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Abstract:
When does a group have responsibility for the well-being of an individual? And what are the differences between the ethics of the individual and the ethics of the corporation? Those are the questions Bowen McCoy wanted readers to explore in this HBR Classic, first published in September-October 1983. In 1982, McCoy spent several months hiking through Nepal. Midway through the difficult trek, as he and several others were preparing to attain the highest point of their climb, they encountered the body of an Indian holy man, or sadhu. Wearing little clothing and shivering in the bitter cold, he was barely alive. McCoy and the other travelers-who included individuals from Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland, as well as local Nepali guides and porters-immediately wrapped him in warm clothing and gave him food and drink. A few members of the group broke off to help move the sadhu down toward a village two days' journey away, but they soon left him in order to continue their way up the slope. What happened to the sadhu? In his retrospective commentary, McCoy notes that he never learned the answer to that question. Instead, the sadhu's story only raises more questions. On the Himalayan slope, a collection of individuals was unprepared for a sudden dilemma. They all "did their bit," but the group was not organized enough to take ultimate responsibility for a life. How, asks McCoy in a broader context, do we prepare our organizations and institutions so they will respond appropriately to ethical crises?