Teaching Business Ethics

The problem is not “When business schools start taking ethics seriously, maybe people will stop laughing.”

The sentence should read “When BUSINESS starts taking ethics seriously, maybe people will stop laughing.”

After reading about the ethical meltdowns in business (greedy individuals) and government (greedy individuals) over the last several years (Enron, Delay, Abramoff, Gingrich, Jefferson, Libby, etc.) how could one NOT laugh at the binary of business/ethics?

The courses that teach applied ethics are not there to teach fundamental morality and most academics according to the research seem to know that. Students come with an understanding of that fundamental knowledge from their upbringings already. Everyone knows it is unethical to steal money which all of the above already knew.

We are there, as you note so well, to teach students how to resolve legitimate ethical dilemmas, usually small in consequence and nature, but sometimes of great significance. We teach applied ethics to give students a framework for resolving these ethical dilemmas that they face virtually everyday.

We aren’t there to teach them not to steal anymore than we are there to teach them not to kill. They already know those basic moral and prohibitive commands and they know that violating them is NEVER (albeit temporarily sometimes) in their best interests or in the interests of investors.

People laugh because of the unethical nature of many corporations and the many businessmen who run them. Change corporate and public culture in the “real” world and people will stop laughing at your teaching of business ethics. Nothing you can do in classroom will change that perception if the “real” world doesn’t first or “When BUSINESS starts taking ethics seriously, maybe people will stop laughing.”

michael vocino, at 8:30 am EDT on June 4, 2007

The problem is not “When business schools start taking ethics seriously, maybe people will stop laughing.”

The problem is PEOPLE. When people start taking ethics seriously; maybe the laughing will stop…maybe.”

I incorporate ethics into both of my courses; a business communications course and a radio reporting course. Many of the kids in my classes not only get through college without an ethics course, but also without ever discussing ethics in other classes. How is that possible? Everything you do requires an ethical judgment sooner or later. Every single course offers opportunities to incorporate ethics. You cannot simply take one class and suddenly have the basis to make ethical judgments or be an ethical person.

In addition, these students need role models, and not just in college. They need them from the moment they are born…and that is obviously not happening. I would never disagree with Terry Price on the three things students need to know, but unless they get to his class with some moral and ethical values to begin with those three simply will not make a difference. And unless everyone teaches moral and ethical values one course will not make a difference.

Richard Baker, Kansas State University, at 9:40 am EDT on June 4, 2007

Ethics vs Profit ...yeah, right

Michael Vocino hits it ... it makes no sense at all to “teach” something within the insulated environs of a classroom when that learning is not reinforced outside the classroom. If we even pay faint homage to the adage “what gets rewarded gets repeated,” then, in a capitalist system, profit -be it individual or organization- certainly supersedes doing the right thing.

And, if we care to debate the merits, where are the examples of ethical behavior rising to the top while money is being made? It seems like every major American institution -from corporate to educational to governmental to religious to social is beleaguered with unethical decision-making under the weight of making money.

What lessons did Enron teach? And how did the government respond ... by jettisoning an entire organization of tens of thousands of people -no, not Enron, but Arther Andersen. And consider the plight of corporate -or government- whistleblowers. Fired ... blackballed ... legal wrangling and costs. Is that the reqrd for heartfelt ethical thinking? Seems so.

If, by the time an individual enters college -let alone an MBA program- s/he is ignorant of or immune to the underpinnings of ethical behavior, I’m not so sure a course in ethics becomes the savior. In fact, it seems absurd that a Business Ethics course even exists. Students should petition against it.

The working business model (live application) is counterintuitive to the instructional model (theory) ... as such, it won’t work.

Michael Chiaradonna, at 9:45 am EDT on June 4, 2007

Response to How To Teach Business Ethics

I agree with Mr. Leonard who notes that morality is distinct from ethics, and our failure to approach them as separate concepts, contributes to the prevailing confusion about ethical decision making. Morality is a moving target. It is a group norm and changes from place to place and from time to time, and as Mr. Leonard points out, moral standards may vary even within members of a uniform group.

Ethics, on the other hand, remains unchanged from place to place and over time. What was an unethical conduct during Romans, is still unethical today, and what is unethical in Saudi Arabia, is also unethical in the United States, and vice versa.

True, some ethical decisions are also moral choices. Nonetheless, there are ethical decisions that cannot be viewed as moral. Firing a father of four from his job on Christmas eve may not be moral, but it could certainly be an ethical decision. We should also remember that ethical does not mean good and unethical does not mean bad.

The author contradicts himself by asserting that students completing a business ethics course will approach moral problems with greater thoughtfulness and intellectual sophistication, and almost immediately claims that not much thoughtfulness and intellectual sophistication are necessary to know that cheating is wrong?

Lastly, an unethical decision is unethical even if everyone does it and an ethical decision is ethical even if no one does it. Fortunately, however, not everyone breaks the rules and not everyone considers monetary gain senior to fulfilling one’s sense of conviction or duty. Given the concentration of wealth and power, I am grateful that we still have one of the most ethical societies of all times and places.

Rubik Atamian, Ph.D. – Associate Professor.

Rubik Atamian, Associate Professor at UTPA, at 7:25 pm EDT on June 4, 2007

Is, I can provide an example of what you’re proposing. Ken Lay once recruited Michael Milken to address a group of Enron executives and managers on the risks of unethical business practices. They laughed and joked about it afterward, though of course not in front of Lay. They wondered why Lay thought “that criminal” had anything worthwhile to say to them.

In a way, their obliviousness to Milken’s Cassandra-like message was entirely justified since Lay, Skilling and Fastow not only continued but accelerated the crimes which destroyed Enron. Enron’s board of directors had suspended its ethics rules to permit Fastow to create all the “special purpose entities", largely owned and controlled by himself, which was Enron’s main method of financial fraud. When the board of directors, the CEO, CFO, and COO of a company ignore both public law and the company’s own ethics rules, no one in the company is likely to take seriously what an ex-convict or any of his victims have to say.

Jack Olson, at 10:45 am EDT on June 5, 2007

Business Ethics Education

I don’t know whether the following excerpt from my recent book will add value (and perspective) to the conversation on this topic, but I offer it in that spirit.

An Excerpt from “Conscience and Three Academies,” Chapter 8 of Conscience and Corporate Culture (Kenneth E. Goodpaster, Blackwell Publishers, 2007)

Teleopathy (“the unbalanced pursuit of objectives”) can manifest itself in the life of the academy as much as in the life of a corporation. This includes, in the present context, business schools. Like corporations, schools as organizations can “forget the purpose of the trip,” becoming fixated on goals far from their original missions. In an effort to cultivate donors, high rankings, or tuition dollars, schools of business (among other professional schools) can actually manifest teleopathy while advertising a curriculum that stands for avoiding it!

When the business academy claims to offer knowledge and skill in a certain professional domain – especially ethics – it is reasonable to ask whether such knowledge and skill should be demonstrated not only in the curriculum, but modeled by the school as an organization made up of faculty, administration, and students. It is also reasonable to measure the effectiveness of ethics education by asking how much business schools are able to “walk their talk” – to evidence their own abilities to live out the managerial virtues that they would foster in their students. The culture of an academic institution is more than just the curriculum of that institution.

An AACSB International task force report is emphatic about the importance of the cultures of business schools:

“Another way students learn about ethical behaviors is through the ethical culture they observe in their respective business schools. Students cannot be expected to internalize the importance of ethics and values unless business schools demonstrate such commitment within their own organizations. This means that business school deans need to think of themselves as ethical leaders who communicate regularly about ethics and values; who model ethical conduct; and who hold community members – faculty, staff, and students – accountable for their actions. Academic policies and systems should clearly be an integral, living part of the school’s culture, and not simply a stack of documents in the file drawer.” [“Ethics Education in Business Schools,” by the Ethics Education Task Force of AACSB International, February 3, 2004.]

Business ethics education can only be effective if it is supported widely by the faculty and administration of the school. Responsibility for ethics in the business curriculum must be borne by the entire business faculty, not outsourced or handled by one or two specialists or “gurus.” The risk associated with outsourcing and with special “gurus” is compartmentalization. Compartmentalization means that ethical issues that arise in other parts of the business curriculum are “referred to the experts,” sending the wrong message to students as future ethical decision makers.

My former Harvard colleague, John B. Matthews, Jr., used to observe that business school faculty carried a powerful “eraser” when it came to the seriousness with which students took ethical considerations in their courses. The work of faculty committed to ethics in management could be “erased” by quips and body language by instructors in certain “tough minded” courses that signaled “softness” or “sentimentality” in ethical business decision making. Students read more than books and case studies in business school – they read the faculty with great attention.

Emphasis on ethics education must come from the school’s leadership, but must also be built into the hiring, promotion, and other incentive systems of the school. Key faculty resources must be identified to model the desired curricular initiatives and search committee criteria must include attention to ethics. Regular audits of faculty can ask how ethics is worked into the various core course syllabi. Student course evaluations can include questions about the degree to which the course addressed the ethical aspects of the subject matter. . .

Just as we remind our students that their management education does not end with a degree or a diploma, we must remind ourselves that education in ethical awareness must continue and be strengthened over time. This means not only that faculty and administrators need continuing education, but also that faculty need to be supported in research and case writing on the ethical aspects of their respective specialties.

If ethics is not woven into the fabric of business education (and I am talking about more than simply the addition of a course), the business academy runs the risk of encouraging (rather than discouraging) teleopathy in its hidden curriculum (the curriculum that often forms the philosophical outlook of the graduates). Schools speak not only by the way in which they make decisions generally – but also by the way in which they design priorities into their curricula. Silence can be an eloquent teacher. Eventually, of course, the business school passes the baton of ethics education to a second academy: the corporation itself. Kenneth E. Goodpaster University of St. Thomas — Opus College of BusinessMinneapolis, MN

Kenneth E. Goodpaster, Professor at University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, MN, at 4:25 pm EDT on June 8, 2007