Faculty Perspective: "How Business Can Respond to Haiti Crisis" by Tim Fort

The business community has an important role to play in reconstruction efforts following the deadly earthquakes in Haiti, according to Tim Fort, executive director of the GWSB Institute for Corporate Responsibility.

Fort, a professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Public Policy, said businesses can act philanthropically, leveraging their logistics capabilities to deliver supplies, providing critical supplies such as water, food and building materials or helping restore telecommunications. And they can embrace ethical practices as they do.

“When the time comes to rebuild, businesses can take great care to avoid taking advantage of a bad situation,” Fort said. “There are instances in the aftermath of hurricanes where some companies gouged suffering populations. The demand for building materials might provide a market incentive to raise prices, but other companies have refused to do this, acting instead with some solidarity for the affected and even discounting prices.

“Those same companies reported longer term profitability because suffering people remembered the difference between those two approaches,” he added.

The Jan. 12 earthquake that hit Haiti’s was the worst in the region in more than 200 years. It was followed by another quake and aftershocks, leaving an estimated 150,000 people dead and a wake of devastation in the already struggling country. Although the cleanup continues, discussions have begun on how to rebuild Haiti.

Fort said companies have choices about where they locate their offices and creating jobs in places affected by disaster can make an important contribution. “There are risks, to be sure, but businesses can make Haiti a place where they do business,” he said.

Fort is GW’s Lindner-Gambal Professor of Business Ethics.