Integrating Ethics Content into the Core Business Curriculum: Do Core Teaching Materials Do the Job?

Some business schools have integrated business ethics issues into their core functional courses rather than simply offering a separate ethics course. To accommodate such a strategy, functional faculty members usually teach ethical issues, a task for which they are rarely trained. However, learning materials are available: some core course textbooks provide additional coverage of ethics, and case studies (and accompanying teaching notes for instructors) are also available which cover ethical issues. This paper reports on an analysis of these materials. We find that a sample of the leading textbooks provides only very superficial coverage of ethical issues. Cases provide a wide range of issues suitable for class discussion, but their teaching notes in many cases provide little guidance for instructors unfamiliar with teaching ethics. Thus there remains a need for teaching resources for business faculty new to teaching ethics.     

A Case Example: Integrating Ethics into the Academic Business Curriculum

This paper combines a review of existing literature in the field of business ethics education and a case study relating to the integration of ethics into an undergraduate degree. Prior to any discussion relating to the integration of ethics into the business curriculum, we need to be cognisant of, and prepared for, the arguments raised by sceptics in both the business and academic environments, in regard to the teaching of ethics. Having laid this foundation, the paper moves to practical questions such as who should teach ethics, and when and how can ethics be taught. The paper presents alternative models for the teaching of ethics in the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate business programmes. An integrative model is elaborated on in more detail with a case example describing the six-stage process undertaken in the move from a single entry course to an integrated approach. The case study details not only the planning and initial implementation of ethical education in the context of an undergraduate business degree programme, but also the means by which a change in the way that ethics is taught was achieved in a business faculty in a tertiary institution.     

A Comparison of the Ethics of Convicted Felons and Graduate Business Students: Implications for Business Practice and Business Ethics Education

This research compares and contrasts the ethics of convicted felons in three midwestern United States prison systems with those of a cross section of MBA students from previous research. Building on and replicating seminal works in business ethics, this study identifies the differences and many similarities between students and inmates on several dimensions of ethics and values. Both groups expressed similar views of which ethical issues need attention from the business community, those constituencies that are most important to business firms, and perceptions of the ethics of other salient groups. When confronted with difficult ethical situations, inmates usually, although not always, tended to be more willing do what was asked and less willing to speak out regarding the conflict. Inmate priorities for ethical issues and constituency groups tended to be very similar to the MBA student sample. Implications for business practice and business ethics education are discussed.     

A Role for Ethics Theory in Speculative Business Ethics Teaching

The paper discusses the role that ethics theory might play in business ethics teaching. It is noted that little attention is devoted to the explanation and application of ethics theory in business ethics textbooks, which suggests that ethics theory is held in low esteem by business ethics educators. This relative disregard has been justified by some critics on the basis of the limited usefulness of ethics theory to business ethics pedagogy. Notwithstanding these criticisms, the paper argues that ethics theory can play an important role in business ethics teaching which conforms to a speculative agenda. A speculative agenda is described, and a contribution that ethics theory can make to it is explained. This constitutes a form of immanent critique, which enables putative statements of business ethicality to be subjected to critique against the cultural values upon which their credibility rests. Ethics theory is offered as a mediating resource to facilitate such critique. Some criteria that the presentation of ethics theory needs to meet if it is to fulfill this speculative agenda are also outlined.     

Economic efficiency: A paradigm for business ethics

Current teaching, writing and thinking in business ethics reflects (more than) a tendency to subsume business into the theoretical, idealistic and impractical objectives of philosophical ethics. Professors Primeaux and Stieber argue against this tendency. They propose the basic business model of economic efficiency as a practical and appropriate paradigm for business ethics. Understood from a behavioral perspective, economic efficiency reflects all of the ethical considerations of the academic study of philosophical ethics, but in a much more concrete and applicable manner. In effect, they are proposing that any study of business ethics defines its starting point and focus of reference in terms of economic efficiency. qu]Is there a need for business ethics? Yes, of course! Can business ethics be taught? Well, yes. But ... But, what? But, how?     

An Experiential Approach for Teaching Business Ethics

Despite the recognition in the business literature of the need to include ethics in all business courses, ethics is still given at best a perfunctory treatment by many instructors. This paper presents two pedagogical methodologies that the authors have used with success for teaching ethics to undergraduate business students. The approaches described in this paper are founded on the belief that in order to raise students' consciousness about ethical issues, students must be challenged to experience conscious ethical conflicts and to incorporate their own values into solving ethical problems. The power of working through ethical conflicts lies in its ability to force such a confrontation and, through it, to achieve enhanced self understanding.     

Internationalizing the business ethics curriculum: A survey

This article reports on a telephone survey of business school faculty in the United Kingdom, Asia and North America concerning efforts to internationalize the teaching of business ethics. International dimensions of business ethics are currently given only limited coverage in the business school curriculum with over half of the faculty surveyed indicating that less then 10% of their ethics teaching focuses on global issues. Teaching objectives vary widely with some faculty emphasizing a relativistic, diversity oriented perspective while others stress the universality of values. The respondents identified a great need to develop teaching materials based upon non-U.S. corporations and/or non-U.S. incidents.Christopher J. Cowton is University Lecturer in Management Studies at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Templeton College. An author on many facets of management, his previous paper in theJournal of Business Ethics was on corporate philanthropy in the United Kingdom. Current research interests include the implications of just-in-time production for accounting, and ethical (or socially responsible) investment.Thomas W. Dunfee is the Kolodny Professor of Social Responsibility at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was President of the American Business Law Association 1989–1990, served as Editor-in-Chief of theAmerican Business Law Journal 1975–1977 and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Society for Business Ethics. He has published articles in theAcademy of Management Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, theBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal, and theJournal of Social Philosophy in addition to a variety of business and legal journals.     

Designing and Delivering Business Ethics Teaching and Learning

The recent corporate scandals in the United States have caused a renewed interest and focus on teaching business ethics. Business schools and their faculties are reexamining the teaching of business ethics and are reassessing their responsibilities to produce honest and truthful managers who live lives of integrity and ethical accountability. The authors recognize that no agreement exists among business schools and their faculties regarding what should be the content and pedagogy of a course in business ethics. However, the authors hold that regardless of one’s biases regarding the content and pedagogy, the effective teaching of business ethics requires that the instructor in designing and delivering a business ethics course needs to focus particular attention on four principal questions: (1) what are the objectives or targeted learning outcomes of the course? (2) what kind of learning environment should be created? (3) what learning processes need to be employed to achieve the goals? and (4) what are the roles of the participants in the learning experience? The answers to these questions provide the foundations for any business ethics course. The answers are major determinants of the impact of a business ethics course on the thinking of students and the views on the ethical and professional accountabilities and responsibilities of managers in the workplace.     

When Philosophy and Business Professors Talk: Assessment of Ethical Reasoning in a Cross Disciplinary Business Ethics Course

Can instructors with apparently divergent approaches to the goals and methods of teaching business ethics agree upon a core set of course objectives? Can they agree upon a common method of assessment for measuring student performance against shared standards? This paper reports the results of a project intended to address these questions. The goals of the project were threefold: (1) to identify a shared set of core competencies for all students in business ethics; (2) to adopt a common assessment of ethical reasoning (neutral to disciplinary bias) for measuring student performance in core competencies; (3) to determine whether students show improvement in core competencies over the course of a semester. Our findings suggest that it is possible to find common ground in measurable objectives and to expect instructors to interpret, apply, and teach to these objectives effectively without infringing upon their disciplinary differences.     

Emotion and Cognition in Business Ethics Teaching

This paper focuses specifically on taughtcourses in business ethics for post-experiencestudents. The theme of this paper is thatvalues have a dual nature, involving bothemotional and cognitive elements. This dualnature is not always clearly acknowledged byparticipants in business ethics courses. Thisleads to a range of different ways in whichmisunderstanding can arise, and which is oftennot well handled in ethics classes. Twoparticular examples are considered: theseparation of personal and professional ethics,and the tendency for people to manage risk inprobabilistic terms rather than in human. TheKohlberg model is critiqued briefly, andpreference is given to Forsyth's model ofethical decision ideologies. The paperconcludes with some suggestions of positiveapproaches to business ethics teaching,involving virtue ethics and the critical theoryof Jurgen Habermas. This involves abandoningclassroom based tutition for a more personaldevelopment oriented approach.     

The business of ethics and the ethics of business

This is an essay in personal business ethics of executives as distinguished from the institutional ethics of corporations. Its purpose is to give practical moral guidance to executives for the conduct of their lives both as corporate decision-makers and as human beings. The pivotal concept in this model of personal business ethics is a direct appeal to the self-interest of executives in their being moral. Our thesis is that generally there is a twofold return on investment in ethics (ROIE) for executives. The first one is related to employee output: by becoming a self-actualizing moral type, executives indicate commitment to excellence. Accordingly, they so manage employees that the latter can also live up to their full potential and excell. And that would increase corporate productivity and product or service quality. The second payback of morality is personal: fully developed, self-actualized managers are generally happier people than those whose growth has been arrested. In brief, moral self-actualization is the same as commitment to excellence and there is a payback in being the best. Return on investment in ethics and return on investment in excellence can both be abbreviated as ROIE. We accomplish the purpose and establish the thesis of this essay by seeking answers to the following questions: What business does ethics have in business? What business does business have in ethics? Is there a return on investment in ethics for executives? and Does being moral help executives become more effective managers? In sketching answers to these questions, we first show why executives need a personal business ethics especially in today's world. Then, we sketch the nature of ethics and of business. After these introductory materials, the body of the paper argues for a personal business ethics for executives by correlating elements of management theory with ethics. Specifically, it links a theory of employee motivation with a scale of values, management character types with moral types, and management leadership styles with morality. Then, the practical technique of life by objectives (LBO) is explained. It can help executives manage their lives more effectively in both the business and ethical sense. We conclude by explaining ideals of excellence which can guide executives in their work and development both as managers and as human beings.     

Reflections on the Integration of Ethics Teaching into a British Undergraduate Management Degree Programme

This paper is concerned with the incorporationof ethics teaching into an undergraduatemanagement degree. It is argued that thecontribution of this teaching to the overallprogramme can be understood in terms ofparticular characteristics common to bothmanagement/organisational studies modules andthose in ethics. These characteristics reflecta model for degree curriculum design concernedwith organisational processes in general, aswell as an institutional culture favourable tocritical perspectives on the subject matter.The emphasis on generic processes distinguishesthis curriculum from those which focus more onfunctional areas of business organisations. Thepaper considers these contrasting models forcurriculum design, the question of moduleevaluation, the institutional context, therationale and content of the ethics modules,and their relationship to other elements of thedegree programme. It concludes with aparticular emphasis on the case for a criticalperspective in business ethics teaching.     

Ethics Sensitivity and Awareness Within Organizations in Kuwait: An Empirical Exploration of Epoused Theory and Theory-in-Use

This paper highlights the potential harms in the current state of business ethics education and presents an alternative new model of business ethics education. Such potential harms in business ethics education is due largely to restricted cognitive level of reasoning, a limited level of ethical conduct which remains only responsive and adaptive, and the estrangement between strategic thinking and ethical thinking. As a remedy for business ethics education, denatured by these potential harms, a new dynamic model of business ethics education is proposed. The new model is composed of a basic foundation for business ethics education and three practical components of business ethics education. The basic foundation comprises of ethical reasoning, moral sentiments, and ethical praxis. Three practical components of business ethics education are, respectively, to intensify moral imagination, to develop ethical wisdom and courage, and to enhance meta-strategic competences. The ultimate purpose of these practical components is to help moral subjects to conduct ethical leadership, to actualize integrity between individuals and organization, and to fulfill the social responsibility of business firms. This new model is expected to attract attention to the effective business ethics education both in college and in industry, and to be used as a benchmark for new curriculum designs and development of teaching methods. Finally, some teaching methodologies and pedagogical experiments are introduced and discussed according to this new model of business ethics educaiton.     

A Framework for Teaching Business Ethics

What ethical framework should be used as a basis for teaching business ethics? Should business ethics be taught by ethicists in a separate course, by business faculty in business courses, or perhaps by both? These are some of the issues this paper will address. The paper begins with a review of the literature concerning approaches to teaching business ethics. Next, some ethical frameworks for teaching business ethics are considered. Finally, the paper proposes that students should apply their own personal values to business ethical issues in the classroom, thus providing future business leaders with a process for resolving ethical dilemmas.     

Teaching Business Ethics: Targeted Outputs

Business ethics is once again a hot topic as examples of improper business practices that violate commonly accepted ethical norms are brought to our attention. With the increasing number of scandals business schools find themselves on the defensive in explaining what they are doing to help respond to the call to teach ‘‘more’’ business ethics. This paper focuses on two issues germane to business ethics teaching efforts: the ‘‘targeted output’’ goals of teaching business ethics and when in the curriculum business ethics should be taught.     

The Team Teaching of Business Ethics in a Weekly Semester Long Format

This article describes our team teaching of asemester long course in business ethics taught oneevening a week to mostly part-time MBA students. Wediscuss the differences and similarities in ourbackgrounds, disciplines, and preferred teachingstrategies. Our team teaching approach, thesubject matter, and teaching strategies are alsodiscussed. A typical session of the course is brieflydescribed. We discuss how student performance isevaluated. Finally, we provide some thoughts on teamteaching a business ethics course and briefly commenton our redesign of this business ethics course in afour Saturday schedule.     

Teaching business ethics: Questioning the assumptions,seeking new directions

An examination of leading textbooks suggests the predominance of a principle-based model in the teaching of business ethics. The model assumes that by teaching students the rudiments of ethical reasoning and ethical theory, we can hope to create rational, independent, autonomous managers who will apply such theory to the many quandary situations of the corporate world. This paper challenges these assumptions by asking the following questions: 1. Is the acquisition of principle-based ethical theory unproblematic? 2. What is the transferability of classroom learning to the business context? 3. Is it appropriate to consider complementary models in the teaching of business ethics? The last question is approached from the perspective of virtues-based ethics, from the insights of feminist ethics, and from a culturally grounded orientation to moral values and norms.     

A Propaedeutic for a Framework: Fostering Ethical Awareness in Undergraduate Business Students

Using the field of accounting as a locus forinquiry within undergraduate businesseducation, this paper proposes that studentsbeing trained in fields of business wouldbenefit from sustained formal exposure to theepistemological and anthropologicalperspectives of ethical systems. Without suchexposure, the ethics case studies presented inbusiness textbooks will not be as effective inachieving their goal of training undergraduatestudents to be ethical professionals. Studentsneed a substantive introduction to ethicalreasoning before they can fully appreciate theethical ramifications in a case study. Students have to be able to articulate thecriteria by which they will approach thequestions of applied ethics posed by the ethicsexercises appearing as the conclusion tochapters teaching not ethics but technicalinformation.This paper explores the ethical frameworkprovided by an intermediate accountingtextbook. It then analyzes theepistemologically and anthropologicallyinformed ethics of Bernard Lonergan and EdwardSchillebeeckx as examples of the introductoryethical reasoning needed to support textbookframeworks. A two-fold thesis guides thepaper: students equipped with a broader ethicalvision can learn more effectively from theethics cases presented in the textbooks, thusenhancing the value of those cases;consequently, students need more exposure toethics in an undergraduate business course ofstudy.     

Skinner's Naturalism as a Paradigm for Teaching Business Ethics: A Discussion from Tourism

This paper introduces for discussion a paradigmfor teaching ethics in business courses basedon the system known as naturalistic ethics. Aform of naturalistic ethics based on the valuesystem proposed by B. F. Skinner is suggestedas a framework suitable for the multi-faceted,cross-cultural, and global nature of the moderncorporation. The relevant literature on tourismand hospitality ethics and the more recentstudies on business ethics education arereviewed. An interpretation of Skinner's systemis given, and its suitability as a frameworkfor ethics education in business courses isaddressed.     

Using a Faculty Survey to Kick-Start an Ethics Curriculum Upgrade

The article briefly reviews the external pressures for teaching business ethics. It then summarizes why teaching business ethics across the curriculum is essentially a necessity in the current environment. This leads to a discussion of six commonly adopted elements used when seeking to improve a business ethics curriculum. The case study uses these six elements to provide insights into contemporary challenges facing many business schools. The particular contribution of this article is in the area of methods to assess the status of the curriculum. The case study provides details about a faculty survey used as a compelling tool to kick-start a business ethics curriculum upgrade, not only based on the information that it yields, but the potent opportunity for conversation and collaboration. The conclusion summarizes the contemporary challenges and opportunities that business schools face. The instrument itself is in the appendix.