Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63428
YourTurn Back to the Business of Ethics In the wake of the recent corporate meltdowns of Enron, WorldCom, Xerox, and others, the media have had a field day interviewing business school deans. They want to know why America's corporate elite are challenged in mak- ing conscionable decisions on behalf of their employees and sharehold- ers—and if business schools are reassessing their approach to educat- ing the leaders still in the pipeline. If history is a guide, this newfound interest will trigger a new round of business ethics classes. But will they really do any good? In 1993 Harvard Business School published a thin volume called Can Ethics Be Taught? Professors Tom Piper, Mary Gentile, and Sharon Parks interviewed business school faculty and students on the rele- vance of ethics to business curricula. The students interviewed suggested that if ethics didn't come up in reg- ular business classes, it must not be important in the broader business world. The faculty, roiled by the Wall Street scandals of the 1980s, voiced a now familiar refrain: How can a graduate business curriculum shape the morality of students who, at an average age of 26, already have a well developed sense of right and wrong? The researchers concluded that the way to convey business ethics effectively was to bridge from the ethics classroom into general busi- ness decision models taught in the core curriculum. Ironically, that's the same conclusion brought to mind by these latest debacles. The business deans interviewed by the press today, though they vary in the 58 BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 by Judith Samuelson ness leaders. It proves that attitudes are shaped during the course of an MBA—but, unfortunately, not in the direction of a higher ethical plane. MBA students make it clear that if specifics, voice a common theme: Entering MBA students are too old to be influenced as to their funda- mental sense of morality. David Messick, ethics professor at teaching on the wider responsibilities of business is to stick, it better get out of the ethics classroom and into the courses that matter in the MBA hierarchy—strategy, risk manage- ment, finance, accounting. Comm on sense? You bet. Along the same lines, the authors of Can Ethics Be Taught? conclude that the most effective way to convey business ethics is to build a bridge from ethics classes to business decision models taught in the core curriculum. So what's a business school dean to do? The ISIB research suggests the following: Northwestern's preeminent Kellogg Business School, suggested in an interview with Crain's Chicago Business, "The average age [of an MBA student] is 28 to 30," he says. "Their character is largely formed by the time they get here. If they don't have a sound moral compass, noth- ing I teach in a ten-week course is going to embed one there." But Dr. Messick and his colleagues are only half right, according to new research on how the attitudes of MBA students are shaped as they pursue the degree. The research was conducted by the Initiative for Social Innovation through Business (ISIB) of the Aspen Institute and is based on the responses of more than 1,000 MBA students at 13 schools in North America and Europe— including Kellogg. It was designed to measure the influence an MBA has on attitudes about the roles and responsibilities of business and busi- the faculty—all the faculty—in talk- ing about what they can contribute individually to the debate over the role and responsibility of the firm. Don't leave it in the ethics class- room. Instead bring the ethics teacher into finance and accounting courses. Ethics courses, billed as such and required for graduation, are at best marginalized and at worst, resented; furthermore, a voluntary ethics class only reaches the choir. If ethics isn't anchored in business real- ity, it won't sell. Today's students know it's not critical to their future success—or to the immediate chal- ■ Put ethics where it counts. Engage Students understand that dozens, if not hundreds, of employees, bankers, accountants, analysts, and business writers knew what was going on at Enron. They assume they will be asked to compromise their values in the workplace, but lenge of finding a job. ■ Offer "values assertiveness" training.