BUSINESS Cases in Corporate Ethics: Contemporary Challenges and Imperatives; Strategy & General Management, Ethics and Social Justice, Organizational Behavior, Human Resource, Operations, Technology and Innovation, Finance and Accounting. Case 3.3: Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, Acoustics Pioneer and Inventor

Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ, PhD DRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics, XLRI Jamshedpur, India

| Published: June 2015 |

Redistribution or use without the expressed, written permission of The Global Jesuit Case Series is prohibited. For information on usage rights, contact the Global Jesuit Case Series at [email protected] ______Cases in Corporate Ethics: Contemporary Challenges and Imperatives Jesuit Series, Madden School of Business, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY Donated by: Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ, PhD JRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics, XLRI, Jamshedpur, India June 15, 2015

The fifteen cases in Business ethics included here represent the first installment of the thirty cases promised to the Cases in Business Ethics – The Jesuit Series at the University of Le Moyne, Syracuse, NY. We have added three more. The remaining eighteen cases will follow shortly.

The thirty three cases illustrate and depend upon the content of corporate ethics outlined in Table 1. As might be clear from Table I, the Course in Corporate Ethics has three parts:

 Part One explores the ethical quality of moral agents embedded in the capitalist markets such as the human person, the fraud-prone person, the virtuous actor (virtue ethics) and the trusting executive (ethics of trust).  Part Two investigates the ethical quality of moral agencies of executive decisions, choices and actions when supported by ethics of critical thinking, moral reasoning, ethics of rights and duties, and ethics of moral leadership.  Part Three examines the ethical quality of moral executive outcomes as seen through the ethics of executive moral responsibility and ethics of corporate social responsibility.

Even as research method and methodology are determined by the specific subject matter of inquiry, so also a course method and pedagogy and business cases are dependent upon the specific subject matter of managerial ethics.

The Business ethics theoretical framework visualizes eleven chapters as indicated in Table 1. Each Chapter is illustrated by three contemporary business cases, cases that happened or that got closed during the course of the semester when the courses was taught in 2012-2015.

In general, one of the three cases is international in character, one is national (relating to the Indian economy and markets), and the third relates to industry market situations.

The ethical questions provided at the end of each chapter are best answered with the aid of the corresponding chapter content. The cases and content are part of the Book on Corporate Ethics: Contemporary Challenges and Imperatives that is prepared for publication (Sage) by the end of 2015 by the author of the Cases.

Most of the cases capture major current market events during 2012-2015, and the content of the cases is presented without much stylizing and dramatizing as is usual with formal cases. The cases pose several ethical and moral questions, responses to which welcome group dialog, debate and discussion. Some of the cases reflect “Shades of Grey Areas” in business ethics that do not necessarily require one correct answer in terms of right or wrong, good or evil, true or false, just or unjust, fair or unfair. The cases stimulate ethical and moral reasoning, deliberation, dialog, discussion, decision, choice, analysis of decision-choice consequences, and responsibilities of due compensation for harmed stakeholders. Multiple competing answers should be encouraged, and 1 the students should argue which solution alternative is better, more objective and defensible, and more socially desirable.

Table 1: Business Ethics Theoretical Background for Situating the Cases

Part Corporate Chapter Title Business Ethics Cases Focus: 1. Ethics of Free Enterprise Case 1.1: Worldwide Collapse of Financial Markets in 2008 Capitalism: Case 1.2: Europe’s Boat People: A Moral and Political Disgrace The Free Case 1.3: Radiation Village: The People of the Nuclear Test Market Fallout 2. Ethics of Capitalism Case 2.1: The Enron Corporate Fraud Context: Abused: Fraud and Case 2.2: Satyam Computer Services Ltd PART ONE: Corruption Case 2.3: Sherron Watkins and Whistle Blowing at Enron Ethics of 3. Ethics of the Corporate Case 3.1: Nelson Mandela and his Great Human Personhood Corporate Human Person Case 3.2: Freedom Fighter, Doctor, Communist, Lakshmi Sahgal Business Case 3.3: Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, Acoustics Pioneer and The Inventor Inputs 4. Ethics of Corporate Case 4.1: Panama Nature Fresh Pvt. Ltd. Corporate Virtue Case 4.2: The Horrors of Chicken Farms Moral Case 4.3: Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: A Violation of Human Personhood Agent 5. Ethics of Corporate Case 5.1: Managing Trusting Relationships in Indian Organized Trusting Relations Retailing Case 5.2: Bain sues EY over $60-m loss in Lilliput Kids-wear Case 5.3: Building Indo-Japan Trusting Business Relationships 6. Ethics of Corporate Case 6.1: GAIL Pipeline Blast Kills Critical Thinking Case 6.2: Closing of Nokia Plant at Chennai Corporate Case 6.3: POSCO: South Korean Mining Project in Odisha, India PART TWO: Agency: 7. Ethics of Corporate Case 7.1: Dassault Aviation and the Defense Ministry, India Moral Reasoning Case 7.2: Arun Jaitley, Modiy’s Chanakya Ethics of Decisions Case 7.3: Mukesh Ambani: The New Media Moghul in India! Corporate Dilemmas, 8. Ethics of Corporate Case 8.1: The Glory and Decline of Merrill Lynch: Violation of Business Acts and Moral Rights and Duties rights and Duties? toward all Stakeholders Case 8.2: The Debacle of “Paid News” Media in India Process Actions Case 8.3: Vedanta’s Rights on Bauxite Mining in Niyamgiri Hills, Odisha 9. Ethics of Moral Case 9.1: Infosys: Leadership Crisis with Top Management Corporate Leadership Case 9.2: Headhunting for CEOs Case 9.3: SBI Complies with BASEL III Reforms PART Corporate 10. Ethics of Corporate Case 10.1: The Tata House: Icon of Corporate Responsibility Justice Case 10.2: Dubious Outcomes at Starbucks Coffee Company THREE: Decision- Case 10.3: Bajaj Auto: Chakan Plant Relocation and Labor Ethics of Outcomes & Displacement Corporate Social 11. Ethics of Corporate Case 11.1: Should Reliance Industries Ltd Reform? Responsibility Case 11.2 : Maruti Plant Violence at Manesar and Thereafter Business Externalities Case 11.3: India’s Super Rich: The High Jumpers Outputs

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Case 3.3: Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, Acoustics Pioneer and Inventor

(November 2, 1929 – July 12, 2013)

Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ, PhD JRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics, XLRI, Jamshedpur, India June 15, 2015

Amar Gopal Bose, the visionary MIT engineer, professor, inventor, billionaire entrepreneur, founder and CEO, Bose Corporation, dies peacefully at his home in Wayland, Massachusetts, Friday, July 12, 2013. He was 83. Vanu G. Bose, his son confirmed his death. Dr. Amar Gopal Bose (1929-2013), Acoustic Pioneer was the inventor of many acoustic products, among them: a) Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting audio speakers systems; b) Bose Wave Radio and, and c) Bose noise-cancelling headphones. AMAR GOPAL BOSE a pioneer in modern acoustic and founder of the Bose corporation which is known as the high end audio products bearing his last name, was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in the U.S, which previously honored the likes of Thomas Edison, Graham bell, and Wright Brothers.

Key Events:

1947: Soon after graduating from high school in Philadelphia, Amar won admission in the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he completed his bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering. 1950s: He was deeply disappointed by the inferior sound of high-priced systems. Hence his urge to reinvent sound reproduction. 1956: Obtains PhD from MIT, and wins a faculty position at MIT. 1960s: Early 1960s, Bose invented a new type of stereo speaker based on psychoacoustics, the study of sound perception.

1 1960s: His design incorporated multiple small speakers directed towards the surrounding walls of concert hall such that the reflected sound reaches the listener rather than directly facing the listener. Hence, larger sound is heard in concert halls. 1964, at the urging of his mentor and advisor at MIT, Professor Y. W. Lee, Bose founded his company to pursue long-term research in acoustics. Bose founded his company “The Bose Corporation”. 1968: Amar used the concept of blending the direct and reflect sound instead of the conventional concept wherein loud speakers radiated sound only forward. Thus he invented “Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting audio speakers systems.” 1982: Bose audio systems found its way in vehicles of world’s top automakers including Mercedes and Porsche 1983: Introduced industry’s first custom-engineered, factory-installed sound system. 1988: Bose became the first company to pay for the title of official Olympics sound system supplier. 1993: Opened its first store in Kittery, Maine. Since then Bose has opened 190 stores in the U.S and numerous locations worldwide. 2004: Unveiled a prototype application of the technology after more than 20 years of research. 2007: Won International Telematics Award for the “Best Storage solution for In-Car Environment.” 2010: Introduced Bose Ride, an active system that reduces road-induced vibration in the driver’s seat. 2011: Having taught at MIT for more than 45 years, Amar Bose donated a majority of his company’s (The Bose Corporation) shares to his alma mater MIT.

His name and company became synonymous with high quality audio systems and speakers for home users, auditoriums and automobiles. He was born of Noni Gopal Bose, a Bengali freedom fighter who had fled to the USA in 1920, who later married an American schoolteacher. Noni was studying physics at Calcutta University when he was arrested and imprisoned for his opposition to British rule in India. Amar Gopal Bose was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA on November 2, 1929. At 13, junior Bose was engaged in repairing radio sets for pocket money for repair shops in Philadelphia. During World War II, when his father’s import business struggled, Bose’s electronic repairs helped support the family.

In 1947, soon after graduating from high school in Philadelphia, Amar won admission in the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he completed his bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering. While at MIT, Bose studied under the mathematician Norbert Weiner and along with Lee Oppenheim. An avid badminton player and swimmer, Bose spent several weeks each year at his vacation home in Hawaii. Bose married Prema and had two children, Vanu, now the head of his own company, Vanu Inc. in Cambridge, MA, and Maya Bose.

In 1950s, while still an engineering student at MIT, Amar bought a high-priced stereo system, and quickly unhappy with its performance, dismantled it and studied how it should be built. A perfectionist and an ardent devotee of classical music, Bose was disappointed by the inferior sound of the high-priced stereo system. His interest in acoustic engineering piqued. He quickly realized that 80% of the sound experienced in a concert hall bounced off walls and ceilings before reaching the audience. This realization and using basic concepts of physics, Bose began developing interest in acoustic engineering systems and started making speakers. In 1956, fortified with PhD from MIT, Amar won a faculty position at MIT. By early 1960s, Bose invented a new type of stereo speaker based on psychoacoustics, the study of sound perception. His design incorporated multiple small speakers aimed at the surrounding walls, rather than directly at the listener, to reflect the sound, and in essence, recreate the larger sound heard in concert halls. As founder and chairman of the privately held company, Dr. Amar Bose focused relentlessly on acoustic engineering creativity and innovation. His fabled speakers, even though steeply expensive, earned him a reputation for bringing concert-hall quality audio in the home and vehicles.

In 1964, at the urging of his mentor and advisor at MIT, Professor Y. W. Lee, Bose founded his company to pursue long-term research in acoustics. The Bose Corporation initially pursued military contracts. But Bose’s vision was to produce a new generation of stereo speakers. His first generation speakers fell short of his expectation. But Bose kept at it. In 1968, Bose created and launched his own speaker systems, the Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting audio speakers system, which became a best seller for more than 25 years. This early success firmly entrenched Bose in Framingham, MA, as a leader in the highly competitive radio components market. Unlike conventional loud speakers that radiated sound only forward, the Bose 901s used a blend of direct and reflected sound.

2 Today, the Bose Corporation specializes in audio equipment and sells its products throughout the world and employs more than 10,500 people. Bose is best known for its home audio systems and speakers, noise cancelling headphones, professional audio system and automobile sound system. The Company has also conducted research into suspension technologies for cars and heavy- duty trucks. Mr. Bob Maresca is the president of Bose Corporation.

Later inventions included the popular Bose Wave radio and the Bose noise-cancelling headphones, which were so effective that they were adopted by the military and commercial pilots. A Bose software program enabled acoustic engineers to simulate the sound from any seat in a large hall, even before the site was built. The system was deployed to create sound systems for such diverse spaces as Staples Centre in Los Angeles, the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and the Masjid al-Haram, the grand mosque in Mecca. By 1982, some of the world’s top automakers, including Mercedes and Porsche, began to install Bose audio systems in their vehicles, and the brand still command loyalty in that luxury market segment.

Bose’s devotion to acoustic research was matched by his passion for teaching. He earned a Fulbright scholarship to work at the National Physics Laboratory in New Delhi, at the completion of which he joined the MIT faculty in 1956. Bose made a lasting impression in the classroom as well as in his company. His popular course on acoustics was as much about life as about electronics, said Alan V. Oppenheim, an MIT engineering professor and a long-time colleague of Bose. He was somebody with extraordinary standards, added Professor Oppenheim.

Bose taught at MIT for more than 45 years, and in 2011, he donated a majority of his company’s shares to his alma mater MIT. The gift provides MIT with annual cash dividends. By mutual agreement, MIT cannot sell the Bose Corporation shares and does not participate in the company’s management.

As founder and chairman of the privately held company, Amar Bose focused relentlessly on acoustic engineering creativity and innovation. His fabled speakers, even though steeply expensive, earned him a reputation for bringing concert-hall quality audio in the home and vehicles.

He persistently refused to offer stock to the public so that he could freely pursue risky long-term research such as noise-cancelling headphones and innovative suspension systems for cars, without the pressure of quarterly earnings and annual financial statements and announcements. In a 2004 interview in Popular Science magazine, Amar said: “I would have been fired a hundred times at a company run by MBAs. But I never went into business to make money. I went into business so that I could do interesting things that hadn’t been done before.”

The personality of Dr. Amar Gopal Bose consists of unique immanence, sociality, and transcendence. He was an incredible teacher, an inspiring mentor, a deep and insightful researcher. His life was full with major scientific leadership decisions. He spent his life of executive freedom despite the constraints he faced. His uncompromising commitment and dedication towards idea generation and innovation culminated in world class inventions like Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting audio speakers systems, Bose Wave Radio and Bose noise-cancelling headphones. All these unique traits provide a challenging learning input for all of us to surpass ourselves and reach the sky.

Bose persistently refused to offer stock to the public so that he could freely pursue risky long-term research such as noise-cancelling headphones and innovative suspension systems for cars, without the pressure of quarterly earnings and annual financial statements and announcements. When he formed the company, he laid down a policy on day one that 100 per cent of our earnings would be ploughed back into R&D. We are not a public company precisely for that reason. So much time and energy goes into preparing quarterly statements and that sort of thing. The company’s products today enjoy an impeccable reputation that, true to its founder’s spirit, reflects its penchant for innovation and creativity.

More recent achievements and awards of Bose Systems include:

 In 2007 the Bose media system won the International Telematics Award for the "Best Storage Solution for In-Car Environment."  Audio systems manufacturer, Bose Corporation, 30th September, 2009 launched its Sound Dock 10 digital music system for iPod. The new system has been designed to reset the standard for how good an iPod can sound from a single enclosure using advanced engineering and new technologies.

3  In 2010, Bose introduced Bose Ride, an active system that reduces road-induced vibration in the driver's seat. Bose claims as much as a 90% reduction in driver's seat vibration.  With respect to sales in the U.S. for home-audio retail home theater systems (speaker and receiver combination systems) and portable audio sales, Bose was respectively ranked first and third in 2012.  In 2018, the 901's will celebrate 50 years of continuous production.  Bose has not been certified by THX for its home entertainment products even though its more expensive home theater products compete at price-points where THX certification is common.

Additional References:

Sunday Business Standard, 14 July 2013, Kolkata city, pp. 1, 4. http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/bose-launches-sounddock-10-digital-music-system-for-ipod- 109093000178_1.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation

Ethical Questions:

1. Describe the unique individuality of Amar Gopal Bose and his life’s achievements. 2. Describe the unique immanence of Amar Gopal Bose and his life’s achievements. 3. Describe the unique sociality of Amar Gopal Bose and his life’s achievements. 4. Describe the unique transcendence of Amar Gopal Bose and his life’s achievements. 5. Study the major scientific leadership experiences and decisions of his life, and investigate their phenomenology. 6. Describe his life of executive freedom despite the constraints he faced. 7. Study his Theory of Action as an example of the Volitionalist Tradition. 8. What do you learn from his life in being a scientist and person for humanity?

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