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Of Dugouts and Sweatshops: Robert Reich Urges MBAs to Keep "Public Ethics" in Mind
Professors Fox, Mace Remembered

Robert Reich Urges MBAs to Keep "Public Ethics" in Mind

In 1993, as President Clinton's newly sworn-in Secretary of Labor, Robert B. Reich had hoped his first formal public policy decision would be a veritable home run. Instead, he found himself dealing with what appeared to be a no-win situation, as Reich recalled before a large audience of HBS students at the student-organized Leadership and Ethics Forum last March.

Under Reich's review was a labor inspector's ruling that a batboy for the minor-league Savannah Cardinals be removed from his dream job because of laws prohibiting children under 16 from working past certain hours at night. As America's TV networks prepared to broadcast the inspector's decision, Reich met with a roomful of lawyers. They strongly advised Reich that overturning the decision would endanger his nascent relations with the inspectors. Reich recognized that the inspector had been technically correct in barring the boy from his coveted duties, but he reasoned that the case amounted to a violation of public trust and bore no comparison to the sweatshop conditions that originally inspired child labor protections. That evening, the news media reported a happy ending to the drama.

But a real sweatshop did figure in another of Reich's interventions. He recounted the controversy surrounding accusations that clothing promoted by Kathie Lee Gifford had been manufactured in a sweatshop environment. Even though Gifford had no legal liability in the situation, Reich convinced her to speak out against conditions in the New York plant, thus putting pressure on retailers to be more aware of their suppliers' labor conditions.

Emphasizing the need for innovative problem-solving in situations that aren't always clear-cut, Reich drew a connection between his Cabinet decisions and those facing MBA graduates: "You are going to be exercising leadership in a world in which information is much easier to access than it was before," he said. "This changes the implicit rules in terms of what I call public ethics, because public judgments will happen whether you want them to or not."

In the e-age, Reich emphasized, "the lines between public and private leaders are breaking down more and more every day."

- Eileen K. McCluskey

Professors Fox, Mace Remembered

In March, the School lost two of its most distinguished and loyal professors, Bertrand Fox and Myles Mace. The following profiles recall their contributions to HBS.

Professor emeritus Bertrand Fox, an economist and investment banking expert who had a lasting impact on HBS as director of its Division of Research from 1953 to 1968, died on March 14. He was 92.

Fox joined the HBS faculty in 1949 and served at the School for 25 years. He was the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration from 1955 to 1967, and from 1967 until his retirement in 1974, he was the first incumbent of the Jacob H. Schiff Professorship of Investment Banking. During the Korean War, Fox was an advisor to the Office of Defense Mobilization. Previously, during World War II, he had spent four years in Washington, D.C., in charge of the economic, statistical, planning, and programming staff work of the War Production Board.

From 1958 to 1962, Fox was director of research for the U.S. Commission on Money and Credit, which conducted a major study of the nation's monetary system. He was also a cofounder of the Cambridge Research Institute. Upon his retirement from HBS in 1974, a num- ber of colleagues established the Bertrand Fox Publication Fund to support the dissemination of research studies and other faculty manuscripts.

A native of Wisconsin, Fox earned his AB in mathematics and astronomy in 1929 from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was also a quarterback on the football team and a member of the varsity track squad. After earning his AM (1933) and Ph.D. (1934) in economics from Harvard, he taught economics at Williams College from 1935 to 1949. In 1948, Fox took a one-year leave of absence from Williams to serve as economic advisor to defense lawyers in an antitrust case against seventeen investment banking firms in New York City, an effort that led him to do an exhaustive study of the securities industry.

In 1984, Fox received the Harvard Business School's Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor the School bestows.

Professor emeritus Myles L. Mace, a pioneer in the study of entrepreneurship and corporate governance, died on March 24. He was 88.

Mace, a Minnesota native and graduate of the University of Minnesota (1934) and St. Paul College of Law (1936), was a member of the Minnesota bar when he enrolled at HBS. After receiving his MBA in 1938, Mace remained at the School as a research associate before being posted to England for military service in 1942. There he worked with Robert S. McNamara (MBA '39), a friend and fellow HBS faculty member, to help set up tracking systems for Army Air Forces planes, crews, and operations. He later took on similar responsibilities in the Pacific until the war ended.

In 1946, Mace returned to HBS and one year later created what was probably the first course in entrepreneurship to be taught at any school in the country. Titled The Management of New Enterprises, the course has remained, in various incarnations, a fixture of the HBS curriculum for decades and is regarded as the foundation of the School's extensive entrepreneurial management program.

In 1948, Mace earned his doctor of commercial science (DCS) degree from Harvard. His dissertation was published as a book, titled The Boards of Directors of Small Corporations, the first of many books and articles he would write on corporate governance. His research on boards of directors -- he served on many himself -- created great interest and some controversy in the business world by asserting that too many boards were mere rubber stamps for top management.

After a three-year stint helping Charles B. ("Tex") Thornton get the fledgling Litton Co. (later Litton Industries) off the ground, in 1958 Mace returned to academic pursuits at HBS, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. During those years, he involved himself in a number of School activities, from teaching in a program for faculty members from foreign business schools, to serving as the School's first Associate Dean for External Affairs, to acting as a contributing editor of the Harvard Business Review.

Mace received HBS's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in 1984.