Although some schools seem to be reinforcing their ethics courses (Standford, Sloan), Business Ethics Magazine mentions a trend that many schools are downgrading or eliminating their ethics courses due to costs pressures, http://www.business-ethics.com/whats_new/bestbizschools.html. So one can wonder if the schools consider it a "nice to have" more than a "need to have" course. It also raises the question of where ethics fits into the curriculum - is there a Maslow type hiarchy of needs ? And under cost pressure they eliminate ethics ? If the schools drop the subject, corporations will have to pick up the slack, and introduce mandatory ethics training for their employees, as Citigroup is doing.
Can you teach ethics? B-schools 'teach entrepreneurialsim' which is an excerise in adverse selection. Entrepreneurs, surely, have already headed out to be entrepreneurial.
Similarly, is ethics something to be taught (like a vocational skill) or is it an introduction to a process of disputation--that is something philosophical?
As I write this I wonder about the ethics of business people I know. And they range from the totally unethical, to those who appear ethical but are in fact simply rule-followers (that is they slavish follow and exploit rules) to the ethical (who may break some rules or not expoit loopholes because they don't seem to be right).
For business folk, don't we just need to teach rule following?
Posted by: azeem | March 07, 2005 at 02:06 PM