Embedding Ethics in Teaching Management
Kemi Ogunyemi
Lagos Business School
Introduction to Principles and Applications
In producing a second volume of Teaching Ethics Across the Management Curriculum, the task that we set out to accomplish was to extend a good work that had already begun. The first volume covered a number of disciplines, but remained inexhaustive of the possibilities. So do the second and third volumes—the field of management is that broad. If the content of the three volumes contribute even in a small way to helping our colleagues imbue their teaching with ethical considerations, I think all contributors to the project will agree that the effort has been worthwhile.
This volume starts out with a varied selection of chapters that cover general ways to embed principles of ethics into the overall educational curriculum and to address different audiences before going back to the main theme of the series, that is, showing how to apply ethical principles in specific management disciplines. In line with this, a brief discussion of ethics, responsibility, and sustainability interconnects the three of them before being followed by a more detailed description of the book’s contents.
Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustainability
Three words that currently dominate the world of responsible education are ethics, responsibility, and sustainability.1 They are almost synonymous when studied deeply though they evaluate human behavior through distinct lenses. At the risk of appearing simplistic, one could say that responsibility looks at ethics with a focus on the agent, while sustainability looks at ethics with a focus on the effects of the actions of the agent on other people in the present and in the future. A responsible agent would strive to impact people positively—whether in terms of maintaining a healthy environment or a healthy society or a healthy economy (healthy meaning conducive to the health of human beings). At times, perhaps especially in developing countries, there is a resistance to an emphasis on the vertical dimension of sustainability, which looks to generations to come when demanding equity. This is at times because they experience blatant challenges to equity in the present and so find it difficult to center their worries on the future while the horizontal dimension is neglected by their governments. For example, a campaign to plant trees is unlikely to get much traction in a society rife with unemployment and enduring bad roads and a near nonexistent power supply. Ethical action in such a situation would have more to do with ensuring good governance (which admittedly entails both increased responsibility and sustainability) and fairness.
The work of ethics educators contributes in some part to heightening the sense of responsibility and the concern for sustainability in students on programs that embed ethics.2 When these students are professionals, it is hoped that their training will come in useful in making them responsible agents who think sustainability and act accordingly.3 Efforts in this direction, whether at national, corporate, or individual level, also tend to reduce the ease with which other individuals and organizations rationalize their own unethical behavior. On the other hand, it makes it less difficult for them (these others) to apply already known principles of ethical action to their own lives as well.
A Wide Variety of Applications
This is what ethics consists of: applications of morality to life, in this case to the different functional areas in which the manager carries out his responsibilities. Teachers of organizational behavior disciplines particularly need to fully incorporate their ethical dimensions (as also applies to those of accounting, finance, and a number of others).4 Take, for example, the field of human resources management (HRM). Teaching recruitment without teaching about respect for diversity or about non-discrimination carries the risk of graduating someone who “pretends” to be an expert on a role that is very critical to organizations but who may not be fully aware of the ethical considerations inherent to the role. If the same happens with performance management, people development, talent management, and so on, then emerges a professional with technical competence but without the ethical competence requisite for handling his or her responsibilities. Applying ethical concepts within their disciplines requires ethical sensitivity in faculty themselves. It also requires innovativeness to find novel approaches to teaching the same topic(s). These are skills that are critical for any educator to possess, independent of the need to teach ethics.
At times, it is easier to start with sub disciplines or aspects of disciplines that reveal a more obvious need for the introduction of ethical considerations. In those cases, the teacher uses these segments as a lever to bring ethics into the classroom; for example, the teaching of responsibility while dealing with safety in operations management or of sustainability while dealing with supply chain management.
Embedding Ethics in Teaching Management
After this introductory chapter, this book is laid out in three modules. The first of them is titled “Raise the Pillars.” Chapter 2 summarizes the key themes and issues that will be raised throughout the text. In this chapter, Steven Edelson’s and Karen Stock’s DeVille School of Business example demonstrates how a business and management curriculum can be redesigned into a more integrated provision and delivery. They provide exercises, projects, and relevant resources that could prove a boon in terms of student engagement and enhanced learning and teaching experiences. DeVille School of Business is a meaningful instance of how an integrated curriculum can be successfully redesigned and implemented. Chapter 3 introduces us into the world of adult learning and shares the author’s experience of attitudes toward ethics education. The self-narrative approach is suggested as a way to help participants on management courses to understand the importance of ethical reasoning and the need for responsible and sustainable business practices.
In the penultimate chapter of the module, Rachel Welton and Roy Smith outline an adaptation of the Global OATH Project, which aims to build environmentally aware and responsible future business leaders. This is a case study of initiatives at one institution and how they took a larger initiative and made it theirs. It describes a student-led initiative that demonstrates buy-in and engagement from seniors in taking an oath with regard to business ethics, and relates the importance of the topic to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) and the United Nations Global Compact. The argument is that other professions have an oath and that this could also be applied to business professionals. Being student-led and interactive, the OATH Project is an initiative that has had success in engaging millennials. The authors’ enthusiasm for the project and for the good work that Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Nottingham Business School (NBS) are doing in this space also comes across to the reader. There is a lot to learn from the insights they offer into the process of setting up the OATH Project, and the findings and learning from both staff and student perspectives. Clearly, it could be implemented in any business curriculum. Some insights into the learning styles of millennials and some teaching suggestions suitable for engaging them with regard to business ethics education are provided in Chapter 5.
Module 2, “Mind the People,” looks at three disciplines from the perspective of the organization’s responsibilities toward a primary internal stakeholder, the employee. Thus, one chapter deals with an aspect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the form of socially responsible human resource policies, another chapter looks at team building, while the third examines ethical issues in change management. Socially responsible HRM policies and practices are a critical need for all organizations. This is particularly true for responsible employment policies and managing relationships with employees responsibly and not only in economic terms. The chapter provides interesting case studies that could be helpful in business ethics teaching. Discussing each area (e.g., employment, management, and training), the authors, Jesus Barrena-Martinez, Macarena Lopez-Fernandez, and Pedro Miguel Romero-Fernández, draw out the ethical implications in an interesting manner. They might help the teacher of CSR to systematically show the way in which human resource policies should align with CSR. Conversely, faculty in the field of HRM could also benefit from this chapter’s content.
The highlight of the chapter contributed by Timothy London on team building is the manner in which ethical quandaries are identified out, at many levels: how students in teams will face ethical challenges; ethical challenges in forming teams; and ethical challenges in actually teaching about team building and determining at what levels to make students “uncomfortable.” It is a chapter that is truly international, not being rooted in any one nationality or teaching system. This ease of applicability to management educators around the world is a great plus. Completing the module, Greg Latemore’s chapter on change management is written in accessible language and deals with the topical issues in organizational change. The descriptions of the different approaches to ethical change management are very useful. The author provides very good descriptions of what is involved in change management and some of the ethical issues that can arise when change is introduced in an organization. The four key approaches toward ethical change management are discussed and some fascinating ethical stories shared. The need for mutual respect and trust is emphasized. The case studies included are interesting and practical.
“The How Matters” is the caption given to the third and final module. Chapter 9, authored by Wayne Buck and Jeffrey Schaller, starts us off with a focus on sustainability as an ethical norm and analyzes ethical questions from the easily grasped perspectives of occupational process and product safety. Their reference to the difference between potato chips and microchips is a vivid way of explaining how the criteria apply. The authors advocate an appealing teaching strategy of combining modest expectations with an experiential approach. They explain how existing operations management simulations, for example, the “Deepwater Simulation Game,” can help to introduce ethics into operations management courses. Finally, the authors advise teachers to encourage students’ self-reflection and draw attention to the context of their behavior and their evolving mindsets over the course of the simulation. With digital media growing in both scale and significance, this is an important topic to address. Ogechi Adeola demonstrates a good understanding of this field of study and covers a lot of material in a concise and accessible manner. In her chapter (Chapter 10), she provides an interesting summary of the emerging ethical issues in relation to digital marketing. The contemporary nature of the topic and the projects and exercises section are the highlights of the chapter. For example, the Wal-Mart fake blog controversy offers readers an engaging “real life” example for debate and discussion. The use of brainstorming sessions establishes an open and encouraging clime, which favors active listening and respect for diversity in the classroom. In Chapter 11, the final chapter of this volume, Keith Diener draws a useful comparison between U.S. and UK legal systems governing specific issues impacting business. His work displays in-depth knowledge of legal considerations and familiarity with various laws relating to business ethics— some being of general application and others more particular. According to Keith, ultimately, students need to be taught to ask not only the legal question, “Can we legally do this?” but also the ethics question, “Is this the right thing to do?” His chapter suggests that such ethical reflection can have a profound effect on managerial decision-making.
Concluding Reflections
There is a lot of published research already available publicly on ethics education. The usefulness of this book lies in the insights shared by faculty in non-ethics disciplines in order to facilitate, for their peers, the incorporation of ethics into regular teaching. This needs to be done in such a way that, whether teaching finance or operations or entrepreneurship, students learn in a manner that respects their need to know the ethical considerations that, in real life, accompany optimal decision making and can thus make better informed and more responsible choices. An enhanced moral judgment is an invaluable asset to them for this purpose.5 They should not only be able to sense or know that something is wrong but also to know and to be able to explain why. The people who pass through our classrooms go on in life to become part of organizations and engage in making decisions that affect the world we live in. We are all interdependent. Just as past ethical scandals all over the world had consequences that reached all of us albeit remotely in many cases, for example, making schools see more clearly the relevance of ethics teaching and research,6 so also will the teacher who embeds ethics in teaching have a far-reaching impact even when she or he is ignorant of it. I am certain that many of us will find it good to have the guidance and examples that can be adopted and adapted across disciplines as presented in this book. There is reason to believe that it is a much-needed resource,7 given the continuous clamor for more effective integration of business ethics education.8
Besides, the increasing sensitivity globally to ethical standards means that business is more and more as unusual. Organizations are, more and more, appreciating and prizing ethical employees.9 They clearly see the need to have employees who are able to handle the issues that arise in the workplace.10 In fact they are coming to expect this ethical competence, apart from technical expertise and soft skills.11 As time goes by, more of them will find means and establish systems to reward this very important requirement in order to further promote and foster it.
__________________
2 Sims and Felton (2005); Horvik (2009).
4 Rasche, Gilbert, and Schedel (2013).
8 Rasche, Gilbert, and Schedel (2013).
9 Nastase and Gligor-Cimpoieru (2013).
10 Sigurjonsson et al. (2015); Horvik (2009).
11 Molyneaux (2004); Sigurjonsson et al. (2015).
References
Baetz, M.C., and D.J. Sharp. 2004. “Integrating Ethics Content into the Core Business Curriculum: Do Core Teaching Materials Do the Job?” Journal of Business Ethics 51, no. 1, pp. 53–62.
Hoivik, H. 2009. “Developing Students’ Competence for Ethical Reflection While Attending Business School.” Journal of Business Ethics 88, no. 1, pp. 5–9.
Molyneaux, D. 2004. “After Andersen: An Experience of Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Accountancy Education.” Journal of Business Ethics 54, no. 4, pp. 385–98.
Nastase, M., and D.C. Gligor-Cimpoieru. 2013. “A Plea for the Importance of Business Ethics Education for Future Managers in an International Competitive Environment.” Review of International Comparative Management 14, no. 2, pp. 191–201.
Neesham, C., and J. Gu. 2015. “Strengthening Moral Judgment: A Moral Identity-Based Leverage Strategy in Business Ethics Education.” Journal of Business Ethics 131, no. 3, pp. 527–34.
Rasche, A., D.U. Gilbert, and I. Schedel. 2013. “Cross-Disciplinary Ethics Education in MBA Programs: Rhetoric or Reality?” Academy of Management Learning and Education 12, no. 1, pp. 71–85.
Sigurjonsson, T.O., A.A. Arnardottir, V. Vaiman, and P. Rikhardsson. 2015. “Managers’ Views on Ethics Education in Business Schools: An Empirical Study.” Journal of Business Ethics 130, no. 1, pp. 1–13.
Sims, R.R., and E.L. Felton. 2005. “Successfully Teaching Ethics for Effective Learning.” College Teaching Methods and Styles Journal 1, no. 3, pp. 31–48.
Sims, R.R., and E.L. Felton. 2006. “Designing and Delivering Business Ethics Teaching and Learning.” Journal of Business Ethics 63, no. 3, pp. 297–312.
Smit, A. 2013. “Responsible Leadership Development Through Management Education: A Business Ethics Perspective.” African Journal of Business Ethics 7, no. 2, pp. 45–51.