There are questions about how ethics is best taught to undergraduate business students. There has been a proliferation in the number of stand-alone ethics courses for undergraduate students but research on the effectiveness of integrated versus stand-alone mode of delivery is inconclusive. Christensen et al. :347–368, 2007), in a comprehensive review of ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainability education, investigated how ethics education has changed over the last 20 years, including the issue of integration of these topics into the core (...) course offerings. We use Brenner and Molander’s :57–71, 1977) situational ethics survey instrument to examine the effect of the mode of delivery of business ethics education on undergraduate student responses. We found a significant difference on mode of delivery. Studies have also found interesting results in respect of the effect of cultural differences and gender on the effectiveness of business ethics instruction. While not the primary focus of this study, we also looked at the influence of gender and culture on students’ responses. Our results indicate significant differences in respect of mode of delivery and culture. In contrast to other studies, we found that gender was not significant. We did test for any interactive effects of gender, culture and mode of delivery. However, no significant differences were found. (shrink)

This paper combines a review of existing literature in the field of business ethics education and a case study relating to the integration of ethics into an undergraduate degree. Prior to any discussion relating to the integration of ethics into the business curriculum, we need to be cognisant of, and prepared for, the arguments raised by sceptics in both the business and academic environments, in regard to the teaching of ethics. Having laid this foundation, the paper moves to practical questions (...) such as who should teach ethics, and when and how can ethics be taught. The paper presents alternative models for the teaching of ethics in the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate business programmes. An integrative model is elaborated on in more detail with a case example describing the six-stage process undertaken in the move from a single entry course to an integrated approach. The case study details not only the planning and initial implementation of ethical education in the context of an undergraduate business degree programme, but also the means by which a change in the way that ethics is taught was achieved in a business faculty in a tertiary institution. (shrink)

This paper combines a review of existing literature in the field of business ethics education and a case study relating to the integration of ethics into an undergraduate degree. Prior to any discussion relating to the integration of ethics into the business curriculum, we need to be cognisant of, and prepared for, the arguments raised by sceptics in both the business and academic environments, in regard to the teaching of ethics. Having laid this foundation, the paper moves to practical questions (...) such as who should teach ethics, and when and how can ethics be taught. The paper presents alternative models for the teaching of ethics in the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate business programmes. An integrative model is elaborated on in more detail with a case example describing the six-stage process undertaken in the move from a single entry course to an integrated approach. The case study details not only the planning and initial implementation of ethical education in the context of an undergraduate business degree programme, but also the means by which a change in the way that ethics is taught was achieved in a business faculty in a tertiary institution. (shrink)

This report includes 1) the previously unpublished findings of a current study about the teaching of ethics at leading English-speaking institutions in the Pacific region, 2) a comparison of those findings with a companion study conducted at leading institutions in the Atlantic region in 2008, and 3) the aggregate findings of the two studies considered as parts of a single research project. The purpose of the research was to determine how ethics is taught at selected leading English-speaking institutions of higher (...) education, the challenges their ethics teachers and students face, how individual faculty members enhance their ethics teaching effectiveness over time, in what senses of the word “ethics” can ethics be successfully taught, what types of creative pedagogical tools have these faculty developed, whether the ethics professor should “take a stand” or be “unbiased,” and related questions. In both studies most participants stated that a passion for the subject matter, for teaching, and for assisting students was more important than new technologies, teacher training, teaching video recordings, and working with mentors. (shrink)

Students were given an assignment to explore the field of applied ethics in the Netherlands as part of the master’s program in applied ethics at Utrecht University. This assignment had two educational purposes: to see how the students would explore such a new field and the perspectives on ethics and ethical expertise that arose as a result of this exploration, and to determine what applied ethicists think about the methods used in their field. We found that students used diverse methods (...) to explore this field, and the success of those methods depended mainly on their own methodological skills. We also observed that, even though different methods are clearly being used in the various subfields of applied ethics, a simple high-theory approach was not embraced, and there was a great deal of overlap in the type of methodologies that are used in the subfields of applied ethics. (shrink)