Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58060
them. This method will give stu- dents useful tools while reinforcing the vital point that doing the right thing matters. Involve students in the process. Anoth- er critical finding in the study is that honor codes help build and reinforce honesty among students. I serve as dean at a university that I also attended as an undergraduate, and it has had a student-run honor court for more than 100 years. Although I can't cite statistics to demonstrate that this has substantially reduced instances of impropriety, I have no doubt that it has. When students are heavily involved in developing and enforcing rules against cheating, they take ownership of the process and show even less tolerance for bad behavior than the faculty or admin- istration. I believe that this emphasis on integrity carries over into later life as well. Help corporations avoid hiring cheaters. Having spent 30 years in the busi- ness world, and half of that time outside the U.S., I do not believe any business in the world wants to hire MBAs who bend the rules or engage in sleazy practices. Business schools that educate students in ethical approaches and attitudes will gain a competitive edge in placing their graduates. I urge business schools to take a specific approach when dealing with corporate recruiters and partners. Ask them to require all applicants to disclose any honor court convic- tions or sanctions meted out to them during their MBA studies. Federal privacy laws bar schools from sharing this information with recruiters, but nothing prevents prospective employers from requir- ing students to allow their school to release it as a condition to interviewing or hiring. Although transgressions should be assessed on an individual basis, if I were a corporate recruiter, I would adopt a virtually no-exclusions presumption that I would not hire students who cheated in graduate school. Few steps would do more to reinforce the importance of integrity among our students than for corporations to join business schools as partners in this initiative. Don't accept contributions from cor- porate cheats. If business schools are to serve as role models for students about to enter the corporate world, we must avoid hypocrisy. One way to do this is to refuse tainted money, especially from any company or any person who has been disgraced in the public eye and who might be attempting to buy respectability through large donations. Of course, this is an easier policy to propose in the abstract than to practice in a concrete fashion. For example, companies in the middle of a heated labor dispute might be somewhat controversial, but I would not con- sider them as disgraced as companies discredited by a true scandal. None- theless, in a realm where symbolic steps can play an important role in affecting perceptions, business schools ought to be in the forefront of taking a principled stand. As business schools, we can adapt the famous principle attributed to Hippocrates and taught to doctors. Primum non nocere is translated as "First, do no harm." We should teach our students a slightly dif- ferent version: Prima honestas, or "First, act with integrity." ■ z Steve Jones is dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2007 69