“The Nature and Scope of

Business Ethics”
Robert Pitts, Dean-College of Business
Creighton University
O.C. Ferrell, Chair-Marketing Department
Colorado State University
Linda Ferrell, Assistant Professor Marketing
University of Wyoming
AACSB International Conference,
Montreal 2004

What is business ethics?

(a managerial perspective)
• defining appropriate behavior
• establishing organizational values
• nurturing individual responsibility
• providing leadership & oversight
• relating decisions to stakeholder interests
• developing accountability
• relating consequences
• auditing & improvement
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How to support ethical decision

making in the organization?
• culture, values & programs
• compliance & leadership
• recognition of the role of co-workers &
managers
• balancing stakeholder interests
• management of situational pressures
• rewards beyond short-term performance
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 What are Colleges of Business
doing?
• maintaining the status quo
• encouraging faculty to use their own
discretion in integrating ethics
• ‘outsourcing’ ethics education to liberal arts
• developing stand alone courses
– business ethics, marketing ethics,
accounting & financial ethics, human
resource ethics, etc.
• forcing the topic
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& society, environmental courses, etc.

Issues in defining the nature of

business ethics...
• individual character
– religion
• personal moral development
– philosophy
• legal & regulatory concerns
– Sarbanes-Oxley Act, FSGO, etc.
• ‘issue’ focused vs. ‘framework’ focused
• integrated, managerial program tied to
organizational goals & objectives
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Montreal 2004

How to support business ethics

education...
• take responsibility for a comprehensive plan that
includes programs & education for faculty & students
– individual faculty integration with no
comprehensive plan will fail
• make sure that plans & programs are highly visible &
supported by the Dean
• obtain adequate resources to support business ethics
initiatives
• partnering with business to define appropriate
integration & courses
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 What to do if you have no ‘resident
experts’-available resources...
• invite guest speakers & experts who have developed
successful programs
• send faculty &/or administrators to the
AACSB “Teaching Business Ethics Conference”
– Boulder, CO (July 21-23, 2004)
• acquaint faculty with resources such as the
Wall Street Journal weekly business ethics reviews
• AACSB “Ethics Education Resource Center”
– www.aacsb.edu/eerc

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A Review of 286 AACSB

Member Schools Reveals...
• Ethics in mission statements:
• 59.4% no reference
• 23.1% reference importance of ethics in mission
statement, yet do not require a course
• smaller schools more likely to address issue than
larger colleges & universities
• Required ethics course(s):
• 40.6% (overall) require an ethics course
– 68% of private
– 30% public
• Source: Cheryl L. Buff and Virginia Yonkers “A Study of Ethics in Mission
Statements and Curriculum of AACSB Undergraduate Marketing
Programs,” working paper, Siena College.

AACSB Ethics Education

Resource Center
• Mission:
– the Ethics Education Resource Center is a
comprehensive source for information, tools, &
discussion about ethics education in business schools.
• Objectives:
• improve ethics education in
business schools
• assist management educators to
achieve business ethics
education objectives
f ilit t di i li d

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Themes in Business Ethics
• consistent with the preliminary report of the
AACSB International Ethics Education Task
Force, the four broad themes described below
should inform ethics education in business
programs:
– responsibility of business in society
– ethical decision making
– ethical leadership
– corporate AACSB
governance
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Challenges in Teaching
Business Ethics
• business school leaders must be aware of several
important obstacles to enhancing their
commitment to business ethics:
– business ethics is often “squeezed out” of
the core & is not fully represented in the
curriculum development process
– faculty members trained in traditional
business disciplines often feel they lack the
training & expertise
– different cultural & historical
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make it difficult to define & teach business

Tools…
• Cases & Exercises
• Current Textbooks
• Samples:
• » Curricula
• » Learning goals related to ethics
• » Course syllabi:
• Business Ethics
• Marketing Ethics
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 Reading Lists…
• auditing
• corporate governance
• corporate social responsibility
• ethical decision making models
• ethics & profitability
• leadership & organizational culture
• legal & regulatory issues
• stakeholder issues
• teaching business ethics
• text books
• trade books AACSB International Conference,
Montreal 2004

Links...
• University Based Ethics Resources
• Government & Regulatory Ethics Resources
• Global Ethics Resources
• Miscellaneous Ethics Resources
• Company-Specific Ethics Resources:
• Airtran
• Bell South
• Ben and Jerry’s
• Guardsmark
• Texas Instruments
• Starbucks
• Price Waterhouse
• HCA Healthcare AACSB International Conference,
Montreal 2004

Professional Development
• AACSB Teaching Business Ethics Conference
– Boulder, CO-July 21-23, 2004
• Designed for business professors and program directors, this conference
brings together experts in business ethics to assist in developing and
implementing effective ethics educational programs. The conference
will facilitate the exchange of ideas about how to incorporate business
ethics into the curriculum and will include panel sessions and roundtable
discussions dealing with specific topics such as business ethics teaching
resources (cases, simulations, exercises, and videos), frameworks and
approaches, and challenges related to implementation.
• Co-Chairs: O.C. Ferrell, Colorado State University
• Robert Kolb, University of Colorado-Boulder
• Linda Ferrell, UniversityAACSB
of Wyoming
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