As the MBA classes of 2010 receive their diplomas this spring, many graduates at top schools around the world will take a formal pledge to behave ethically. MBA oaths, popularized by members of the Harvard Business School Class of 2009, are seen as a response to lapses in judgment that triggered by the global financial crisis. But the concept of a Hippocratic Oath for MBAs took root several years before, most ambitiously by Ángel Cabrera, president of the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

In 2004, Cabrera challenged Thunderbird students to write an ethics-related promise that would guide them during their business careers. The students found no model to follow. “No one had put together the principles of conduct for management,” Cabrera said. (Working on a parallel track at the same time, the Richard Ivey School of Business was making ethics a centerpiece of what would become its “Ivey Pledge” to uphold integrity in business.)

Developed in 2004, the Thunderbird Oath of Honor encourages students to reflect on personal ethics and pledge their commitment to professional integrity.

Thunderbird’s student-run Honor Council drafted what became the school’s Oath of Honor. Students who sign the oath promise to act with honesty and integrity, respect individual rights and dignity, create sustainable prosperity worldwide, oppose all forms of corruption and exploitation, and take personal responsibility for their actions.

The oath was endorsed by Thunderbird’s faculty and, in 2006, the school’s trustees made it part of the application process and curriculum. Students who enroll at Thunderbird agree to abide by the core values in the oath. As a rite of passage, Cabrera said, students are also asked to officially sign the oath as part of graduation. Hundreds of students have done so.