Business Faculty Perceptions and Actions Regarding Ethics Education

Abstract

This paper examines faculty perceptions regarding ethical behavior among colleagues and students, and faculty practices with regard to teaching ethics in three institutions over a 4-year period. Faculty reported an uneven pattern of unethical behavior among colleagues over the period. A majority of business courses included ethics, however as both a specific topic on the syllabus and within course discussions. The percentage of courses with ethics discussions increased in 2006, however, the time allocated to these discussions decreased. These results suggest that faculty are approaching ethics instruction less formally, raising concerns over the success of curriculum integration.

A Ten-Step Model for Academic Integrity: A Positive Approach for Business Schools

“…Implicitly, all values have a heavy ethical content and are based upon how individuals frame the duties that they owe to others with whom they hold a unique relationship, to self, to a higher power, or to society (Caldwell and Hayes, 2007). The teaching of business ethics has been addressed by a variety of studies (Bean and Bernardi, 2007;Beauvais et al, 2007;Gonin, 2007;Poff, 2007), with scholars (Boyle, 2007) and practitioners (Krehmeyer, 2007) debating the most effective approach to influencing behaviors about moral conduct. Penn and Collier (1985) advocated the teaching of moral reasoning more than 20 years ago and recommended that this teaching utilized Kohlberg's moral reasoning model.…”

Views of the Academic Members in Ankara University Faculty of Pharmacy About Pharmacy Ethics Education

“…In contrast, Klein argued that business professors are not able to teach ethics about their disciplinary and claimed that only philosophers are qualified to do so. 20 Although academic members look positively to mention ethics in their classes, their knowledge about ethical issues has to be investigated. More than half of academic members reported that ethical discussions were organized rarely in their faculty.…”

Academic Integrity in Social Sciences

“…In comparison with most other social sciences fields, there is a substantial research base covering integrity and misconduct in economics and business subjects, perhaps as a result of the corporate collapses attributed to unethical behavior (O'Leary and Cotter 2000; Smyth and Davis 2004;Beauvais et al 2007;Mirshekary et al 2010). Concerns have been expressed over business schools teaching students to be successful without placing sufficient emphasis on moral responsibilities (Stevens et al 1993).…”

“…The incorporation of ethics into curricula and subject matter content may in fact lead to the faculty spending less time on ethics than it would if ethics were dealt with through a single course or separate ethics courses (Beauvais et al 2007). This evidence suggests that it is important for the faculty to consider how ethics and integrity contents fit in with the overall program and course objectives and at what points in the curriculum this content is best addressed and why.…”

“…Academic staff members who have received ethics and integrity training feel more comfortable and spend more time teaching these and are more likely than non-trained faculty to incorporate ethics content into their teaching (Beauvais et al 2007). University teaching staff should not only be aware of the professional standards pertaining to their field but also be able to apply them in discussions of ethical and moral dilemmas arising in their particular areas of specialization.…”