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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-18/ethics-in-the-real-world-kant-cant-help-but-heres-what-does

Ethics: In the Real World, Kant Can't Help(but Here's What Does)By Kabrina ChangDecember 18, 2013

Every decade or so, scandals rock the business world and revive a long-running debate about the place of

ethics in the business school curriculum. On one side stand advocates for greater attention to ethics in

management education. On the other side are skeptics who say that ethics cant be taught; businesspeople

facing ethical dilemmas arent likely to draw on some long-ago class for guidance; and no amount of exposureto the subject will deter future Bernie Madoffs.

I am a professor of business ethics, and I agree with the skeptics on those charges. But the response to their

objections should not be to neglect or abandon ethics in management education but to take a more

comprehensive approachinfocus, scope, and ultimate goalsand integrate ethics with the institutions

mission and the entire curriculum.

Our focus at Boston University School of Managementis not to provide the final word on right and wrong.

Nor are we trying to turn students into moral philosophers, though they are exposed to the major schools of

ethical reasoning from Aristotleto Kantto Jeremey Benthamand John Rawls. What we are trying to do isprovide undergraduate and graduate students with ethical frameworks they can use in decision-makingthe

tools needed to recognize and consider the ethical dimensions of decisionsjust as we provide them with the

tools for doing strategy or finance.

The first management class all undergraduates must take is Business, Society, and Ethics, where they initially

encounter ethical frameworks in the context of global management and the complicated analysis necessary for

making appropriate decisions. An ethical framework is a decision-making model. For example, Benthams

Utilitarianismtells us to make decisions that benefit the greatest good.

We are looking at how best to integrate ethics into all required courses. Specific business disciplines will

immerse students in the kinds of dilemmas that are likely to arise. For example, in marketing classes students

maybe asked to decide how to market a snack product for children as all-natural when it is actually not

healthy because it is high in sugar. Though many professors have explored ethics in these classes, the

approach has been uncoordinated. We believe that the consistency provided by common decision-making

tools and language will create an indelible educational experience.

In the senior year, a final course in Strategy and Policy will integrate ethics in decision-making with skills in

creating business strategy, teaching students how to serve the needs of shareholders, as well as other

stakeholders inside and outside the company. This course will give us the opportunity to assess theeffectiveness of our approach and revisit some of the problems students tackled their freshman year, applying

the theories they have been studying for four years.

Students in the MBA program will experience a comparable immersion in ethics with real-world experience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iygKLQsinUhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotlehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Benthamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawlshttp://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/bostonu.htmlhttp://www.businessweek.com/authors/54530-kabrina-changhttp://www.businessweek.com/business-schoolshttp://www.businessweek.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iygKLQsinUhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawlshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Benthamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotlehttp://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/bostonu.htmlhttp://www.businessweek.com/authors/54530-kabrina-changhttp://www.businessweek.com/business-schoolshttp://www.businessweek.com/

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that includes a public service project.

Our goals are twofold:

We want to prepare each student for the world of work, where the reality is that good people often get

pressured into doing things they shouldnt, or they fail to take the ethical dimension fully into account,

including its contribution to the health of the business. Our approach isnt intended to turn these future

managers into moralists. (Immanuel Kant isnt likely to be much help in a difficult situation with a superior.)Rather, we want to give students practical techniques for resisting pressurethe ability to mount compelling

business-based counterarguments to courses of action they recognize as ethically dubious.

We also want students to see ethics in decision-making not merely as a matter of avoiding malfeasance but

in the positive context of creating value in the businesses, communities, and the world in which they work. Its

easy to tell cautionary tales about spectacular misdeeds, but the larger aim of ethics in management education

is to produce leaders who will be better able to meet the challenges facing the world, its organizations, and its

people because as students they learned how to practice socially responsible leadership.

Chang leads the Ethics Undergraduate Program and is assistant professor of Business Law at BostonUniversity School of Management.

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