Prof. Roman Głowacki, director of the Center for Management Training, at the University of Warsaw:

An MBA Program is one of the main ways to educate highly qualified managerial staff. Although many MBA programs have been available in Poland for some time, the number of graduates is still insufficient.

There are a few reasons for this. The attitude of management in many companies is not favorable for employees who take part in MBA courses. Short specialized courses are now being preferred, especially those which are partly funded by the European Union.

Unfortunately, some managers seem to forget that education is an investment in human capital, which is a business asset and an effective way to gain a competitive advantage. In Poland, development of this capital should be given priority because we are still perceived as a country attractive to foreign investors mainly because of its favorable geographic location, relatively large market and above all because of its cheap work force. Human capital is becoming a more important indicator. Numerous researches show that an increase in human capital in a country brings about an increase of foreign direct investment.

It pays, therefore, to educate managers able to meet contemporary challenges. But the question arises-what skills and experience should a contemporary manager have? There has been a debate on this topic for some time, with two opposing points of view: economic and ethical. The first one, associated with a belief that every business should generate profit, involves several threats.

Hence, it is necessary to draw upon ethics which is the second dimension of managerial responsibility. An equilibrium between an ethical and an economic approach cannot be achieved without some changes in the process of managerial skills development.

Ethical conduct of managers and employees is one of the major challenges for the business world today. It calls for development of an effective corporate social responsibility system which takes into account all universal ethical values, including employees' attitudes and their readiness to support the objectives of an organization as well as of a society. This has become extremely important now when we face a crisis caused mainly by a rejection of ethical values.

The current crisis has a clear moral background and shows that there is still a lot to be done in this area.