MBA Oath: Hippocrates for Biz Managers?

Friday’s NYTimes points us toward the MBA Oath, a pledge created by a group of second-year Harvard Business School students to codify some ethical sense among business managers. The preamble:

As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can create alone. Therefore I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term. I recognize my decisions can have far-reaching consequences that affect the well-being of individuals inside and outside my enterprise, today and in the future. As I reconcile the interests of different constituencies, I will face choices that are not easy for me and others.

Read the full oath here, and see the specific promises it includes.

I think Adam Smith might like this pledge. Of course, he might be surprised we would even need such a pledge. So how do you feel about “serving the greater good”? Does this oath fit with your understanding of your role in business, or the philsophical underpinnings of the great capitalist machine of which you will likely become a part?