(Apologies for Cross Posting)
Dear colleagues:
I am writing in response to Pete Madsen’s message on IABS-L, which I have cut and pasted below my signature to this message. I thank Professor Madsen for posting his message and giving many ethics educators an opportunity to respond to some misguided notions conveyed recently in some press outlets.
First of all, I find it interesting that some in the press are conveying a doomsday attitude toward business ethics education when the findings of a 2003 survey of AACSB deans by Professors Fred Evans and Earl Weiss suggest that most business school deans agree that more emphasis should be placed on ethics education. Most CEOs surveyed in this study responded in the same way. Indeed between 73% and 81% of the respondents (deans and CEOs) agreed to some extent with the statement, “A concerted effort by business schools to improve the ethical awareness of students eventually will raise the ethical level of actual business practice.” Moreover, an overwhelming majority of the CEOs, deans, and faculty polled agreed or strongly agreed that an ethics course should be required for all undergraduate and MBA students. This data can be found in our forthcoming book entitled “Advancing Business Ethics Education,” edited by Diane Swanson and Dann Fisher and published by Information Age Publishing as part of the Ethics in Practice Book Series, edited by Robert Giacalone and Carole Jurkiewicz.
My point is that the recurring criticisms of business ethics education seem to be at odds with the beliefs of most business school deans. I would think that critics of ethics coursework would need to come to terms with this discrepancy. Or could it be that they are simply targeting ethics as pretext for bashing business writ large?
To put the issue in perspective, Professor Joseph Petrick notes in another chapter in our book that ethics education is simply a link in a chain of influences on behavior. He observes that it is unreasonable to expect that one single link in this chain of inputs can control behavior by itself. Even so, Petrick demonstrates that it is possible to document statistically significant improvements in business ethics competencies using the “Integrity Capacity Theoretical Model” within a stand-alone, required foundational course that provides a systematic, focused grounding for undergraduate business students in business ethics. If business schools offer only abbreviated ethics modules, as perhaps is the case at Duke University (http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/ile/ILE1/faq.htm), then there is no reason to think that those schools have placed ethics on par with other courses. In such cases, the signal to students that ethics matters is undermined. This seems to be the case at many schools, as the Evans-Weiss survey indicates that only 34% of the undergraduate programs and 25% of the MBA programs require an ethics course, statistics that square roughly with what Bloomberg Press reported in March of 2004.
In our earlier (2002-2003) national campaign to improve business ethics education, neither Professor Bill Frederick nor I nor the hundreds of professors and practitioners who signed onto our campaign claimed that ethics coursework would resolve all ethical dilemmas. Hardly. Similarly, I doubt that organizational scholars would assert that one course in organizational behavior resolves all questionable organizational dynamics! Obviously, students will find themselves in workplace situations where organizational culture, policies, peer pressure, leadership, laws, stakeholder pressures, and other factors influence the nature of ethical dilemmas and possible responses. At least we can send students into the workforce armed with the ability to recognize ethical dilemmas and possible solutions. We can arm them with language and knowledge, just as marketing, leadership, and other behaviorally-based business courses impart language and knowledge to students. And do we place a similar burden of proof on these courses?
For instance, do we expect proof that all business students who take leadership courses become good leaders? We hope that higher education makes a difference, but we do not sabotage most coursework by insisting that students prove altered behaviors as a result. I think that we would have to shut down the university if we put all courses on the defensive in this manner. Universities and colleges are designed to impart conceptual knowledge to learners. We cannot control what happens to students after they leave higher education. We can only hope that we have improved their reasoning processes for the better and that such education is a constructive force in society overall.
One professor, formerly a Business School Dean, states: “To say ethics education has no influence is equivalent to saying that education has no influence. If we give up on ethics education we might as well give up on all education. Is that what the cynics advocate?”
If critics find that they can’t resist casting stones at something, let them consider the words of one of my accounting colleagues who states: “Personally I am tired of the rest of the business college encouraging bad behavior and then pointing fingers at the ethics professors when bad behavior results.” Another accounting professor asks: “And do we say that financial, auditing, and accounting courses are utter failures when over 500 companies had to restate their financial reports in 2005? Therefore do we stop teaching these courses?”
These views are worth considering, in light of the narrowly self-interested, atavistic and amoral model of neoclassical economics that frames or influences much of business education, including agency theory. If pundits must cast stones, they should start with coursework that marginalizes or even opposes ethical considerations in business.
A final point is that absent serious ethics coursework, business schools are not training students to be candidates for the burgeoning job market in ethics compliance and responsibility officers. This is hardly a smart position for supposedly market- oriented business schools.
Sincerely,
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Original message:
Dear Colleagues (Sorry for Cross Postings),
It looks like we business ethicists need to ready ourselves for having failed to save business students from their own ethical lapses. Claims are being made that teaching business ethics courses has not stopped those 34 Duke first-year MBA students from cheating, so it must follow that such courses are failures.
One such item can be found at the Bloomberg site at:
In the NY Times "DealBook" business blog discussion area, one headline reads "Debating the Wisdom of B-School Ethics Courses" at:
-errand/
A blog called "DealBreaker" picks up the theme that business ethics courses are failures at:
Many of us have had to fight to get our foot in the door of academia, especially in business schools. A while back, Bill Frederick and Diane Swanson fought a somewhat losing battle with the AACSB on the issue of ethics requirements in business schools. So, these sorts of issues and criticisms are not at all completely new.
But, given that the latest claim is that business ethics courses are failures, how should we who teach them respond?
Collegially,
Pete Madsen
Distinguished Service Professor for Ethics and Social Responsibility Carnegie Mellon University
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