2012	Eco-Innovation: Time to Wake Up!
BEACON – 2011	Social Innovation: A Catalyst for Inclusive Growth.
BEACON – 2010	Soaring Through Sustainability.
BEACON – 2009	Surfing the Slump.
BEACON – 2008	India at 60: Inclusive Growth – The Challenge of the New Era.
BEACON – 2007	To Illumine, To Imbibe, To Inspire Business with Integrity.

In view of a turbulent year that was engulfed in a few high-profile board room battles, the Centre felt that it was important to educate the management students of LIBA to understand the role of independent directors in corporate governance. A Panel Discussion was organised on 15^th March 2016 on the topic, “Role of Independent Directors in Corporate Governance”. The panelists, Mr. K. Ravi, a prominent advocate and Company Secretary; Mr. Krish Ramesh, Corporate Lawyer and Company Secretary and Ms. Deepa Baburaj, General Consul – India and Asia Pacific, CTS gave a broader perspective on the topic with examples, which were real-life and easily relatable for the students.

The Centre also contributes to building academic knowledge in the field of Business Ethics and Corporate Governance. The faculty members associated with the center have published three textbooks and several research articles in International peer-reviewed journals on topics like ethical decision making, moral disengagement, ethical ambiguity and ethical supply chain management that includes:

Business Ethics: An Indian Perspective by Prof. A.C Fernando

Corporate Governance: Principles, Policies and Practices by Prof A.C Fernando

Business Ethics And Corporate Governance by Prof. A.C Fernando

Madhuri Malhotra (2016) “Linkages among corporate governance, intellectual capital efficiency and firm performance: an Empirical Analysis from Emerging Market”, International conference on financial markets and corporate finance (ICFMCF 2016), held in the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, Chennai during 12-13 August, 2016.

Madhuri Malhotra (2016) Corporate Governance, Business Ethics and corporate Sustainability: An Overview”, 16th International Conference on Business, Economics, Social Science & Humanities- BESSH-2016” 20-21 August, 2016 Hong-Kong, paper accepted.

Shanthi Venkatesh (2017), “Ethical Leadership for efficient Corporate Governance – BRICS perspective (Accepted for Presentation), International Conference on Empowerment through Education, Ethics & Entrepreneurship – Agenda for BRICS, Organised by Mandsaur University in partnership with UNESCO Chair, February 2017.

Prof. A.C Fernando, Professor of Economics and Chair – Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance from its inception in the year 2005 to 2011
Dr. Priya Rajeev, Associate Professor OB & HR and Chair – Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance – 2011 to 2013
Dr. V. Shanthi, Associate Professor – Marketing and Chair – Centre for Ethics and Corporate Governance at LIBA from 2013 to 2019.