Robert (Bob) MacGregor, the inspiration for the Caux Round Table Principles for Business, has passed. Bob died peacefully at his home in Illinois at age 92.
To me, Bob brought forward into our age the stalwart optimism and practicality of classic Minnesotan and American achievement. His premise for action, which he would share with me at the end of nearly every phone call was: “Onward and Upward!”
A graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and Princeton Theological Seminary, Bob was a pastor. Then, to improve community, he got into politics in the City of Minneapolis – make things better; don’t be a by-stander; jump in, set goals, care about people, get it done. For many years, he gave his advice to the Dayton family and their business foundation and community activism.
Learning about the Caux Round Table seeking to integrate responsibility with profit-making by giving priority to stakeholders, Bob proposed principled leadership – act from good principles first and always. Then, to make such business leadership more attainable around the world, he proposed, to me very much in an American Protestant tradition, putting best practices in writing and holding companies to account. Working with members of the Caux Round Table, in particular with Jean-Loup Dherse of France and Ryuzaburo Kaku of Japan, Bob facilitated the publication of the Caux Round Table Principles for Business in 1994.
These global principles were the first ethical standards proposed by business leaders.
Working closely with Bob in the drafting of the principles was Professor Kenneth Goodpaster of the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Ken has sent me his reflections on Bob’s contributions and having given us the benefit of a worthy life, lived honorably and with passion and dedication. I include Ken’s reflections here:
A Grateful Remembrance
Bob MacGregor (1933-2025)
Bob MacGregor accomplished so much in his 92 years that it would be impossible in this note to comment meaningfully on it all. Others have and will provide such a commentary in other places. My friendship with Bob began thirty-five years ago in 1990, when he led the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility (MCCR), housed at the University of St. Thomas. Bob contributed enormous energy to the development of what became known as the Minnesota Principles for Business. We developed these principles of business conduct because more and more frequently, Minnesota multinational companies doing business around the world were encountering cultural differences that posed dilemmas for management trying to act conscientiously – trying to do “the right thing.” These companies had turned to the MCCR for guidance.
Charles Denny, CEO of ADC Telecommunications (a member of the Caux Round Table, as well as MCCR), shared the Minnesota Principles in the very early 1990s with the Caux Round Table at its annual meeting in Switzerland. The reaction was more than positive. The participants wanted to adapt the Minnesota Principles as trans-cultural moral principles for business and call them the Caux Round Table Principles for Business. Bob and the MCCR agreed and the adaptation concluded about a year thereafter.
One might reasonably ask whether these principles are as relevant today as they were 35 years ago. In my opinion, the answer to this question is “Yes – but with a cautionary note!”
The platform on which the Caux Principles were built was a pair of ethical ideals, one central to Eastern thought (kyosei: living and working together for the common good) and the other central to Western thought (human dignity: the sacredness of each person as an end, not simply as a means to others’ purposes). These two ethical ideals remain central in their traditions and because of this, continue as anchors for the Caux Principles today.
The seven general principles that the leaders of the Caux Round Table agreed upon are also relevant today as guidelines for corporate conscience and moral capitalism. And the consideration urged by the Caux Principles to the six stakeholder groups: customers, employees, owners/investors, suppliers, competitors and communities, continues to be relevant (if not more relevant) today in our new age of Artificial Intelligence. The Caux Principles remind us that our digital creations must themselves be fashioned with careful, explicit moral guidance.
Why the cautionary note (and I know from personal conversations with Bob before his passing that he strongly agreed with this)? The answer lies in context of contemporary business decision-making. The Caux Principles originated as a transcultural guide to the decision-making of business leaders within their own business organizations. They put to rest doubts about whether there could be shared moral values – consciences – among businesses across cultural boundaries as businesses became more global.
What the Caux Principles did not anticipate was the polarization and politicization of corporations that we have witnessed in the last two decades. The implications of this reality, especially in the United States, have been troubling – because they seem to have drawn business decision-making out of the internal moral reflection envisaged by the Caux Principles. Instead, corporations have been invited to “take sides” in partisan contests that are controlled more by external pressures than by independent moral judgments. Business ethics is becoming supplanted by business politics – with the result that corporate consciences and the guidelines that have been offered to them – may have been outflanked.
So, are the Caux Principles still as relevant today as they were 30 years ago? Yes indeed, but with this cautionary note: Corporate leaders and their employees must return to the shared moral reflection that they practiced when the Caux Principles were adopted – avoiding the temptation to be absorbed into the partisan public sector. This was Bob’s dream and the dream of the original architects of the Caux Round Table Principles.
Kenneth E. Goodpaster
Professor Emeritus
University of St. Thomas (MN)