Captain of industry - Harvard - Business school admissions essay help course

Business school admissions essay help course

I believe strongly that American industry needs to stay on American soil for our workers’ sake and our economy’s health. Our middle-class jobs, such as accounting and customer service, are being outsourced to India, and our lowest-paid jobs are going to imported labor. Even the “blue-collar aristocracy” of Detroit’s UAW is facing uncertainty. International labor costs are making it difficult for American manufacturers to compete worldwide. Cheap, foreign labor is drawing American operations off-shore and Asian competition is intense. Meanwhile, unscrupulous domestic competitors substantially cut labor costs by hiring illegal aliens. American industry is facing an uphill battle.

As an American manufacturing leader in this climate I will face strategic decisions that have ethical implications and affect many people. Achieving economies of scale through growth and efficiency will minimize our competition’s labor-cost advantages. Efforts to streamline and consolidate operations will force decisions on plant closings and capital investment. Such choices dramatically affect the lives of workers involved. When faced with the decision to shut down a plant, will I do so knowing it will cost hundreds of jobs? Perhaps we could improve the plant’s profitability through capital investment, thereby saving jobs? Additionally: if maintaining the facility weakens our organization, doing so may cost many more jobs. Is it ethical not to close the plant? Facing these tough ethical choices will be difficult. Although I am confident in my personal ethics, as the head of an organization I will make decisions in situations that are currently foreign to me. Group pressures, accepted organizational norms, and powerful incentives will undoubtedly cloud ethical issues. In this context of incomplete and misleading information, it is naïve to think personal character, strength, and insight alone will let me recognize all moral questions and lead ethically.

Harvard’s commitment to teaching business ethics is rare among American business schools. The core course Leadership and Corporate Accountability will prepare me in advance for inevitable ethical situations. The cases studied such as Meinhard v. Salmon and the civil protests on Royal Dutch/Shell’s Nigerian operations are highly relevant to ethical discussions, and coverage of Stanley Milgram’s chilling Note on Human Behavior: Character and Situation effectively highlights the need for ethical perspective. The case on Aaron Feuerstein’s Massachusetts textile plant is particularly applicable to my situation. The Socratic case method will provide the defined situational experience necessary to help me navigate through ethical dilemmas in the future.

Analysis

The author makes a strong statement on a fairly explosive issue in today’s business world. In doing so, he delivers a strong personal message: he is not afraid to take a stand on a sensitive issue.

The key to the essay lies in the second paragraph, where the author poses a series of dilemmas he expects to encounter as a U.S. manufacturing executive. In leaving these questions open-ended, he softens the somewhat rigid image presented in the opening paragraph. He does not purport to know the answers today, only that these questions will likely be highly relevant to a future career in U.S. manufacturing. In a sense, the author transforms throughout the essay, recognizing that solutions to these challenges will not be self-evident and that he must work hard to develop the competencies necessary to address these challenges in the future. Asking many questions models a solid, transparent approach to problem-solving that will ensure he considers multiple perspectives to inform his decision. Furthermore, the author does an effective job of highlighting that incomplete information and certain pressures may cloud his personal judgment, making reliance on personal values and instinct an incomplete approach to analyzing ethical challenges in the future.

The author could have improved the essay by elaborating on his development plan, integrating additional plans into the final paragraph as opposed to focusing strictly on the resources available at HBS. All in all, the strength of this essay lies in the fact that the applicant masterfully conveys that he is likely to be someone who will not be afraid to engage in productive debate and challenge his classmates and coworkers.

From 65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2009 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group