Creating an engaging classroom environment for teaching business ethics

1. Creating an engaging classroom environment for teaching business ethics Harry J. Van Buren III May 12, 2010 Bill Daniels Teaching Business Ethics Workshop Santa Fe, NM

2. A portfolio approach There is no one approach that works best for teaching business ethics and related courses. Rather, multiple approaches, tools, resources, and assessment methods can work together to ensure that students learn about ethical issues in business, clarify their own values, and leave the course equipped to understand the complex social and ethical environment in which any organization operates.

3. Teaching values? Teaching about values Yes (philosophical frameworks)? Teaching about others’ Yes values (descriptive ethics)? Teaching your values? No There is a huge difference between being descriptive and prescriptive.

4. The classroom setting (1) Lectures about ideas and frameworks in business ethics work best when they • bring up current issues (in early 2010, Toyota and Goldman Sachs), • are practically focused on what managers and organizations actually do, and • are supplemented with media clips (NPR, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc.) and current news articles.

5. The classroom setting (2) Discussions of philosophical frameworks (utilitarianism, justice, etc.) need to be grounded in real-life examples. Most business students are practically oriented!

6. Real-life cases Sometimes the cases in the back of textbooks may work well in the classroom. I have found that current, real-life cases from the news are more helpful in connecting course ideas to the ethical dilemmas that business students will face after graduation. Also, shorter cases may work better than longer cases.

7. Assignments and assessments Rather than ask students to write general papers and exam answers, using news articles, company documents (such as CSR/corporate citizenship reports), and current research about social issues puts students in the place of organizational decision makers and helps them better apply course materials.

8. What are we trying to accomplish? (1) Rather than teach students what the professor thinks the ethical action is in a given situation, it is better to teach them how to think ethically. Rather than give students a tool kit of ideas that helps them rationalize the decisions that they were already going to make, it is better to give them a tool kit of frameworks and ideas that can be brought to bear on ethical dilemmas in business.

9. What are we trying to accomplish? (2) We also want to teach students how to think through what organizational stakeholders expect from organizations and why stakeholders behave as they do—both of which are critical for helping organizations respond effectively to their stakeholders. Most importantly, we are trying to teach students to think analogically when facing ethical issues in their organizations.

10. Conclusion The coolest part about teaching ethics is that it is always new. There is always a new set of corporate scandals to integrate into your courses! More seriously, to the extent that you as a business ethics professor communicate the complexity of the external environment, the nature of ethical dilemmas that students will face, and practical tools and frameworks for dealing with those ethical dilemmas, your course will be successful.