Business ethics is not an oxymoron.
A recently released study on the top 50 global business schools pointed to increased interest in ethical issues among the top MBA programs in the world.
ASU, although not on the top-50 list compiled by The Financial Times, is ahead of the game, said business professor Angelo Kinicki. It is one of the 25 percent of schools nationwide offering a graduate-level class on legal and ethical issues.
It is important to teach ethics because good ethics lead to successful business, Kinicki said.
"We are trying to teach students that it is smart business to do the right thing," he said. "If you behave unethically ... you can go to prison, you can be fined, and you can cost your shareholders millions and millions of dollars."
There has been a five-fold increase in the number of stand-alone ethics courses in business schools since 1988, the report stated.
Many schools are also searching for innovative ways to teach ethics outside of the classroom, the report stated.
For example, at the University of Maryland College of Business, graduate
students take a three-day
excursion to a minimum-security prison to learn from the mistakes of the white-
collar criminals housed there.
Cornell University sends its business graduate students to Latin America and other foreign locales to work in local business dealing with ethical or sustainability issues, such as ecotourism or the logging industry.
Ethics in business are becoming more and more important as the business world globalizes, Kinicki said.
"Ethics and ethical practices vary around the
world, and because many of our graduates go out
and work in international firms, we need to expose them to some of those
[ethical] differences," Kinicki said. "For example, here you can't take bribes, and in other parts of the world, bribing is a normal part of business."
At ASU, ethics courses are required to receive an undergraduate business management degree, said business management junior Kaitlyn Hutt.
"You learn all about business ethics and the cases that pertain to it, like Napster," marketing junior Marta Roth added.
Roth said that in the end, ethics are a personal issue, no matter how much they are taught in school.
"I think we are taught the standards we need to uphold," Roth said. "But it's more personal. It's up to you to decide if you want to get ahead, or be ethical about [business]."
Finance sophomore Rahul Narayan agrees.
"Sometimes ethics cannot be taught," he said. "It's part of who you are."
Reach the reporter at: john.dougherty@asu.edu.
