Recent scandals involving accounting firms raise serious concerns about ethical attitudes in the provision of professional tax services. Enhancing the ethics education of prospective tax professionals presents a means through which this situation can be improved. In order to promote such educational development, this study describes the infusion of an ethics intervention in a tax planning course at a university in Hong Kong. Also, the findings of an exploratory survey into theeffect of the course on student attitudes towards the ethicality of tax avoidance and evasion are reported. The findings show that student attitudes towards the ethicality of tax avoidance, but not towards tax evasion, became more critical following the course. Several opportunities for future research are proposed.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) have brought attention to the challenges of business ethics in intercultural settings. A lack of understanding regarding cultural pluralism in business ethics education has motivated some scholars to consider a broader lens, one that recognizes the influence of religion (Spalding and Franks 2012). Management awareness of the similarities and differences that stem from deeply held beliefs is essential, as unstated thoughts and feelings caninfluence starting assumptions, even before ethical decision-making processes begin. If deeply entrenched cultural traditions and religious values remain implicit and/or misunderstood, collaborative efforts may be derailed due to an inadvertent lack of respect and understanding. Because many Westerners remain unfamiliar with Muslim-based beliefs, the authors advance business ethics education by offering an overview of business practices in the Middle East. A modeland exercise are presented as tools to promote awareness of cultural perspectives. This platform for understanding will help adult learners see how their personal origins can shape and influence management thought.

Ethics education in higher education often uses a model that allows students to apply ethical theories to a hypothetical dilemma in order to make a decision. However, it is rare that students directly experience the effects of unethical decision making by others. This paper presents an in-class exercise that provides a concrete experience. The exercise gives students the experience of being the victim of unethical behavior, and subsequently allows them to apply basic ethicaltheories to a real life situation. It is suitable for courses in legal environment of business, ethics, and organizational behavior, at the undergraduate or graduate level. When used in a business ethics class, more emphasis can be placed on developing various ethical constructs. A narrative for how this exercise was used in an undergraduate Legal Environment of Business class is provided, along with a list of other experiential exercises that are available to teach ethics.

In response to recent corporate ethical and financial disasters there has been increased pressure on business schools to improve their teaching of corporate ethics. Accreditation bodies, such as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), now require member institutions to develop the ethical awareness of business students, either through a dedicated subject or an integrated coverage of ethics across the curriculum. This paper describes an institutional approach to the incorporation of a comprehensive multi-disciplinary ethics framework into the business curriculum. We discuss important implications for the assessment of ethics within institutional assurance practices, and address critical issues related to the support of academics whenrequired to incorporate new ethics material within their subject which may be outside their field of expertise. As an example, the successful application of the framework within the marketing discipline is presented and discussed.

This article discusses the use of computer-based simulation games to teach business ethics. The current theory of business ethics simulation games (BESGs) is built on two axioms. The first is that BESGs are best used to teach students ethical principles, and the second is that this is best accomplished by presenting students with ethical dilemmas. This article disputes both of these axioms and proposes new theory. The purpose of BESGs, on the new theory, is to induce in students certain thought processes, not to simulate business situations. According to this new theory, simulation games should be designed to induce in players decision-making processes analogous to those of managers and employees confronted with ethically fraught decisions that have no obvious right or wrong answer. These ethical conundrums involve balancing risks to others and benefits for oneself in the course of ordinary, everyday work. This new theory is illustrated by describing a BESG designed by the author and currently used at several colleges and universities.

This article offers an approach to advance the use of virtue ethics in the training of business managers and leaders, as well as in the education of business students. A thesis is that virtue ethics offers a valuable way to think about how we want to be and what we should strive to become qua businessperson, manager, and leader. The article provides a framework for thinking about virtue ethics in the context of business and leadership, with emphasis on building trust in organizations. It includes a brief summary of Aristotelian virtue ethics, core concepts, and how they apply to management and leadership decision-making. The article concludes with a summary of an approach for teaching a virtue ethics module, which has evolved over the past 20 years. Included are exercises, a survey tool, and a business case as components of the module. The module has been used in corporate training, as well as graduate and undergraduate business education. It is hoped this approach will spur others to explore other ways to bring virtue ethics to business and business education.

Business ethics exists only because people do business—hence applied ethics—and like other forms of applied ethics, it is based on two poles: (ethical) theory and (entrepreneurial) practice. But what is their exact relationship? And what about the role of the case itself, which is always a narrative? Case studies are neither merely practical nor purely theoretical. Education and training as well as academic and popular debate regarding business ethics often involve the use of case studies. This contribution is a hermeneutically oriented exploration of the role case studies play in business ethics training. To that end, I will introduce an interpretative concept Paul Ricoeur developed in his 1986 Du texte à l’action and his 1965 study of Freud De l’interprétation.

Despite the notable roles that the liberal arts and ethics have played in business education, both domains are regarded as educational burdens rather than opportunities for business to improve its role in society. This paper seeks to change the discourse by reconstituting the mostly adversarial relationship between business and the liberal arts. Undertaking this requires the liberal arts to embrace practical education and business to rediscover its foundation in the liberal arts. The improved dialogue between these domains enhances the internal dimension of student learning which refers to delivered content. However, sustaining the degree of interaction necessary to create high quality content greatly depends on external enabling conditions which include faculty attitudes on collaboration and the level of institutional support for initiatives that promote interdisciplinarity. The outcome of this reconceptualization is a relevant, holistic and strongly grounded student educational experience. It also provides the groundwork for an Integrated Business Ethics Education framework that properly reflects the integration of the internal and external aspects of student education.

John Berry, a risk manager for a U.S.-based pharmaceutical firm (Best Co.), is assigned additional responsibilities when his territory is expanded to include the South America region. When an employee in one of Best Co.’s South American manufacturing facilities dies in a work-related incident, John must determine an appropriate response. In a business context that is increasingly global, ethical decisions are further complicated by cultural differences. This case considers thefactors influencing John as he weighs his options on how to resolve this incident. The case further considers how cultural differences coupled with John’s limited cross-cultural sensitivities and personal viewpoint might inevitably skew his judgment. San Luis, the disguised name for this South American locale, is less litigious than John’s home country, the U.S. In light of these differences, the case raises a number of ethical questions. For example, how should an international corporation compensate an employee’s family for the employee’s work-related death – if at all? Are John’s own cultural limitations preventing him from doing the right thing?

This case illustrates the dilemma facing a medium-sized family business, EMME Logistics and Security Agency that wanted to do more for the victims of the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan. About a third of the company’s personnel had family in the hardest hit areas and were anxious to go to find out if their relatives had survived the wreckage caused by the strongest typhoon ever to hit landfall in the Phillipines. Committing the company’s resources to the relief operation would behampered by a damaged infrastructure and the breakdown of civil order. There would also be significant costs associated with disrupting normal business operations and diverting resources. How much humanitarian assistance should businesses shoulder in response to such events? How should businesses better plan for such disasters?

In view of the consequences of the unethical behaviour of accountants as witnessed in the collapse of banks and near collapse of the capital market in Nigeria, the study examined the knowledge, awareness, and perceived importance students attached to accounting ethics education. The curriculum content of the Bachelor of Science degree programme in accounting of the selected federal universities was also examined to assess whether accounting ethics was offered as a standalone course or not. The survey method was used to solicit responses from 113 third and final year accounting students of two Federal Universities in the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The result of the independent samples t-test conducted showed no difference in the importance attached to accounting ethics education by the respondents. Also, results indicate that some students are aware of accounting ethics as part of an auditing course but more than half of the sampled population of students got the knowledge elsewhere other than the classroom. The results also suggest that the teaching of accounting ethics has potentials of producing ethically sensitive future accountants for the Nigerian economy. The paper, therefore, recommends that accounting ethics should be taught as a separate course unit at an appropriate level of the Bachelor’s degree programme, preferably from the first year of entry. This would go a long way in preparing them on how to respond to ethical dilemmas in the future.

The total number of international migrants has increased significantly in the last 10 years such that people are faced with various ethical situations in their new host country, which challenge their previous moral philosophies. Studies have found that culture is one of the most important variables influencing ethical decision-making. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of self-concept (i.e. independent and interdependent) and cultural intelligence on consumer ethics in two cultures, Australia and Indonesia. With a total sample of 1,142 respondents, the analyses showed that the interdependent self-concept influenced all dimensions of consumer ethics while cultural intelligence had an effect on attitudes toward “recycling” and “doing good” toward others. The findings have important implications for businesses, marketers, and policymakers to develop better strategies to include consumers’ ethical characteristics.

This article reports an experimental study aimed at evaluating the change of cognitive processes in ethical decision making before and after business ethics training. An experimental design (Solomon Four-Group Design) was used to test the effectiveness of the training within a German university undergraduate business-oriented student sample. The cognitive processes in decision making (implicit and explicit moral attitudes, selective attention, moral awareness, moral judgment, moral intention, and moral behavior) were measured by using different direct instruments (e.g. questionnaire items for moral judgments and explicit moral attitude scales) as well as indirect measures such as eye-tracking and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The study yielded mixed results. On the one hand, significant changes in explicit attitudes, moral awareness, moral judgments, moral intention, and moral behavior in the pre-post-measurements of the training group have been revealed. On the other hand, there were no significant differences between the pre-post-measurements of the first training and control group as well as between the posttest-only-measures of the second training and control group. In addition, the implicit measures did not show any significant training effect. Implications with an emphasis on methodological aspects for future research on business ethics training are discussed.

Accounting fraud and workplace misconduct has had dramatic economic and societal effects. Research suggests that most observations of workplace misconduct go unreported. We suggest that before graduating from an accounting program, students should be exposed to ethics interventions that prepare them to deal with whistleblowing situations they may encounter as future accounting professionals. This study finds that an ethics intervention increases students’ understanding of how accountants have manipulated information to complete an accounting fraud and increases their understanding of whistleblowing, its consequences, and protections for whistleblowers under the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Further, this study finds that an ethics intervention not only increases the students’ level of ethical sensitivity and judgment, but also positively impacts the likelihood that an accounting student would intend to blow the whistle for situations involving accounting manipulations. This study also provides empirical evidence that analyzing cases and participating in class discussions are effective ways of meeting specific course goals related to whistleblowing.

With the excessive emphasis that modern PhD training places on the epistemological contribution of the thesis, a question that arises is: do PhD programmes help PhD students achieve philosophia – “love of wisdom”, or do the programmes just facilitate deepening and developing students’ knowledge? This paper challenges the modern approach to PhD training and by extension all academic research, and considers phronesiology, a wisdom-based approach to research design, to add value to traditional epistemic methodologies. In illustration, we use phronesiology and social practice wisdom principles to reflect on the merits of a recently completed empirical study of wise managerial decision-making. Through a reflective analysis, this paper demonstrates that phronesiology not only allows for contributions to knowledge, but can, as a matter of principle and choice, also increase research practitioner wisdom. In doing so, this may enable researchers to implement better and more comprehensive intellectual and practical outcomes that deal effectively with the economic, social, political, and environmental complexities of the contemporary world. Further, we argue that such a wisdom approach is more “practical” than further instrumentalizing PhD training. The paper offers a series of phronetic reflective questions for PhD researchers in social sciences, especially in organizational and management fields, to consider when designing and carrying out research.

This study provides a comparison of thinking style and ethical decision-making patterns between 386 U.S. students and 506 students from the People’s Republic of China enrolled in undergraduate business education in their respective countries. Contrary to our expectations, the Chinese students demonstrated a significantly greater linear thinking style compared to American students. As hypothesized, both Chinese and U.S. students possessing a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style profile demonstrated greater ethical intent across a series of ethics vignettes. Chinese students also were more likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale, an ethical philosophy that in practice may violate government regulations or social rules to benefit one’s family instead of society for explaining their decisions across the vignettes. We conclude with a discussion of important theoretical as well as practical and potential future implications based on this comparative study.

Ethics researchers focus on moral awareness as a precursor to ethical decision making, but they pay little attention to framing processes that precede moral awareness. This study addresses this gap in the literature to examine how a student entrepreneur starting a venture while completing an assignment frames issues and how these frames affect moral awareness (i.e., whether or not the entrepreneur considers ethical dimensions). Framing does not occur in isolation but is part of a sensemaking process involving others. Using a single case study method, we capture an entrepreneur’s framing process over time as the new venture emerges and our data reveals frames that may preclude consideration of ethical dimensions, including some frames developed and reinforced through entrepreneurship education. We make a contribution to the entrepreneurship education literature by suggesting ways to incorporate ethics into entrepreneurship courses.

A prisoner community outreach program, in which businesspeople and college business students have conversations with current white-collar inmates, has shown to be an effective tool in helping students and businesspeople realize the consequences of unethical behavior and breaking the law. A prisoner community awareness program is described and used as an example of how the practical application of positive principles can promote and empower ethical behavior, moral courage, and virtuousness. Audience’s reactions to this technique were positive, with listeners reporting heightened awareness and saliency of ethical and legal issues in business as well as a positive influence on their inclinations towards being an ethical member of society and businessperson.

We describe the project narrative and resulting case studies as an example of a successful engagement in business ethics education for two reasons: 1) to present an example of a pedagogical approach that engages business students in thoughtful research and consideration of complex ethical issues through a case writing exercise in collaboration with faculty, and 2) to provide three new cases and teaching notes suitable for use in multidisciplinary courses. We present a description of our experience along with the fruits of our project—three new case studies accompanied by analyses and teaching notes—with the hope that other faculty will find the pedagogical approach inspiring and the cases stimulating and teachable. A group of undergraduate business students working with faculty members and practitioners helped research and write case studies on topics of the students’ choosing. The resulting case studies and teaching notes can be shared with faculty from diverse business disciplines who can readily incorporate them into their curricula. The pedagogical approach of collaborative research and writing offers an example of engaged student learning and hands-on teaching for other scholars and instructors.

Based on a survey of deans and marketing department chairs, this study explores the business and marketing curriculum in the areas of ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability. The findings indicate that there was limited support for providing students with an understanding of these topics, in believing the concepts provide a competitive advantage in the job market, or would be utilized by students at a later point in their education. Finally, the value placed on research in these areas was considerably less than on theory development or applied and pedagogical research.