Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62201
From Editors the Hot Issues Now If you're lucky enough to live in a city with a Krispy Kreme outlet, you know the joy of driving by a retail site when the "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign is illuminated. Perhaps you often take advantage of this invitation to enjoy a confectionary treat straight from the oven. Some days, however, you might find yourself longing for a different kind of fare designed to satisfy your intellectual hunger. At those times, you might look around for a venue carrying a sign that says, "Hot Issues Now." Some of the hottest issues in management education today revolve around areas of personal responsibility: ethical behavior, environmental stewardship, and corporate social responsibility. While there might be little overlap in the material taught in these classes, at the heart of each course is the idea that top businesspeople have the power to make decisions with far-reaching consequences—and that they'd better think about those consequences before they move ahead with any plan. In this issue of BizEd, several contributors examine the responsibilities business stu- dents will assume as they enter the working world. Krispy Kreme's Scott Liven good discusses how important it is for a CEO to be forthright about company policies—or risk a backlash from concerned consumers. Rick Bunch of the World Resources Institute relates how a handful of Chinese business schools is inculcating values of sus- tainable enterprise into core business courses so that newly minted managers enter the workforce committed to the idea of environmental stewardship. Carolyn Woo of the University of Notre Dame focuses on the ways business schools can teach students a sense of personal responsibility right along with finance and accounting. It turns out that many students are already focused on some of those issues. Years ago, Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, initiated the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility. It states, "I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work." Students who have taken the pledge have turned down job offers that might have compro- mised their moral integrity; others have instituted programs within their own compa- nies to improve environmental stewardship and corporate responsibility. Since 1996, Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana, has coordinated campaign efforts for the pledge, which is now taken by students at hundreds of universities. More information can be found on the Web at www.manchester.edu/ academic/programs/departments/peace_studies/files/gpa.html. Students who take such a pledge of responsibility might be better prepared than most to handle the tricky situations that crop up in any work situation. But some- times moral crises are hard to anticipate or even recognize imme- diately. As Woo notes, "Ethical dilemmas don't come bathed in red lights." But wouldn't it be great if they did—if we were all privy to an electric red sign that occasionally flashed the words "Ethical Dilemma Now"? Since no such sign exists, educators must teach students how to activate their own inner neon and greet the challenges of the corporate world with their integrity glowing at full wattage. ■ z 4 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2003 BILL BASCOM