A school is “a building that has four walls…with tomorrow inside”: Toward the reinvention of the business school

Business schools, defined as educational institutions that specialize in teaching courses and programs related to business and/or management, are facing major challenges. These challenges stem from a number of major shifts in the business education landscape, including the rising importance of rankings and accreditations, the increased weight placed on ethical decision making, the ongoing debate on rigor vs. relevance in research, the digital revolution, and the significant decrease in public funding. In fact, they are so fundamental that the coming decade is likely to represent a new era in the history of business education, the fourth since the concept of the business school was created in 1819 with the establishment of ESCP Europe. The purpose of this article is to outline these main changes (TASK: T—from tower to Twittersphere, A—from auditorium to anti-café, S—from stakeholder to shareholder, K—from knowledge to know-how) and to discuss how they impact the different AS-SE-TS of a business school (alumni & students, staff & equipment, teachers & scholars). The article ends with a proposed classification of schools along four corners (culture, compass, capital, and content) and a discussion of which types of schools are best suited to adapt to these changes.     

略论中国当代社会伦理中的敬德

中国自古以来就讲究敬德,并以敬德为引导,贯穿个人道德修养、成为君子、齐家、治国、平天下始终.敬德的内涵很丰富,可以是个人,可以是国家、民族、人民、自然规律等,前者称之为敬人,后者称之为敬业.但由于市场经济的飞跃、科技的发展、知识大爆炸,引发中国当代社会伦理关系中敬德的崩陷,并由此带出的一系列社会问题,由此初步探讨了敬德的涵义,通过对社会现象的分析,讨论了为何敬德会崩陷的几个方面的原因,以及探讨了在当代社会伦理背景下重建敬德的必要性和重建之路.     

A Study of the Adjustment of Ethical Recogntion and Ethical Decision-Making of Managers-to-be Across the Taiwan Strait Before and After Receiving a Business Ethics Education

This study conducted an empirical survey of 126 Business Ethics students in business and management departments within two universities across the Taiwan Strait to evaluate the impact on these managers-to-be of receiving an education in Business Ethics. The results show that, after receiving that Business Ethics education, students in both universities demonstrated significant improvements in the ethical weighting of their individual values, their recognition of ethical issues and their performance as ethical decision-makers. However, in respect of ethical decision-making, the behavior of these students is still sub-optimal, indicating a need for further improvements in the ethical education of managers-to-be across the Taiwan Strait.     

Business Ethics Index: USA 2006

This study continues the systematic measurement of consumers’ sentiments toward business ethical practices first measured in 2004. The Business Ethics Index (BEI) comprises the four measurements representing the dimensions of “personal–vicarious” and “past–future”. A professional telephone interviewing company was hired to collect five consecutive waves of 1045 telephone interviews in an omnibus procedure. The collection of the five waves represented a sampling process which enables the creation of confidence intervals for this, and subsequent, measurements of the BEI. The overall BEI fell to 102.6 (from a revized 108.7 in 2004). The drop was attributed to a fall in consumer expectations of the future ethical behavior of business. John Tsalikis is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Psychology in Marketing. Bruce Seaton is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests include the role of national stereotyping in consumer choice and the application of experimental methods to investigate models of business ethics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Global Marketing.     

Legislated Ethics or Ethics Education?: Faculty Views in the Post-Enron Era

The tension between external forces for better ethics in organizations, represented by legislation such as the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), and the call for internal forces represented by increased educational coverage, has never been as apparent. This study examines business school faculty attitudes about recent corporate ethics lapses, including opinions about root causes, potential solutions, and ethics coverage in their courses. In assessing root causes, faculty point to a failure of systems such as legal/professional and management (external) and declining personal values (internal). We also found that faculty recommend external forces as a remedy more often than increased ethics educational coverage; we contextualize this finding with recent ethics education literature. We conclude by proposing that neither legislation nor ethics education alone are complete when addressing widespread unethical corporate acts and offer a multi-faceted approach to ethics educational opportunities. Jeri Mullins Beggs is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Illinois State University. She earned her Ph.D. in marketing at Saint Louis University. Her current research interests are ethics education, health care marketing, and social marketing. Her work has been presented and published at various conferences and journals including most recently the Journal of Management Education, Marketing and Public Policy conference and the Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior conference. She also recently served as co-editor of a special issue of Journal of Management Education on Teaching Business ethics. Kathy Lund Dean is a member of the management department at Idaho State University. She earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior and philosophy from Saint Louis University. Her current research interests lie in operationalizing non-traditional research methodologies, immersion pedagogies such as service-learning, and spiritual wholeness and authenticity in work place. Her research has appeared in multiple journals including Journal of Management Education, Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion, Journal of Organizational Change Management, International Journal of Public Administration, and Academy of Management Executive. She serves as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Management Education.     

Business Ethics – Deontologically Revisited

In this paper we look at business ethics from a deontological perspective. We address the theory of ethical decision-making and deontological ethics for business executives and explore the concept of “moral duty” as transcending mere gain and profit maximization. Two real-world cases that focus on accounting fraud as the ethical conception. Through these cases, we show that while accounting fraud – from a consequentialist perspective – may appear to provide a quick solution to a pressing problem, longer term effects of fraud and misconduct make ethical implications more apparent. Widely used compensation schemes also may have the tendency to fuel unethical behavior. We argue that an ethical reinvigoration of the business world can only be accomplished by encouraging the business realm to impose upon itself some measure of self-regulating along the lines of deontological ethics. Principles of deontology should guide executive decision-making particularly when executives are tempted to operate outside of codified legislation or are bound to act under judicial-free conditions. Carmelita Troy is an Assistant Professor of Accounting in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. Micewski, Edwin R., Dr., Brigadier General, is social philosopher and Director of the Institute for Human and Social Science of the Austrian National Defence Academy, Vienna. Member of the Science Commission of the Austrian Ministry of Defence and Visiting Professor at the Department of National Security Affairs of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Research and teaching areas: Social and cultural philosophy, military ethics, (military) professionalism and leadership, postmodernism and war. Recent publication: (Ethics and international Politics (2001); Civil- Military Aspects of Military Ethics (2003/2005); Terror and Terrorism- History of Ideas and Philosophical-Ethical Reflections (2005); Asymmetry and Western Society - Culture-critical Reflections(2006).     

Increasing Effectiveness in Teaching Ethics to Undergraduate Business Students

Undergraduate business students present special needs and challenges in respect to the teaching of ethics. Traditional methods of teaching this topic are the subject of criticism in the literature. This paper considers the nature of the target audience while advancing the complementary goals of convincing undergraduate business students that ethical behavior in business is important and increasing the likelihood that these students will make ethical choices in the future. Shortcomings of approaches commonly used to teach this topic are discussed. Specific instructional techniques to supplement or replace traditional pedagogy are suggested.     

The International Business Ethics Index: Japan

The Business Ethics Index (BEI) was expanded in Japan. The overall BEI for Japan stands at 99.1 – slightly on the negative side. The component BEI patterns were similar to those in the U.S. In an open-ended question about their ethical experiences as consumers, the Japanese were concerned about customer service and good management practices. John Tsalikis is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Psychology in Marketing. Bruce Seaton is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests include the role of national stereotyping in consumer choice and the application of experimental methods to investigate models of business ethics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Global Marketing.     

When Ethics Matters – Interpreting the Ethical Discourse of Small Nature-Based Entrepreneurs

This article examines the unique ethical concerns faced by small nature-based entrepreneurs in their everyday business operations. By using qualitative, empirical data, six kinds of business situations were identified to bring about moral consideration for all the entrepreneurs in this study. The business situations identified were the selection of raw material suppliers, reconciling the quality of production and the lack of resources, the pricing process, the content of marketing information, the close relationships to employees and the collaboration with other entrepreneurs. The ethical argumentation used in these business situations was examined in relation to three ethical theories: utilitarian ethics, deontology and virtue-ethics. This article shows that typical for the decision-making of the small nature-based entrepreneurs in an ethical sense is the variety of ethical arguments used and the important role of customers and employees influencing the ethical views of the entrepreneurs.     

Global Business Citizenship and Voluntary Codes of Ethical Conduct

This article describes the theory and process of global business citizenship (GBC) and applies it in an analysis of characteristics of company codes of business conduct. GBC is distinguished from a commonly used term, “corporate citizenship,” which often denotes corporate community involvement and philanthropy. The GBC process requires (1) a set of fundamental values embedded in the corporate code of conduct and in corporate policies that reflect universal ethical standards; (2) implementation throughout the organization with thoughtful awareness of where the code and policies fit well and where they might not fit with stakeholder expectations; (3) analysis and experimentation to deal with problem cases; and (4) systematic learning processes to communicate the results of implementation and experiments internally and externally. We then identify and illustrate the three attributes of a code of conduct that would reflect a GBC approach. The three attributes are orientation, implementation, and accountability. The various components of these attributes are specified and illustrated, using website examples from six global petroleum companies.     

Linking Community and Classroom in Higher Education: Service-Learning and Student Empowerment

ABSTRACT

In this article, service learning is viewed as a means to better prepare students for the realities of work life. Service learning is a way in which abstract concepts can be applied in a real world setting to improve student learning.     

Corporate Legitimacy as Deliberation: A Communicative Framework

Modern society is challenged by a loss of efficiency in national governance systems values, and lifestyles. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse builds upon a conception of organizational legitimacy that does not appropriately reflect these changes. The problems arise from the a-political role of the corporation in the concepts of cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy, which are based on compliance to national law and on relatively homogeneous and stable societal expectations on the one hand and widely accepted rhetoric assuming that all members of society benefit from capitalist production on the other. We therefore propose a fundamental shift to moral legitimacy, from an output and power oriented approach to an input related and discursive concept of legitimacy. This shift creates a new basis of legitimacy and involves organizations in processes of active justification vis-à-vis society rather than simply responding to the demands of powerful groups. We consider this a step towards the politicization of the corporation and attempt to re-embed the debate on corporate legitimacy into its broader context of political theory, while reflecting the recent turn from a liberal to a deliberative concept of democracy.Prof. Dr. Guido Palazzo is Assistant Professor for Business Ethics at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He graduated in Business Administration at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and earned his PhD in Political Philosophy (1999) from the University of Marburg (Germany). His research interests are in Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Branding, Democratic Theory and Organizational Ethics.Prof. Dr. Andreas Georg Scherer is director of the Institute for Organization and Administrative Science (IOU) and holds the Chair for Foundations of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). He has published six books. His work has appeared in Academy of Management Review, Advances in Strategic Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, M@n@gement, Management International Review, Organization, organization Studies, and in numerous volumes and German journals. Dr. Scherer is member of the editorial boards of Business Ethics Quarterly, Organization, and Organization Studies.     

Case Studies of Ethics Scandals: Effects on Ethical Perceptions of Finance Students

Ethics instructors often use cases to help students understand ethics within a corporate context, but we need to know more about the impact a case-based pedagogy has on students’ ability to make ethical decisions. We used a pre- and post-test methodology to assess the effect of using cases to teach ethics in a finance course. We also wanted to determine whether recent corporate ethics scandals might have impacted students’ perceptions of the importance and prevalence of ethics in business, so we used in-depth case studies of several of the major scandals (e.g., Enron, Tyco, Adelphia). Our results are somewhat surprising since studying ethics scandals positively impacts students’ ethical decision making and their perceptions of the ethics of businesspeople.