By 2007, 127 universities had obtained permission from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China to run MBA programs. To gain a thorough understanding of the status of business ethics education in MBA programs in China, we conducted a national survey. This survey was begun in October 2006 and concluded in December 2007. Our goal in conducting this survey was twofold. We wanted to understand, first, the extent of business ethics teaching currentlybeing offered in MBA programs, and second, the prospects for the development of business ethics teaching in the near term. Our survey results show that business ethics instruction is presently offered on a limited scale, and there are constraints impacting business ethics education. However, we also discovered that future prospects for business ethics teaching are promising.

This paper discusses the introduction of a short ethics component into a first-year undergraduate accounting information systems course at a UK university. The influence of this ethics component on students’ ethical perceptions—where ethical perceptions are represented by the extent to which students’ conclusions regarding unethical actions coincide with those of experts in the field—is then assessed using computer-based scenarios to represent seven categories of ethicalnorms. The ethical perceptions in each of the scenarios are then statistically compared between two groups of students, namely those who have studied the ethics component and those who have not. Results indicate no significant difference in ethical perceptions between the two groups across all of the ethical norms. Possible explanations for this result are discussed and implications for future ethics teaching are considered.

The Deck Romania case is intended for MBA and Executive Education programs and focuses on the ‘gritty’ aspects of business in emerging market countries. It is particularly powerful in combining traditional managerial concerns like emerging market strategy and global supplier relationships with the larger challenges of cross-cultural and country differences in the conduct of business. Deck is a U.S.-based automotive supplier and part of a joint venture in Romania. In October 2006 the JV needed to expand to meet the needs of one of its major global customers, Renault. The investment would be to support Renault-Dacia’s highly successful new world car, the Logan. But the question of expansion reveals that the JV does not meet many of Deck’s global manufacturing and business practice criteria. Deck’s dilemma is how to respond to the pressure from its global customer to make a substantial investment in a small market that may not meet financial or business practice expectations.

“Assessment of learning” is a key phrase well known to all quality business schools. This paper presents a detailed description of the processes undertaken by one university’s school of business to assess its ethics education learning environment with respect to internal values and goals, AACSB standards and expectations, and best practices established by external entities. This paper shows that generous resources are not the sine qua non of quality ethics instruction. There are many steps that cost virtually nothing, beyond focused effort, that a school can take to improve the quality of ethics instruction. This paper provides guidance and lessons learned for those who may be undertaking an extended review of ethics instruction. Many elements of this framework also may be adapted to a similar analysis in other competency areas.

A study was done with incoming freshmen, sophomore, senior, and graduate business students (n = 185) to assess the effects of moral development, gender, education level, and context on the moral choices in a simulated business situation, a potential hostile takeover of a fictional company. The results indicated that level of moral development did affect the decisions of students; however, main effects for gender, the level of education, and context were not significant. Theresults did find significant interaction effects between context and moral development and gender and moral development. Students with lower levels of moral development were less likely to consider the contextual situation when making their decisions. The effect of moral development was more pronounced for female business students than for male business students. The implications of these results for ethics education in business schools are discussed.

The discussion of ethics, corporate responsibility and its educational dimensions focuses primarily on CSR, corporate citizenship and philanthropic theory and practise. The partnership between Microsoft Corporation and UNHCR was launched to help the victims of the Kosovo crisis, at the same time as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gained momentum, and in particular, at the same time as Microsoft experienced a decrease in stock value. This case study sheds light on a decade of Microsoft Corp. efforts to align business objectives with refugee aid, by use of corporate expertise and company revenues. As a leader in technology and corporate citizenship, can Microsoft bridge the digital divide for the disadvantaged and arouse the unlimited potential of tomorrow’s leaders, as the company claims in its communications? Is the partnership beneficial to UNHCR, in line with corporate objectives of “doing big things” and “doing good”?

In discussing the $1 trillion bailout of the U.S. Financial Institutions, virtually every Member of Congress and almost every government official—including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Obama—has blamed the crisis on the “greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street”. Almost all of the financial executives involved in the crisis, from CEOs to middle managers, are products of our business schools. Additionally, there is a high correlation between the recentunethical behavior of a number of multinational corporations and the number of MBA holders in their top ranks. As a consequence, many critics are convinced that there is something wrong with our business schools. This paper presents the causes and consequences of what ails business school students and graduates today: the toxic teaching of bad management theories. These theories—grounded in the assumptions of economics—include determinism and materialism, the cult of profit maximization and a pessimistic view of human nature as totally self-interested. By teaching these theories, business schools are inculcating values of materialism and greed that create a life-long pursuit of money and status. This makes it all too easy for business managers to choose expediency and short-term profits over ethical behavior. Further, these materialistic values create higher levels of depression, anxiety and psychological disorders as well as make our students less cooperative and more anti-social as individuals long after they leave academia.

Meaningful work is an important but under-represented topic in the business ethics and management curriculum. One definition of meaningful work is that it enables self-realization and service to others while fitting what the market demands. This paper provides an outline for thinking about meaningful work by exploring the evolution of and conclusions from a teaching exercise on meaningful work.

In their prevailing conceptions, business is interested, whereas the humanities provoke disinterested attention in value for its own sake. Applying Danto’s and/as/of structure to Freeman’s documentary film, Leadership and Theater, this paper outlines the business of the humanities (economic value), depicts the value of the humanities to business ethics education (ethical value), and asks how cultivating an attitude of business as a humanity (aesthetic value) might influence our students’ views of business and business ethics. Regarding business disinterestedly could mean challenging whether interestedness is an essential characteristic of business. The humanities can cultivate an appreciation for what is valuable in itself, in spite of the potential absence of measurableeconomic value.

This case study highlights some of the latest research on setting executive compensation at ethical levels. The board of directors of Spade’s, a mid-size U.S. hardware chain, considers altering the pay package of its incoming CEO to best align his interests with those of shareholders and stakeholders. Students are invited to consider various options on current trends, which seem attractive and convincing on the surface, but might present certain risks over the longer term. Five compensation components are analyzed, namely, salary capping, pay for performance, bonus scales, stock option parameters, and severance package.

This paper explored the linkages among moral imagination, systems understanding, and aesthetic sensibility as related to the emergence (eventually) of wisdom. I develop a conceptual framework that links these capacities to wisdom through the capacity to “see” moral and ethical issues, which I argue is related to “the good”, to see a realistic understanding of systems in which the observer is embedded, or “the true”, and to appreciate the aesthetic qualities associated with a system or situation, or “the beautiful”. The relationship between the good, the true, and the beautiful is used to argue that all three types of seeing are building blocks for achievement of wisdom. The paper then briefly explores some of the ways that these capacities can potentially be incorporated into the classroom.

This paper analyses the study plans and programmes offered in Spain to present and future businesspeople and executives in the academic year 2009-10. These offerings represent business administration studies in all Spanish universities, as well as postgraduate programmes taught by the universities themselves and/or other business schools. This is of special relevance because there are few data for assessing how our executives are trained, even though such data areessential to any attempt to improve corporate performance. Clearly, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and other core courses related to sustainability can and should contribute to this end. But the actual results are not very promising: these essential courses are offered in a minority of postgraduate programmes, and they barely exist at the undergraduate level. We consider it long overdue that academic institutions explore the inherent value of this type of training and seriously reconsider alternative course planning for their students.

This three-case series examines the dilemma that faced the Japanese company Snow Brand Milk Products (SBM) as it confronted the task of rebuilding and revitalization after a series of scandals, many self-induced, had threatened the company’s future. The A case begins in spring 2002 when leading consumer activist Nobuko Hiwasa was invited to join Snow Brand’s board of directors. The CEO wanted her to assist in SBM’s revitalization efforts, which were beingimplemented in the wake of two recent scandals—contaminated milk and beef mislabeling—that had almost brought down the venerable company. Hiwasa was ambivalent about taking on this Herculean task. Was the company sincere in wanting to reform and revitalize? Would the board take her seriously? Was her presence to be mere publicity-driven window dressing? How would fellow consumer advocates view her if she accepted the position? This case details the history of Snow Brand Milk Products and the missteps and scandals that plagued it in the 1990s and early part of the decade that followed, and includes Hiwasa’s decision-making process as she considers whether to join the board of a company that has been badly tainted by scandal.