Business Schools and Training

On this page

• American Business Professor Claims U.S. MBA Programs Outdated
• US Ethics Institute Issues Recommendations for Ethical MBA Program
• Tuck International Forum: Confronting Corruption in International Business
• Ethics Education at FT Top 50 Business Schools
• New Yale Corporate Governance Center
• Stanford Corporate Governance Center
• Darden Business School - University of Virginia
• Business Schools Receive Only a C+ in Ethics
  
  
  
  

* * *

American Business Professor Claims U.S. MBA Programs Outdated

Ethics and CSR courses still not given serious attention

An article in BusinessWeek highlighted a new survey conducted by Peter Navarro, a business professor at the University of California at Irvine.  Based on five criteria, which he says are the generally accepted key components of a competitive business program, U.S. business curriculums are not matching up.

The five components he mentions are:

1. Focus on integrative and multidisciplinary problem solving
2. Implement experiential learning techniques
3. Build new leaders by emphasizing “soft skills”
4. Be global in perspective
5. Structure courses on ethics and corporate social responsibility in core curriculum

A table from the survey highlights the main findings:

Overall, Navarro said based on his own research...

• A focus on soft skill development, corporate social responsibility, and a global perspective is seriously lacking. 
  
  
• Only 40 percent of the Top 50 U.S. business schools have a stand-alone ethics course. 
  
  
• Two-thirds subscribe to what he calls “cookie-cutter” curriculums.
  
  

Some barriers to reform Navarro mentions are that multidisciplinary teaching is difficult when professors themselves are overly specialized and that high institutional barriers encourage research rather than attention on classroom pedagogy.   Some of his recommendations include bringing more technology into the classroom, adopting a strong dean model that would encourage curriculum reform and creating incentives for business schools to focus more on the classroom.

The full report was originally published in the journal for the Academy of Management Learning and Education and is available to members only.

Posted 4/28/08

Back To Top

* * *

US Ethics Institute Recommends Best Practices for Implementing an Ethical MBA Program

The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, a US organization founded in part by an association of large multinational companies and other US academic institutions, has developed a report based on the collective input from business leaders and academics on how to develop a model business ethics program.  The report, “Shaping Tomorrow’s Leaders: Principles and Practices for a Model Business Ethics Program,” accepts the idea that ethics are integral to MBA programs and focuses on how these programs can keep pace with the growing importance of ethical business leadership in the corporate arena. 

The report is divided into three major sections – Course, Curriculum and Community – all areas where ethics should be prominent, the authors emphasize. 

In developing an effective ethical course, students should have concrete knowledge of ethical issues in business; develop concrete skills, such as learning when to speak up; and be engaged in a process where they can develop greater understanding of their own ethical views and the views of others. 

There are also principles the authors argue should be implemented in the curriculum, or across a group of courses that are taught.  Primarily, the authors believe the conversation about ethics should begin early.  This is when future learning opportunities are recognized.  In addition, rather than faculty members seeing themselves as individuals responsible for teaching particular courses, each member should take a broader view of himself or herself as a part of a larger group of faculty as a way of gaining a better perspective of the different ethical dimensions.

Within the larger community, which includes the entirety of the student experience with the educational institution, the report offers some signs of a “healthy” environment:

• All constituents participate in curricular and extracurricular discussions on ethics
  
  
• Research projects or partnerships with firms bring faculty and students into constant contact with practical business ethics issues
  
  
• There is adequate funding and other support for ethics within the institution
  
  
• The community understands, abides by, and discusses its values and encourages all members to challenge them when they are not being adhere to
  
  

As far as areas of improvement, the authors encourage business ethics faculty to work more fully and ardently with some of their major stakeholders, faculty evaluation committees to accept work in business ethics as comparable to work in other main functional areas, and corporate recruiters to incorporate questions regarding ethics into their interview protocols.

Visit the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics website.

Posted 10/11/07

* * *

Tuck International Forum: Confronting Corruption in Global Business

Thursday April 5 – Friday April 6
Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business.
The Ariel Halpern Lecture on Ethics and Social Responsibility
By Frank Vogl

Excerpts from the lecture….

Integrity & Business Leadership

We will talk at this forum about corruption within the business context. My hope is that you, the future leaders of business, will never lose sight of the broader picture. We need to work together for a world of greater openness, freedom and justice. These, after all, are core requirements if private enterprise is to flourish. Business school graduates face a fundamental choice when they enter positions of management and move towards leadership: will they place integrity above every other consideration in their careers, or will they be willing at times to compromise?   

The integrity path is not an easy one to follow. The temptations to drift are very great. Especially so, in my view, in an era when the rewards for boosting corporate earnings are absolutely massive and when so many in business appear to have lost their moral compass. But, if the temptations of greed are large, so too are the risks. In the age of the Internet and globalization, which have spawned massive rises in civil society organizations around the world that are closely linked to the media, the modern corporation has nowhere to hide.  The risks of corrupt deals being publicly exposed are greater today than ever before. E-mail trails have come back to haunt once pompous corporate leaders and contribute to their successful prosecution and their long-term imprisonment. 

Don’t Pay Bribes

There are always times in international commerce when an executive faces a difficult choice. The answer every time must be the same: don’t pay bribes. It is better to walk away from a deal, than to undermine your personal integrity and place the reputation of your company at risk.

There are situations where the only option is to quit and run, rather than bribe. But, there are many situations, even in countries perceived to have high levels of corruption, where foreign companies can succeed without bribing. My own experience enhances my conviction that businesses can take approaches of total operational transparency that win respect and success.

In the early 1990s I was privileged to be asked to join a remarkable American entrepreneur, James Sinclair, in a mining venture in Tanzania. This was a country that for over 20 years had evolved a strong suspicion of foreign corporations and had therefore been reluctant to permit them to develop the nation’s gold, diamond, nickel, copper and other mineral resources.  Mr. Sinclair, the Chairman of Sutton Resources of Canada, understood that if his company was to succeed in Tanzania, then he had to earn the trust of the authorities.

There were those in Tanzania’s Government, no doubt including the then youthful Minister of Energy and Mining, Jakaya Kikwete, who were suspicious of foreign companies, who had experienced their arrogance and who had seen how some had come to grab assets, maximize short-term profits and move elsewhere. Mr. Sinclair took up residence in the country. For months he dedicated himself to understanding the local culture, the people and the ways in which one earned respect.  He believed that success would result from transparency, honesty, good deeds and a long-term investment commitment.

I was an advisor to the Chairman and a member of Sutton’s Board of Directors. We never paid bribes. We demonstrated that we were good corporate citizens. Our company went to substantial lengths to underscore our long-term commitment as solid corporate citizens to Tanzania.  Mr. Sinclair’s daughter, Marlene, settled in Tanzania and has played and continues to play important roles in philanthropy in the social services area there. Our commitment was the basis for establishing trust and in response we were treated fairly by the Government.

We engaged in long-term philanthropy. We assisted the government to build a global strategy to attract more top quality foreign investment into the mineral sector. We set clauses in our mining contracts to fund training for Tanzanian geologists. We took the lead in assisting with healthcare for miners and we raised the bar in mining contracts in Tanzania when it came to environmental protection. 

Sutton Resources was acquired by one of the world’s largest mining companies, Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada. In recent years Barrick has invested major sums in mining in Tanzania and the success of our company, followed by Barrick’s success, has brought hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign direct investment into that country.

And, Mr. Sinclair, who today heads TanRange of Canada, has continued to invest in Tanzania and build a host of high value mineral assets with great potential. He has never paid bribes. Nobody asks him for bribes. He has succeeded in building trust and being seen as a partner to a nation striving to develop. His approach and his company are examples of what I believe must be the corporate anti-corruption compact of the future. Moreover, Mr. Kikwete is now the President of Tanzania with formidable experience, influenced in part by James Sinclair’s example, in understanding how good foreign corporate investors can contribute to his country’s development.

In conclusion, let me emphasize that the James Sinclair approach is the route that must be encouraged. It is about not paying bribes. Importantly, it is also about making meaningful corporate contributions to the communities and the countries in which one operates as a business.

Corporations have opportunities for huge rewards that can and will be all the greater and more sustained if their actions are driven by uncompromising integrity cultures. The business leaders of tomorrow who will enjoy the most respect and the most success will be those who know that doing the right thing is always preferable to doing what may yield the maximum short-term profit.

To download the full lecture.

Frank Vogl has given a number of other speechs on global corruption and global ethics. Please click here to read more.

Posted 4/18/07

Back to Top

* * *

Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability Education in the Financial Times Top 50 Global Business Schools

A new study in the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) investigates how leading business schools (based on the 2006 listing of The Financial Times top 50 Global MBA programs) are now addressing the topics of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), ethics, and sustainability. Major changes have been taking place in recent years, according to the authors of the study, Lisa Jones Christensen, Ellen Pierce, Laura P. Hartman, W. Michael Hoffman and Jamie Carrier (see below for bios).

Interviews with leaders at the schools and surveys found that nearly one-third of the responding schools require coverage of all three topics in the MBA curriculum. An in-depth analysis found, overall that at leading schools there is a mounting interest in these related topics with potential, in particular, for a heavier focus on sustainability (see some of the key conclusions below).

The authors state at the end of their study that, “Overall, we believe this work should be a basis for further investigations into the strategic positioning of each topic as well as into the value and practice of teaching each topic. This work is valuable to researchers interested in changes in the teaching of ethics, to researchers interested in the rise of CSR and sustainability in MBA curricula, as well as to administrators and practitioners who continue to make strategic decisions about their own management programs.”

Among the report's findings:

Ethics, CSR, Sustainability in Courses

• A majority of the schools require that one or more of these topics be covered in their MBA curriculum and one-third of the schools require coverage of all three topics as part of the MBA curriculum.
• 25% of respondents MBA students to study ethics through a stand-alone course, a fivefold increase in the number of stand-alone ethics courses since a 1988 investigation on ethics.
• There is a trend toward the inclusion of sustainability-related courses.
  
  
  

Centers and Institutional Support

• 65.90% of schools stated that they have a center related to these topics.
  
  
  

Integration of Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability into Traditional Curricula 

• 54.55% of schools reported to have an “integrated” curriculum  (that is, ethics, CSR, and sustainability considerations are included in traditional classes). For example several schools are teaching these topics using orientations, experiential learning, excursion, and immersion techniques, revealing a change in teaching methods.
  
  
  

Student Interest

• There is a higher percentage of student interest in these topics (as measured by the presence of a Net Impact club) in the top 10 schools.
• Student involvement in socially minded/ethically minded clubs is often a driver for changes in course content.  
  
  
  

For the full paper visit JBE’s website.

Lisa Jones Christensen is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Enterprise and Enterpreneurship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Ellen Peirce is a professor of legal studies and ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Laura Hartman is a Professor of Business Ethics and Legal Studies in the Management Department in the College of Commerce at DePaul University and also serves as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and as Research Director of DePaul’s Institute for Business and Professional Ethics | W. Micheal Hodffman is the founding Executive Director of the Center for Business Ethics and the Hieken Professor of Business and Professional Ethics at Bently College in Waltham, Massachusetts | Jamie Carrier was a Graduate Assitant for the Center of Business Ethics at Bentley College while she completed her MBA with a concentration in Business Ethics and is now an Ethics Officer at Verizon Business

Posted 2/7/07

* * *

Yale Launches Corporate Governance Center

On June 12, 2006 Yale University announced the establishment of the Yale Center for Corporate Governance and Performance (YCCGP) to be directed by Ira M. Millstein, a senior partner at the international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges and senior associate dean for corporate governance at Yale School of Management. The center is being funded by $20 million in gifts and commitments from individual and corporate donors, including a $10 million gift from David Nierenberg, a 1975 graduate of Yale College and a 1978 graduate of Yale Law School, and his wife Patricia, which represents the single largest gift in the history of the Yale School of Management.

The mission of the YCCGP is to explore the role of corporate governance to better enable corporations both to be competitive in their markets and to contribute to society. While based at Yale’s business school, the YCCGP also draws together scholars from Yale Law School and a variety of disciplines at Yale and other universities to explore enhanced corporate governance and the roles of the corporation in society; to facilitate the interaction of these scholars with policymakers and business leaders; to promote the dissemination of ideas and research that are relevant to improving the ability of the corporation to serve society; and to look globally for models of governance that combine return to shareholders and social benefit.

* * *
Stanford Launches the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance

On March 6, 2006 Stanford Law School announced the launch of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University (the “Rock Center”), funded by a $10 million dollar donation from venture capitalist Arthur Rock and his wife, a director of AT&T and AEGON N.V. The donation is believed to be the largest gift for the study of corporate governance in academic history.

"Innovation and new ventures fuel the global economy but the spark comes from investment," Arthur Rock said. "Investment is about trust. It's about knowing that the people investors entrust with their money are running ethical, transparent and effective businesses. Stanford Law School has a demonstrated track record of leadership in the field of corporate governance. We are pleased to support their efforts.”

The Rock Center will sponsor a series of programs designed to deepen the understanding of the governance process, enhance the quality of governance-related education, and improve the practice of governance around the world.

The Center's will begin a conference series designed to narrow the gap between state-of-the-art scholarship and the regulatory process while promoting more cost effective, socially beneficial regulation (the first of these, a conference on the SEC's proposed executive compensation disclosure rules will be held on April 3rd in Washington DC)

According to Stanford Law School, among the Rock Center's other early initiatives are:

-A series of research programs designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice by, for example, studying the ability to predict the incidence of fraud, examining international trends in corporate governance, and exploring the future of the audit industry;

-A series of conferences for the press and judiciary on matters related to corporate governance;

-The creation of new teaching materials designed for business schools and practicing executives that emphasize the importance of compliance with the law in addition to more traditional materials relating to business ethics;

-The launch of an open source database that will provide timely, detailed, and sophisticated information about the governance characteristics of all major publicly traded corporations, including an ability to generate a wide variety of "governance scores," all of which will be transparent to users and offered at no charge to the public.

Back to Top

* * *

Darden Pioneering Work in Ethics and Governance

The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia is pursuing pioneering work in the area of ethics and governance at its “Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.”  This is an independent entity established in partnership with Business Roundtable—an association of 160 CEOs from leading companies.

The Institute brings together leaders from business and academia to fulfill its mission to renew and enhance the link between ethical behavior and business practice through executive education programs, practitioner-focused research and outreach.

In order to address the most pressing corporate ethics issues identified by Business Roundtable CEOs in the Institute's Mapping the Terrain (see below) study, its Academic Advisors are conducting a series of studies focusing on corporate leading practices, frameworks, and programs. 

Based on the results of the Mapping the Terrain study and on discussions among its panel of academic ethics experts, it is focusing on the following key issues:

• Building/Sustaining Trust
• Effective Company Management of Today’s Investor Expectations
• CEO / Executive Compensation
• Ensuring the Integrity of Financial Reporting
• Ethical Role-Modeling
• Establishing a Framework for Business Decision Making that Integrates Ethics
• Encouraging Pushback
• Conflicts of Interest
  
  

The Mapping the Terrain study surveyed Business Roundtable CEOs to understand the most important ethics issues facing corporate leaders.

In survey responses, CEOs indicated that the five most important corporate ethics issues facing the business community are: 1) regaining the public trust; 2) effective company management in the context of today’s investor expectations; 3) ensuring the integrity of financial reporting; 4) fairness of executive compensation; and 5) ethical role-modeling of senior management.

A majority of CEOs (81%) believe that in the wake of recent controversies standards for corporate ethics have risen. Also, most CEOs (74%) indicated their companies have made changes in how ethics issues are handled or reported within the last two years. Specific changes most cited include: enhanced internal reporting and communications (33%), ethics hotlines (17%), improved compliance procedures (12%) and greater Board oversight (10%).  

“These results tell a consistent story,” says the Institute’s Academic Director R. Edward Freeman, “There is clearly a heightened sensitivity among business leaders to the importance of these issues.” With regard to the top corporate ethics priority for business, the majority of CEOs (57%) cited establishing a framework for business decision making that integrates ethics as the top priority followed by encouraging pushback and a culture for proactively addressing potential bad news early (35%).

Says Institute Executive Director Dean Krehmeyer, “The Mapping the Terrain survey helped shape the curriculum for the Institute’s initial CEO Seminar on Business Ethics which takes place later this month and the results also set the roadmap for our research agenda. Our aim is to help leaders put business and ethics together.” The CEO Seminar on Business Ethics will include modules on establishing ethics frameworks and on ways for leaders to encourage pushback within their companies. The seminar will be led by Professor Freeman who teaches at The Darden School and Wharton Professor Thomas Donaldson—two recognized experts in the field of business ethics.

Back to Top

* * *

In his column, Professor Garten argues that “… I don't believe B-schools can turn someone who is dishonest into a virtuous person. Enron's former chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, would likely have turned out to be a bad apple no matter what he was taught in graduate school. Nor can an MBA program give someone the backbone to make a moral decision that risks the loss of a company's market value, as happened at Johnson & Johnson in the 1980s when Chief Executive James Burke courageously took Tylenol off the shelves because of safety scares. That kind of character must be developed much earlier than the typical age of a B-school student, about 27.”

However, Professor Garten continues to argue: business schools can help prepare future executives to better assess the morally complex choices they will face during their careers. He concludes that, “The decisions made by business leaders have a tremendous impact on shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the broader economy. So enhancing their ethical education at a formative stage is arguably the highest priority that business schools should have. Although many are working at it, none has yet fully risen to that challenge.”

See the full article on BusinessWeek.com

Back to Top