now, thats happening to me.. after doing some prelim research on softs, I think best place to be in for next 6 months is meat industry.. but I am personally a hardcore vegetarian who does not even eat eggs (even in confectionery) but I am in love with the business model and macro factors and the whole industry dynamics.. how do I deal with this? I know I am not buying stock for simple reason I am not trading at all.. but should I pitch a stock which pushes meat consumption whereas I believe in spreading vegetarianism? Rather, should I chase profits by selling my religion and soul? Or should I restrict myself by not making my investor (hypothetically, if I were a fund manager) good returns just because I do not believe in the lifestyle?
Alums, Students and Aspirants, here you go with practical situation... leave the class, help me to face reality... winner shall get the right to receive my next best idea in their inbox..
9 comments:
the question that u should be asking yourself is why did u do an MBA in the first place. the answer unanimously would be because of the career prospects in terms of monetary gains of course. no one does an MBA to make the world a better place; or for that matter, a happier place; may be to make it a more organized place.
so the fact that your intention is clear, that is to make monetary profit. its pretty clear, you sell what sells, you dont have to consume the product yourself. just like the cook doesnt always eat his own cooked food, or for that matter a person selling alcohol isnt a drunkard himself. there could be numerous examples like these. the fact of the matter is, if you dont do it someone else will, also the fact that you wont be personally doing the act of violence to animals, it doesnt put a mark on your conscious unless you do it yourself.
also there CANNOT BE A MBA WITH ETHICS. business and ethics dont always go together. i say go for it, as i said before, if you dont; someone else will.
PS: do watch "Lord of War", its a movie starring nicolas cage, it will help you draw a clearer picture. infact i'd recommended it to every MBA student, it teaches you more than Jerry Maguire could ever could.
PPS: nothing personal, but i despise the existence of an education like MBA, its a tool to exploit an already exploited system ,its basically anti-human :D
dude... Never do something that goes against your beliefs. The rationale 'if i don't someone else will' is such a poor one... If thats the case why don't you go to columbia and sell drugs... Just because its illegal today doesn't mean it was always illegal or will be in the future.... Selling alcohol was illegal at one time... Heck even smoking pot is already legal in some places.... The fact is that what ever humanity we have left is because of our religious/ethical beliefs... And not because money is our God.... We studied MBA to learn how to better run a business so that we in return can earn a salary that will ensure a better standard of living...but this while staying within the limits of our ethical standards.... Just because many of us chose to relax those boundaries doesn't mean we all have to follow them just to make an extra buck... The past couple of years have certainly shown what greed of some people (whether MBA or not) can do to the lives of millions around the world...
The bottom line of the probably incoherent jabber up there is you should do what you feel is right... And never compromise on ur faith.
A very interesting post. Clearly here, your professional ethics is in conflict with your personal beliefs. And its not just you who is affected by your decision but your clients (the company as well as the investor).
This dilemma isn't so new. It was faced by Arjuna when his profession as a warrior was at odds with his personal regard for his elders. It was also faced by Oppenheimer when he first designed the atom bomb and even by our Indian govt. when it swapped terrorists for passengers of IC-814.
A reasonable way to look at it could be as a choice between two wrong decisions and then practically judge the negative impact in each of the two cases.
Personally opinion: In an efficient market, your pitching (or not pitching) will have absolutely zero impact on the level of meat consumption but it will have an impact (positive/negative) on your clients' pockets.
There may be a better alternative as well (if possible): Swap your project one of your teammates.
i agree with agrasul, if only humanity had more like them. but we dont.
secondly m guessing that the 6 month prediction isnt of that of a an indian market, i mean that would be a shocker. so one's again "only a roman is most comfortable in rome", its like a corollary of "when in rome do as the roman do", so protecting your religious beliefs would be 'not to actually consume meat' nothing more nothing less.killing animals is bad, really bad but sadly religiously it isnt wrong(please do research before denying this one) infact the only religions that condemn killing other living creatures are jainism, buddhism and wait for it......satanism(yup, thats a religion too :)(we can surely guess these three dont even make 5% of the world population) though i wish they did a lot more.the world would be a better place.it would be the best place with just ONE religion
my next point is; the fact that you are in a dilemma is good enough a reason to go for it, if your beliefs were 'ridiculously strong'( meaning, way way too strong) you wouldnt be facing the dilemma in the first place.
now getting off-track for a bit
i was actually gonna bring the 'drugs' up, but then thought it wouldnt be such a good idea(you being where you are and all), but now that the cat is out of the bag, lets throw the cat a woolen ball to play with.
drugs arnt legal in columbia,so i could not go there, if it was, i kid you not, i'd be doing the MMA, one can surely guess the acronym, i mean the kind of money that market could have would be unprecedented,look at marlboro(and they just sell tobacco),also i would not do it for the money but my love for marijuana.
so drugs arnt legal in columbia, though easily available, still illegal.infact they arnt legal anywhere in the world. marijuana is only legal in amsterdam(a city, not a nation)and they sell it in anything and everything, with food items, with drinks, you name it and they have pot in it.its magical actually :D
also consumption of drugs has nothing to do with any religion, i mean the religion creators(there has to be 'someone' who started it all) werent aware of its existence, so they couldnt make a pre requisite as such about its consumption. and as far as marijuana is concerned the 'man' has made lord shiva the guy to pin it on, with the bhang and all you know.
most importantly i wanna clear a huge misconception amongst the most of the educated out there.
drugs= a preparation chemically created in a lab.
so the word one should put emphasis on is 'illegal drugs'.
aspirin=drug
cocaine=illegal drug
also marijuana is technically not a drug, by the scientific definition i.e. and not the one defined by law.(ofcourse the skunk weed is a chemical derivative so that would be classified as a drug)
some fun facts: coca cola, the name 'coca' comes from coca leaf the main ingredient of the compound cocaine, they had cocaine in the formula for coca cola until more than a century ago until it was ridden off by the health departments
our most beloved santa claus is actually a marketing campaign ran by coca cola, and yes it still sells :D not so much as 'its a product of coca-cola company', ever wondered the red and white attire of santa claus.
bottomline is, follow your faith/beliefs,(i for one sure do, thats why i chose arts & science)i believe in science and humanity,thats my religion:), but if your faith isnt strong enough then follow the other faith(commerce) which made you go across lands away from family to study MBA. also you claim you love the mechanics of the system, so there you go.
peace out :D
PS:choose what you want believing it to be the right thing.all the best bro.
PPS: i mean no offence to anyone, just my two cents the best way i could say.
quote " In an efficient market, your pitching (or not pitching) will have absolutely zero impact on the level of meat consumption but it will have an impact (positive/negative) on your clients' pockets."
very well put abhishek, i wrote so much jibberish :), but you did it better in fewer words. cheers !!!
I read agrasul's post. A choice between making money and following your ethics is easy. A choice between your professional ethics and personal beliefs isn't.
I would put a lot of his ideas in a grey area and attempt to evaluate them within the values of our time.
For example: As per today's values I don't think selling alcohol is wrong, but I do think that selling drugs is wrong. As per today's values, having pre-marital sex isn't too bad, but extra-marital sex is.
If I were you and I had to make a choice on whether or not to pitch a company that deals in illegal drugs, I would prefer to quit my job than compromise either with my professional integrity or personal beliefs.
But again: the Indian Govt. of the day didn't have the option of quitting its job when faced with the dilemma of IC-814!
First of all, I take umbrage at the first comment to your post. In his rambling and ill-informed post (which did not even address the question posed),the author has betrayed his lack of knowledge of a master's degree in business administration. A quick Google search to understand the meaning of the phrase "business administration" would suffice to explain essence of the degree - which is simply to learn how to manage, or administrate, businesses better. I am assuming the author is not an MBA. I would be interested to know what his field of specialization is . Whatever it is, he has done little service to it with his comment.
Secondly, I have 2 questions for you, Jaimin, that I hope will help address your dilemma :
1) Does your religion preach you to a) practise vegetarianism
b) practise AND spread it (are you expected to spread vegetarianism by converting meat eaters to vegans? encourage families with newborns to feed their children only vegan food? campaign against meat-eating and promote the merits of a vegan lifestyle?)
If your answer is a), I would say by pitching the meat industry stock, you are not in violation of your religion because not only are you not changing your personal choice, your pitch is not going to prompt other people to revise their choices either, i.e, vegans turning meat-eaters.
2) Is this industry illegal?
If the answer to that is no, then you are not in violation of your personal ethical code either, which, I believe is above all.
On a different note, the question I have for you is, if your research revealed that the tobacco industry or the arms industry or the footwear industry (which employs among the largest number of child laborers in the world) was the place to be in the next 6 months, what would you do? Mind you, none of these is in stark violation of your religion.
Though i totally agree with Rohini(who seems to have taken offence, so i'm sorry for that)on my lack of knowledge about a master's degree in administration,she sounds quite smug about hers :D, and nope, i cant risk a google search for 'MBA' because the number of institutes that would want to recruit me would be splashing their ads all over the page :P, so spare me the SEO(you may need to google this one). secondly my specialization is engineering(elec&telecom) followed by an advanced diploma in fine arts of computer animation(currently I serve as a VFx artist and a Character Animator). also i'm creating a graphic novel based on mahabharata for virgin comics,the underlying theme of which is to put all the characters in Mahabharata in grey light(its from a fictional character's point of view, considering the rest were actually for real). so thats about my field of specialization.
infact mahabharata is also a very good read for MBA's, its quite a goal/mission oriented novel. though the bhagvad gita is what you'll swear by. it still amazes me that bhagvad gita scored over ramayana as our(hindu) holy scripture.
lastly, as i said before, the fact that one has the dilemma is good enough a reason, a strong belief is called a 'strong' belief for a reason.
and i can assure you, he would'nt be having a dilemma if it were child laborers, thats a pretty easy decision for a man with just beliefs, you dont need the strong one's for those.
once again i dont intend to offend anyone unless they take it upon themselves to be offended. Buddhism teaches u that, does it? let me google that :D
do give it a read and most importantly a thought.
http://myobsoflife.blogspot.com/
i hope this one's ok with u jaimin, i dont intend to spam :D
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