Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics Report Provides Guidelines for Developing Ethical Leadership Among Tomorrow’s Business Executives

New Collaborative Effort by Academic and Business Leaders Advocates
Principles and Practices for a Model Business Ethics Program

 
(Read the report: Shaping Tomorrow’s Business Leaders: Principles and Practices for a Model Business Ethics Program)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, October 3, 2007 – In a report published today, the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (the Institute) calls on business schools to adopt principles and practices for building model business ethics programs at their institutions.  The report includes an introductory letter from Harold McGraw III, Chairman of Business Roundtable and Chairman, President and CEO, The McGraw-Hill Companies. Based on the leading thinking of noted faculty and business leaders, the report provides clear and actionable recommendations for business schools attempting to build or strengthen the ethics education of their students.

“Many leading businesses no longer debate the legitimacy of the role and importance of ethics,” the report, Shaping Tomorrow’s Business Leaders: Principles and Practices for a Model Business Ethics Program, says, “rather, they are forging ahead, finding new ways to put ethics into practice.” The report argues that business schools need to recognize this marketplace change and take action to keep pace with the speed of business as they develop the next generation of ethical business leaders.

The report recommends that business schools adopt principles in three interrelated areas: the ethics course, the overall curriculum, and the broader community of the school. Recommended principles, which are intended to be aspirational, include:

• A stand-alone ethics course should be required as a foundational course placed early in the curriculum, taught by ethics-trained faculty or a multi-disciplinary faculty team that includes ethics trained faculty.
• As an integral part of the curriculum and a core and fundamental business discipline, ethics content should be integrated into all other business disciplines, and content from other business disciplines should be integrated into the ethics curriculum.
• The entire academic community (students, faculty, administration and business partners) should collaborate on issues such as recruiting, role models, and relevant research.

Executive Director of the Institute Dean Krehmeyer says, “Executives from leading companies and business ethicists agree that developing the next generation of ethical leaders is critical for long-term value creation—the time for business schools to step up to this challenge is now.”

The report also recommends actions that key business school stakeholder groups can take in order to put these principles into practice. Recommended actions include:

• Business school leadership should demonstrate institutional commitment to ethics and responsible business conduct through explicit statements and activities of the institution.
• Faculty should encourage students to actively engage in business ethics discussions across the curriculum in all courses.
• Business school students should envision themselves as future ethical business leaders and act accordingly.
• Business leaders should weigh responsible business behavior as part of merit review and the performance evaluation process.

Brief thought leader articles by prominent business ethics scholars are included in the report to showcase how existing business programs implement these principles and practices.

The full report and summaries of the recommended principles and practices are available online at www.corporate-ethics.org.   

The results of a survey the Institute conducted among business ethics educators about the current state of teaching business ethics is also available at: www.corporate-ethics.org.

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The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (www.corporate-ethics.org) is an independent entity established in partnership with Business Roundtable—an association of chief executive officers of leading corporations with a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees and $4.5 trillion in annual revenues—and leading academics from America’s best business schools. The Institute, which is housed at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, 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.

Thank you for your interest in the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics. 

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