Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57338
On My Honor Many business schools have instituted honor codes to encourage a shared ethical mindset among their students, faculty, and staff. Representatives from four schools with honor codes weigh in on their effects. B -school cheating was highlighted in a 2006 study by Donald McCabe of Rutgers University, Kenneth Butter- field of Washington State University, and Linda Treviño of Pennsylvania State University, in which they found that more students in MBA programs reported cheating than those in any other discipline. Many business schools have reacted by adopting formally written and distributed honor codes, establishing honor councils, and devising procedures to deal with cheaters in their ranks. But how effective are these honor codes in deterring student cheating and bolstering student ethics? Four authors describe how honor codes have affected their own institutions. Ángel Cabrera, dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Manage- ment in Glendale, Arizona, shares its code and his vision for a professional code of conduct. Blair Sheppard, dean of Duke Uni- versity's Fuqua School of Business in Durham, North Carolina, describes the school's response when a cheating scandal involving 34 Fuqua students was the center of media attention last spring. Beth Ingram, associate dean of the undergraduate program at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, argues that the effectiveness of an honor code is only as good as the community support behind it. And Dawn Morrow, an MBA student at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shares her view as the attorney general of its Graduate Business School Honor Court. While it is impossible to completely eradicate cheating among all students, these authors note two important effects of an honor code. It provides a shared vision to steer students in the right direction. More important, it promotes a culture of honor, where students and faculty agree that it's not enough to avoid wrongdo- ing themselves. They must also speak out when they see others acting dishonorably. 40 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2008