FOCUS: Teaching Ethical Business* Creating and Using Vignettes to Teach Business Ethics

Brief thumbnail sketches capture group interest and show the relevance of ethical considerations in real life situations. Bill Bain has considerable experience of business and is currently a PhD student at the Management School of London University's Imperial College, 53 Prince's Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG.     

FOCUS: Practical Reflections on Teaching Business Ethics to Undergraduates

Teaching business ethics to undergraduates has disclosed difficulties for both students and teacher which raise deeper issues about what is the purpose of teaching ethics and of engaging in business. The author is Lecturer in Business Ethics in the Faculty of Business and Social Studies, Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 4AZ, UK.     

Using the Prisoner's Dilemma to Teach Business Ethics When Personal and Group Interests Conflict

This paper shows how the Prisoner's Dilemma can help students recognize and understand the ethical ramifications of decisions they make. The advantage of studying the Prisoner's Dilemma is that it models situations in which there is a conflict between the interests of individuals and the well-being of the group. Accordingly, it provides an effective framework for illustrating the importance of ethical decision-making by managers in a business and social environment. The paper describes two classroom activities that characterize the Prisoner's Dilemma and draws two important principles for the teaching of business ethics. The two principles are the implication effect and the self-defeating behavior effect. The paper also suggests several discussion points based on the two classroom activities and the two principles.     

FOCUS: Using a Computerised Game in Teaching Business Ethics

Games have become a standard tool in management education. The authors have cooperated on developing just such a teaching aid for business people and management students interested in playing the business game ethically. Dr Higginson is Director of The Ridley Hall Foundation, Ridley Hall, Cambridge, CB3 9HG and Geoff Moore is Principal Lecturer at Newcastle Business School, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST.     

Using UNPRME to Teach,Research, and Enact Business Ethics: Insights from the Catholic Identity Matrix for Business Schools

We address how the leaders of a Catholic business school can articulate and assess how well their schools implement the following six principles drawn from Catholic social teaching (CST): (1) produce goods and services that are authentically good; (2) foster solidarity with the poor by serving deprived and marginalized populations; (3) advance the dignity of human work as a calling; (4) exercise subsidiarity; (5) promote responsible stewardship over resources; and (6) acquire and allocate resources justly. We first discuss how the CST principles give substantive content and meaning to the Good Goods, Good Work, and Good Wealth framework in The Vocation of the Business Leader (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Vocation of the business leader, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Vatican City, 2012) and then discuss their congruencies and tensions with the UNGC and UNPRME principles. Next, we describe the Catholic Identity Matrix, an assessment tool that provides a quantitative and qualitative portrait of how well a Catholic business school integrates, within the scope of its mission and capacities, the three goods and related CST principles in its strategies, policies, activities, and processes. The concluding section discusses implications for ongoing UNGC and UNPRME assessment, reporting, and development efforts, and addresses the generalizability of our approach to business schools who draw their inspiration and moral principles from other faith-based or secular traditions.     

Using the "Ethical Environment" Paradigm to Teach Business Ethics: The Case of the Maquiladoras

The "ethical environment of business" provides a constructive frame of reference for business ethics instruction. As illustrated by a suggested role play about foreign sweatshops, it provides a realistic, problem-solving context for the study of moral and ethical ideas. Once ethical behavior is viewed through this paradigm, students can better see how business policies are shaped by ethics and prepare themselves to react to their own ethical environment.     

Teaching Business Ethics: The Role of Ethics in Business and in Business Education

The paper begins with an examination of traditional attitudes towards business ethics. I suggest that these attitudes fail to recognize that a principal function of ethics is to facilitate cooperation. Further that despite the emphasis on competition in modern market economies, business like all other forms of social activity is possible only where people are prepared to respect rules in the absence of which cooperation is rendered difficult or impossible. Rules or what I call the ethics of doing, however, constitute just one dimension of ethics. A second has to do with what we see and how we see it; a third with who we or what I describe as the ethics of being. Of these three dimensions, the first and the third have been most carefully explored by philosophers and are most frequently the focus of attention when teaching business ethics is being discussed. I argue that this focus is unfortunate in as much as it is the second dimension which falls most naturally into the ambit of modern secular educational institutions. It is here that moral education is most obviously unavoidable, and most clearly justifiable in modern secular teaching environments. I conclude by describing the importance of this second dimension for the modern world of business.     

Business Ethics in the USA: Some Reasons to Smile

In spite of some recent bad news coming out of America our Associate Editor reports positively on the business ethics scene there both in the business community and in a recent major Conference. She holds the Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics at Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia 23173, USA.     

Using an Electronic Bulletin Board in Teaching Business Ethics: En route to a virtual agora

In this article the experiences of teachingbusiness ethics using electronic bulletinboards are described and discussed with a viewto developing useful guidelines andconsideration of best practice. The focus is onan electronic bulletin board on anundergraduate eCommerce degree for teaching amodule called `eCommerce in Legal and EthicalContext'. The issues of computer-mediatedcommunication (CMC) in the context of aBusiness Ethics course are discussed. Thepreconditions for its successful use includeability to use the technology, requiredparticipation in the use of the board, and theproper use of the board for pedagogic purposes.We conclude that electronic bulletin boards arewell suited to complementing other learning andteaching media on business ethics courses, andat best could create a virtual meeting ormarket place; an agora for businessethics debate.     

Challenges in Teaching Business Ethics: Using Role Set Analysis of Early Career Dilemmas

Emphasis in business ethics texts and courses has generally focused on corporate and other relatively high-level ethical issues. However, business school graduates in early career stages report ethical dilemmas involving individual-level decisions, often including influence attempts from one or more members of their work role sets. This paper proposes the use of role set analysis as a pedagogical technique for helping individuals to anticipate and deal with early-career ethical issues.     

The Internet and the Book: Media and Messages in Teaching Business Ethics

The central idea advanced by this article is that thecombination of the Internet and the book in networkinglearning technologies while teaching business ethicsis not only a matter of methodology, but also a matterof educational message. The concept of reflectiveequilibrium underlies the curriculum of a one semestercourse in business ethics. A Phase-model of moraldecision making in business serves as the central axisof the course schedule. Each phase outlines theframework of the ``class' discussion as the courseprogresses. The actual teaching experiencedemonstrates that networking may enrich bothindividual and group learning processes, and advancethe growth of business leadership capable ofincorporating moral considerations within managerialdecisions.     

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.     

Self–Interest and Business Ethics: Some Lessons of the Recent Corporate Scandals

The recent accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other corporations have helped to fuel a massive loss of confidence in the integrity of American business and have contributed to a very sharp decline in the U.S. stock market. Inasmuch as these events have brought ethical questions about business to the forefront in the media and public consciousness as never before, they are of signal importance for the field of business ethics. I offer some observations and conjectures about the bearing of the recent scandals on the literature on business ethics. I defend the following contentions:1. Recent events reveal serious weaknesses of the stakeholder theory about the social responsibilities of business which lacks prohibitions against fraud and deception. This is a glaring deficiency of standard versions of the stakeholder theory, but it is easily remedied by adding explicit prohibitions against fraud and deception. In addition, recent events highlight the stakeholder theory's very naive and unrealistic hopes and expectations for business executives as moral arbiters and agents of social improvement.2. Recent events do not constitute an objection to the shareholder theory about the social responsibilities of business, however, these events make evident the implausibility of strong versions of the invisible hand theory.3. Schemes of payment and reward often create perverse incentives for individuals to engage in unethical conduct.4. Both the shareholder theory and the stakeholder theory need to add a constraint that requires executives to respect the professional obligations of employees.     

Using a Qualitative Approach to Gain Insights into the Business Ethics Experiences of Australian Managers in China

This study investigated the business ethics experiences of Australian managers in China, using qualitative methodology to identify themes. Thirty-one Australian managers who had spent on average 8.7 years working in business connected to China participated in in-depth interviews regarding their business ethics experiences in China. Commonly, managers identified issues relating to a broad spectrum which could be labelled "bribery and facilitation". Other repeated themes included requests for visa assistance, employee theft, nepotism and non-adherence to contractual obligations. This study has important implications for helping Australian managers improve the way they approach potential ethical situations in China. Four key coping strategies can be identified from the data: managers spoke of not compromising their own morals, of attempting to understand the motivation of Chinese colleagues, of talking to others and of adhering to company policy. These strategies suggest practical steps may be taken by organisations when training managers for business activities in China. In particular, structuring of mentoring relationships between experienced and less experienced practitioners may be of assistance. Cultural training for managers and clear company policy on contentious issues such as bribery may also be of benefit. The themes identified in the study also have implications for academics researching expatriate business peoples' experiences in China.     

Using Student Generated Codes of Conduct in the Classroom to Reinforce Business Ethics Education

This paper presents four different contexts in which students practiced implementing business ethics. Students were required to develop Codes of Conduct/Codes of Ethics as a classroom exercise. By developing these codes, students can improve their understanding of how and why codes of conduct are developed, designed, and implemented in the workplace. Using the three-phase content analysis process (McCabe et al.: 1999, The Journal of Higher Education 70(2), 211–234), we identify a framework consisting of 10 classifications that can be used to assess learning outcomes in embedded ethics education. By analyzing the different content within each classification, instructors were able to gain a better understanding of differing application of ethical principles. This analysis indicates that there needs to be more research on codes of conduct for smaller units within an organization and more integration of work group codes of conduct into the business curriculum.     

Students' and Faculty Members' Perceptions of the Importance of Business Ethics and Accounting Ethics Education: Is There an Expectations Gap?

Despite a wealth of prior research (e.g., Wynd and Mager, 1989; Weber, 1990; Harris, 1991; Harris and Guffey, 1991; McCabe et al., 1991; Murphy and Boatright, 1994; Gautschi and Jones, 1998), little consensus has arisen about the goals and effectiveness of business ethics education. Additionally, accounting academics have recently been questioned as to their commitment to accounting ethics education (Gunz and McCutcheon, 1998). The current study examines whether accounting students' perceptions of business ethics and the goals of accounting ethics education are fundamentally different from the perceptions of accounting faculty members. The study uses a survey instrument to elicit student and faculty responses to various questions concerning the importance of business ethics and accounting ethics education. Statistical analyses indicate that students consider both business ethics and the goals of accounting ethics education to be more important than faculty members. Implications of these results for accounting faculty members interested in accounting ethics education are discussed.     

Decision Making and Business Ethics: The Implications of Using Image Theory in Preference to Rational Choice

The study of decision making has multiple implications for business ethics. This paper outlines some commonly used frameworks for understanding choice in business. It characterises the dominant model for business decision making as rational choice theory (RCT) and contrasts this with a more recent, naturalistic theory of decision-making, image theory. The implications of using RCT and image theory to model decision making are discussed with reference to three ethical systems. RCT is shown to be consistent with Utilitarian ethics, but not with Kantian or Virtue-based ethics. Image theory is shown to be consistent with each. The paper identifies a number of implications following from this analysis.     

Contrasting the Behavioural Business Ethics Approach and the Institutional Economic Approach to Business Ethics: Insights From the Study of Quaker Employers

The article suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly, even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantianism or religious ethics. The article explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The article argues that this approach may have to be prioritised over behavioural business ethics, which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and favours behavioural intervention with the individual’s value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics. The article concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics, as encountered in a modern context, can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms. Dr. Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto is researcher in business ethics, organisational economics and economic issues that concern the Old Testament. He is placed at the School of Management of the University of Leicester, UK. He holds two doctorates, one in social studies from the University of Oxford, UK, and one in economic studies from the Catholic University of Eichstaett, Germany. He has widely published on green consumerism and institutional economic issues that concern organization theory, business ethics theory and an economic interpretation of the Old Testament. His publications include the books Understanding Green Consumer Behaviour (Routledge, 2003) and Human Nature and Organization Theory (Edward Elgar, 2003).