Harvard Business School
Harvard business school is one of the leading graduate business schools in the world. It was founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. The institution specializes in business programs where courses are divided into various academic units, including accounting and management, international economy, and finance. Major programs offered full-time include MBA programs, doctoral programs, and other executive programs. Others include Advanced Management Program (AMP), the Owner/President Management Program (OPM) and Harvard Business School Online (HBS Online), and the Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP). Additionally, the institution publishes various business journals, including the Harvard Business Review, leadership articles, and case studies from various renowned organizations.
Harvard’s mission is to change the world through its graduates. Its mission statement is “to educate leaders who make a difference in the world” (Harvard Business School, 2022). The institution developed its mission based on freedom of expression, trust, commitment, and mutual respect. The institution believes in modeling the character of its students to make them competent individuals who can be reliable in presenting solutions to the problems facing society. The mission statement emphasizes effective governance where the leaders educated by the school make a difference by addressing the issues that affect people. Additionally, a sense of responsibility and accountability presented in the mission statement portrays Harvard graduates as leaders who can lead society in the right direction.
Harvard Business School’s mission statement aligns with the values of John Locke’s natural rights philosophy. John Locke’s philosophy was based on basic human rights, political authority, and the development of human societies (Stanton, 2018). His views focused on the effective management of human societies. Locke’s views of political authority align with the Harvard Business school mission statement that aims to produce leaders who can make a difference. The institution’s mission is to produce competent leaders who can manage human societies effectively.
On fundamental rights, Locke believed that every human being was born with certain inalienable rights that are inherently human. His ideas are emphasized by Harvard, which beliefs in freedom of expression as a principle to achieve its mission statement. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right that has been subject to discussion for a long time. Societies that have restricted their citizens on this right have often been perceived as authoritarian societies ruled by dictators who do not want criticism for their incompetent leadership (Stanton, 2018). However, when people are free to express themselves, they stand a chance to speak on the issues that affect them and enable their leaders to serve them better by listening to their demands.
Locke addressed the subject of tolerance and reason in his philosophy. He believed that a society had to embrace tolerance to avoid a civil conflict that would undermine the peaceful coexistence of people (Stanton, 2018). The Harvard business school’s mission statement presents the values of tolerance by aligning its mission with mutual respect and commitment principles. Mutual respect creates conducive conditions for tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Therefore, most of the values presented in the mission of this institution majorly align themselves with the theories of John Locke.
CHIRLA
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) is one of the influential human rights activist groups advocating for immigrants’ rights. The Los Angeles institution was initiated in 1986 when the Immigration Reform and Control Act was enacted. The legislation aimed to ban organizations from hiring workers to work in the United States unlawfully. CHIRLA was formed to educate immigrants about the legislation and their rights to prevent them from being victimized. Since then, the organization has grown to become a serious activist group that represents the interests of immigrants and highlights their struggles to the relevant authorities.
CHIRLA aims to create a better society that respects immigrants’ rights. The mission statement of CHIRLA is “to achieve a just society fully inclusive of immigrants” (The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, 2022). The organization’s mission statement is based on respect for human rights, equality, and inclusivity and diversity. An inclusive human society creates the need for tolerance where immigrants are accommodated in society without being socially isolated. Immigrants in the US have a sad history characterized by rejection, discrimination, human rights violation, and political underrepresentation. This form of societal inequality has forced many immigrants into abject poverty and denied many others access to quality healthcare and education. CHIRLA believes that most of the immigrants’ experiences will be solved by achieving a fully inclusive society of immigrants. They will achieve equality where they will have access to essential services. An inclusive society will also uphold and respect the rights of all the members regardless of their status.
The mission statement of CHIRLA best aligns itself with the philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Mill was one of the most influential philosophers whose diverse beliefs focused on politics, economics, and moral conduct (Légé, 2018). Mill’s philosophy was based on various principles, including utilitarianism, which involved happiness and society’s pleasure. Mill’s utilitarianism argued that all members of society are connected by a sense of sympathy and respect, making one people. Mill advocated for social institutions to undergo reforms so that every member of the society receives equal treatment. In his time, there was a lot of discrimination where institutions made selective policies that were biased against certain groups.
Mills believed all people were entitled to equal treatment and that any form of selective governance was moral decadence. CHIRLA aims to achieve equality in a society where immigrants will be treated equally. However, to achieve an inclusive society that accommodates the immigrants, the institutions of governance must undergo reforms that will enable them to adopt policies favorable to the immigrants and aim to improve their lives instead of victimizing them. Like any other member of society, immigrants are connected to the rest of society through sympathy and a desire for respect. This makes them eligible for favorable treatment that will make them feel like the rest of the members of society.
Mill argued that individual actions are right if they promote happiness in society and are wrong if they produce unhappiness. According to CHIRLA, most of the individual actions in society are wrong because they are meant to discriminate against immigrants, thus making them experience unhappiness. Several policies have made it difficult for immigrants to achieve happiness in society. According to Mill’s utilitarian theory, happiness is the only actual value of humanity and should be the utmost goal in life (Légé, 2018). He argued that everyone’s happiness counts regardless of their position in society. CHIRLA’s mission is to achieve the happiness of immigrants by ensuring that society recognizes the value of immigrants and treats them equally.
The organization’s mission statement aims to advocate for the recognition of immigrants as people who are entitled to the freedom and rights that other citizens enjoy. This is in line with Mill’s theory of basic liberties, where he believed a good life is based on liberty. According to Mills, every human being needs to exercise higher capacities, such as deliberative capacities, that require the person to develop and implement a plan for their own lives (Légé, 2018). However, this would only be possible if they had the freedom to develop and pursue their plans. These are the principles that CHIRLA’s mission is based upon, where the immigrants will have a society where they are free to pursue their plans about life.
References
Harvard Business School. Hbs.edu. (2022). Community value. Web.
Légé, P. (2018). History, utility, and liberty: John Stuart Mill’s critical examination of Auguste Comte. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25(3), 428-459.
Stanton, T. (2018). John Locke and the fable of liberalism. The Historical Journal, 61(3), 597-622.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. (2022). Mission and history. Web.