Building Ethics as a Foundational Principle Across an Integrated Undergraduate Curriculum
Steven A. Edelson and Karen L. Stock
Walsh University
Introduction
In this book, you will read about teaching ethics in individual courses such as human resource management (Chapter 6), operations management (Chapter 9), and marketing communications (Chapter 10). Teaching ethics across the entire management curriculum in a variety of stand-alone courses is a challenge that we, as educators, have chosen to embrace. In this chapter we leave aside the examination of ethics in individual courses or subject matter, and examine how ethics can be used as a foundational principle across an integrated undergraduate business curriculum. What distinguishes this chapter from others in this book is that it isn’t focused on a particular course, or discipline, but is multidisciplinary in its very nature.
We describe how ethics has been integrated across an undergraduate curriculum, using examples from core, major, and minor courses across the integrated curriculum by focusing on a case study of a small, liberal arts college that redesigned its curriculum with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Standard 9 (2013 Standards)1 in mind, using three foundational focal areas that are intentionally integrated throughout all courses: a Global Perspective; Systems and Sustainability; and Ethical, Social, and Moral Responsibility. It is this third foundational area that we focus on in this chapter. Finally, we describe how a stand-alone course in ethics in the first year of the curriculum supports the entire curriculum and provides students with key foundational concepts to be used across their entire program of study.
Integrated Curriculum
The DeVille School of Business (DSoB) at Walsh University, a small, Catholic, liberal arts university in Ohio, redesigned its business curriculum from a traditional, silo structure to an integrated design, introducing the new curriculum as a pilot program in 2010 and across the entire School of Business in 2011. The curricular redesign involved integrating ethics into all undergraduate courses; this is also known as an integrated approach to curricular design. This was accomplished using processes that have come to be recognized as the benchmark best practices.2
What Is an Integrated Curriculum?
The idea of integrating a curriculum, while newer in the management area of higher education, is a concept that has been around over 75 years in education in general,3 and as early as the 1940s in higher education4 and over 30 years in management education.5
Integrating curriculum can be done in three main ways: interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary integration. Interdisciplinary integration features the curriculum organized around common learnings across disciplines, with these common learnings grouped to emphasize interdisciplinary skills and concepts. Transdisciplinary integration, is where curriculum is organized around student questions and concerns. Multidisciplinary integration features different subjects organized around a theme.6 This multidisciplinary approach is the one Walsh University took in their curricular redesign efforts; as opposed to one theme, Walsh chose three topical areas as themes. In this chapter, we focus on how the final theme, Ethical, Social, and Moral Responsibility, has been integrated within the curriculum.
How Was the Curriculum Integrated?
In redesigning their business curriculum, the faculty were intentional in the ways in which ethics would be brought out throughout the curriculum. In the first year of studies, all business students take two Integrated Business Experience courses, focusing on management and marketing, and finance and accounting fields, respectively. Additionally, students take a Communications in a Multicultural Environment course meant to introduce them to various elements of communications, including important ethical considerations for communicating in various business situations across cultures. Within each of these courses, ethical considerations in the specific sub disciplines are brought forth.
Because ethics is a key theme around which the multidisciplinary integration was based, an additional stand-alone course in ethics has been included in the first year of the curriculum, representing a modular approach.7 This course, Business Ethics in a Global Environment, is a redesign of a course that was a third-year course in the old, nonintegrated curriculum. It has been redesigned and moved to the front end of the curriculum in order to better provide all business students with a solid foundation of ethical theory and perspectives upon which to serve them in their subsequent courses of study.
An important element in this integrated curriculum is how ethical concepts and philosophies have been interwoven throughout the core business curriculum as well as courses within all business majors. In the following section, we provide examples of how the theme of Ethical, Social, and Moral Responsibility has been incorporated into core courses for first-year students, including the standalone ethics course, as well as included a core course in the third year. Furthermore, we provide examples of this theme in two courses in the management major taken by students in their third and fourth years of the four-year undergraduate degree program.
Typical Ethical Issues
Example from First-Year Core Courses: “Integrated Business Experience I and II”
The Integrated Business Experience I course provides an introduction to the principles of marketing and management, and focuses on how both disciplines are part of a larger system that is responsible for the sustainability of an organization. The Integrated Business Experience II course incorporates finance and accounting concepts. Rather than presenting the concepts as separate topics, they are intertwined against the backdrop of the importance of globalization in business.
Students complete a paper and conduct secondary research on a publicly traded company and focus on the principles of management and marketing in the Integrated Business Experience I course. Issues relating to ethics that are included in this project are explored through the company’s mission statement, philosophy, and aspects of social responsibility in the Integrated Business Experience II course. The meaning behind the words of the mission statement and how well these objectives are carried out are also addressed. Through research that goes beyond what the company self-publishes, students look critically at the company to uncover the extent to which the company’s public message matches its actions; not merely accepting a company’s press releases at face value, but digging deeper to see the congruence between the external communications and the implied values of the organization’s actions. This assignment is spread across the two courses that students can take in either order, or even concurrently.
Example from First-Year Core Course: “Business Ethics in a Global Environment”
As a foundation for the topic of ethics, this course provides students with the general principles and standards of ethics and Judeo-Christian values applied to business in a global environment.8 Topics include moral philosophies, decision making, social responsibility, and ethical leadership. Case studies are reviewed with each chapter and additional assignments further students’ understanding and development.
One assignment that students complete is the presentation of an article they locate in a newspaper, periodical, journal, or other recognized source. Students are given the freedom to find something that is of interest to them and then must relate the article to the concepts presented in the text. While many case studies are illustrations of past wrongdoings and the consequences thereof, they can be somewhat removed from students who at this point in their educational career may not have worked in a professional environment and could have trouble relating how these issues pertain to them personally. Thus by seeking out stories they find of interest, the content becomes more relevant.
To further bring the content to life, students participate in simulations. In groups of 5 to 6 students, each student is given partial information and must work together in a team to work through an ethical dilemma. The simulations provide students with a realistic experience and offer additional ways in which to bring to light the inherent conflict in organizations when controversial situations arise and the complexity of ethical decision making.9
Example from Third-Year Core Course: “Management in a Global Environment”
This course is a study of management and concepts of human behavior within organizations at the individual, group, and organizational levels within a multicultural context. Students explore differences across cultures on such topics as problem solving, change, motivation, team building, and leadership.
An assignment relating to diversity incorporates a written paper about an experience they have had that was of significance to them. Based on this experience, students can then relate to concepts covered in the management textbook and to the Catholic document by Pope Paul VI in his “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes.” Since Walsh University is a Catholic liberal arts institution, the use of this document has been embedded in the general education curriculum for students of every course of study, in order to carry out the mission of the university.
In this class, students are directed to Part 2, Chapter 2 of Gaudium et Spes on the Proper Development of Culture, which states in Section 3: “the right of all to a human and social culture in conformity with the dignity of the human person without any discrimination of race, sex, nation, religion or social condition.”10 Using Gaudium et Spes to tie ethics and diversity together in this course encourages students to engage in critical thinking, as they are using a nontraditional management text to guide their application of ethical principles in a management context.
Example from Third-Year Management Major Course: “Negotiations in a Global Environment.”
In this course, which is required for all management majors, students explore the process and dynamics of the numerous negotiations and conflict resolution efforts occurring continuously within organizations. In addition to readings and article discussion, where students discuss business cultures and the manner in which ethics and social responsibility are differentially interpreted in a negotiation and conflict management perspective, students utilize cases and simulation exercises to review the major concepts and theories of the psychology of bargaining and negotiations, including an ethical focus.
One such activity being used in this course is the “Ugli Orange” case/ exercise,11 which deals with the negotiation concepts of separating positions from the interests and mutually beneficial problem-solving strategies and also deals with conflict management (as the two role-played sides in the Ugli Orange have a history). This exercise is valuable because not only does it incorporate several different conflict and negotiation concepts, but it can also be approached in a role-playing manner building upon cultural differences, communication styles, and awareness discussed earlier in the course and previous courses; for instance, students may be asked to play one role as an individual from a country with low tolerance for ambiguity, or from a culture that has shown different ethical bases than that student’s home country.
In debriefing the activity, the instructor can focus on a variety of ethics-based applications, including: the ethical elements inherent in the case (e.g., should the seller of Ugli Oranges have an obligation to sell to the party that is going to save the unborn children of pregnant women from birth defects, as opposed to the highest bidder); ethical issues in the way in which each party communicated during the negotiation role-play; understanding the different philosophical bases that each negotiator might have in this conflict.
Example from Fourth-Year Management Major Course: “Sustainability Achieved Through Organizational Change and Development”
As another required course for management majors, students gain an advanced perspective on the effective planning and implementation of sustainable change and organizational development efforts. They do so by critically evaluating ideas, insights, and strategies from a systems-oriented perspective on sustainability by understanding the relationships among social, environmental, and economic issues relating to business.
One example as to how this is achieved individually is through a research project on a company that is currently a member of the United Nations Global Compact. The Global Compact is an initiative that is designed specifically for businesses around universally accepted principles centered on the issues of human rights, labor, the environment, and anti corruption.12 Companies elect to report on their progress toward these principles and students critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses with regard to social, economic, and environmental impact.
Utilizing the individual knowledge gained from the Global Compact project, students then work together as a team to investigate a local company and prepare a written report on their sustainability efforts. This includes a critical assessment of current sustainability practices in terms of their social equity, economic, and environmental values, and concludes with proposed recommendations for improvement.
Ethics Teaching Strategy
Our teaching strategy for the various courses we have described is grounded in the theory of experiential learning. As defined by David Kolb, “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.”13 With this approach to teaching, the process of learning over the outcomes is emphasized. The process consists of four stages, starting with a concrete experience, which leads to reflective observation about the experience. Abstract conceptualization follows, in which models, paradigms, strategies, and metaphors are applied to the results of the experience. Active experimentation concludes the cycle as the concepts are then put into practice, thus generating new concrete experiences. This framework informs how we teach and for what purposes we design teaching-learning experiences.14
Evidence of this approach to teaching is consistent with the need for students to “live ethics” as opposed to learning about ethics. As a result, they are able to discover their own values.15 In addition, the exercises should be chosen such that students can personalize their learning and impart relevance.16
With an integrated curriculum, ethics can be introduced and reinforced several times throughout undergraduate courses. By allowing for a variety of methods, including personal experience, research, and independent exploration, students ultimately develop expertise. They are then able to contribute to practice by acting in an advisory capacity on topics such as sustainability. We take this approach in hopes that our students are able to develop leadership skills, confidence in their own abilities, and the ability to solve problems that will better prepare them for the complexity of dealing with ethical issues throughout their careers.
Advice for Teachers
Part of the mission of the DSoB is to “meet students where they are, with the resources and support they need.” In the context of the curricular redesign, the faculty understood that to live our mission, we needed to meet our students where they are ethically and morally. Lawrence Kohlberg described six stages of cognitive moral development across three levels:17 two preconventional, or self-centered stages where individuals act morally to avoid punishment and when it is in their own immediate interest; two conventional, or conformist stages where individuals act morally to live up to what is expected of them by those close to them, and to meet social norms of behavior; and two postconventional, or principled stages where individuals act morally as they engage in their own moral reasoning, as opposed to meeting social norms, and to meet universal ethical principles that all people should follow, irrespective of social norms.
Kohlberg’s theory has been criticized for being gender-biased,18 culture-biased,19 and nonrepresentative of how individuals make moral judgments20 or behave in different situations.21 Whether or not Kohlberg’s theory is robust isn’t as important as appreciating that there are differences in individuals’ levels of moral and ethical reasoning.
Our advice for teachers is to approach their students with the same philosophy the DSoB has built into its mission. Meet students where they are, and appreciate that students of the same age in the same course are not necessarily going to approach a given ethical dilemma in the same manner. Some students will need to be guided along an ethical path with resources to support them in a conventional stage, whereas others will assess an ethical dilemma through a postconventional absolute lens. One way to encourage ethical development is to have students write a self-reflection of their ethical beliefs at the outset of any given course, and have them revisit it at the conclusion.22 Being conscious of your students’ own ethical and moral development will allow you to serve their educational needs more thoroughly.
Developing Versus Developed Country Perspectives
While the case study examined in this chapter is set at a small, liberal arts Catholic University in the United States, the choice to integrate Ethical, Social, and Moral Responsibility within a business and management curriculum is one that transcends religious bounds. Many management educators may find that their institutions may favor a secular approach to ethics; at Walsh University, certain ethical and moral perspectives are presented due to the religious nature of the university, but there exists a bounty of philosophical and secular approaches that could replace the religious sources as discussed in earlier chapters of this book.
When you talk about diversity in relation to ethics, many students begin the discussion with an ethnocentric mindset, or “an exaggerated tendency to think the characteristics of one’s own group or race are superior to those of other groups or races.”23 As students first become aware of their own ethnocentrism, they will progress toward a more ethnorelative approach and be able to see others as they are.
The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity24 is introduced to students during the Management in a Global Environment course. In line with this model, students migrate from stages of denial, defense, and minimization of cultural differences toward stages of acceptance, adaptation, and (eventually) integration. The later ethnorelative stages are the goal in developing an understanding of other cultures and incorporating this broader world view to alter one’s own perception of reality and greater intercultural competence.
When considering teaching ethics in an integrated curriculum from a developing versus developed nation perspective, it is of great value to present ethics as a philosophical approach where we want students to understand their own approach to ethics. Not as a “right versus wrong” way of doing things, but appreciating that what may be considered ethical in one setting may not be in another.
Summary and Conclusion
The integrated curriculum interwoven with ethics throughout presents ethics not as a single topic for students to see once in their studies, but repeatedly throughout the curriculum. In early level courses, students are more frequently presented with ethical vignettes or dilemmas for discussion. As students become more comfortable with their own moral reasoning capacity, in later courses application-oriented and experiential exercises are presented to encourage deeper learning.
The integration of an entire undergraduate curriculum is not an easy task, nor one to be undertaken haphazardly. The experience in the DSoB at Walsh University has proven to be successful with careful planning of the multidisciplinary approach; putting Ethical, Social, and Moral Responsibility at the forefront of the curricular redesign has served to focus both faculty and students on its importance not only in a management context, but across the business major.
Suggested Exercises and Projects
Exercise/Resource/Project |
Description |
Target audience and its outcomes |
Ethics Unwrapped by the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business: http://ethicsun-wrapped.utexas.edu/videos/ |
Video clips and teaching notes on a variety of topics |
All undergraduate levels |
Subscribe to the wall Street Journal Ethics weekly Review: www.profjournal.com/educators_reviews/sign_up_new.cfm |
Weekly emails with summaries of articles and discussion questions to facilitate class discussions |
Best suited to early-under-graduate studies |
United Nations Global Compact: www.unglobal-compact.org |
Initiative for businesses centered on universal principles of human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption |
Best suited to middle- or late-stage undergraduates |
Inequality for All, 2013 documentary film |
Focus is on the inequality of income in the United States |
Appropriate for all undergraduate students |
Inside Job, 2010 documentary film |
Examines financial services crisis |
Best suited to early-stage undergraduates |
BaFa’ BaFa’, an intercultural simulation www.simulationtrainingsystems.com/schools-and-charities/products/bafa-bafa/ |
A simulation that focuses on diversity, cultural differences, and communication |
Best suited to middle- or late-stage undergraduates |
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1 c.f., www.aacsb.edu/en/accreditation/standards/2013-business/learning-and-teaching/standard9.aspx
3 Hopkins (1933); Floyd (1936).
4 For example, Rockwell (1947).
5 For example, Rehder and Porter (1983).
8 This choice of values aligns with Walsh University’s mission, but other values-based perspectives could be substituted, where applicable, for institutions or locations where such values are not prevalent.
9 Ferrell and Fraedrich (2014).
11 Hall et al. (1974); this case is available at: http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/ugliorangesactivity.pdf noting that it is adapted from the George Mason University Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
15 Solberg, Strong, and McGuire (1995).
17 Kohlberg (1981); Kohlberg, Levine, and Hewer (1983).
21 Parke, Gauvain, and Schmuckler (2010); Carpendale (2000).
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