Search results

The early twenty-first century saw a rise in corporate scandals with Enron and WorldCom grabbing the newspaper headlines. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools in Business realized the significance of imparting education in ethics mainly to the students studying business management and thus a task force was established to examine and report on the current status of ethics education in business schools (Waples, Antes, Murphy, Connelly, & Mumford, 2009). The task force published a report that strongly advocated a course in business ethics that will help business management students cope with ethical dilemmas in their decision-making process. In Eastern Africa, Business Ethics as a subject of teaching and research has expanded at a significant level mainly in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. This chapter presents an evaluation and critical discussion of current business ethics education in St Lawrence University in Uganda. The chapter will discuss issues related to teaching business ethics in an African context and the relevance of the subject to the current students enrolled in business courses and how it can contribute to promoting social responsibility through higher education.

Teaching ethical decision making can be distinguished from teaching decision making in other settings by its juxtaposition of students’ affect with their intellect (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001); as Griseri (2002, p. 374) aptly points out, “effective business ethics teaching should involve a combination of…two aspects of ethical situations – their emotional and intellectual elements.” To engage students’ affect, research suggests the use of multiple teaching modalities (e.g., films, case studies, journals, and role-play) (McPhail, 2001). To develop students’ ethical intellect, research recommends using appropriate, individual-specific cognitive stimulation (Massey & Thorne, 2006). Yet, in designing courses, faculty typically preselect course teaching methods independently of the particular students who enroll in the course, often teaching their courses using methods that are consistent with their own personal learning styles (Thompson, 1997) even though those methods may not be effective for (m)any students in their classes. Nonetheless, investigating each student’s preferred learning style and tailoring the course accordingly is impractical (cf., Montgomery & Groat, 1988). Thus, as highlighted in the ethics literature (McPhail, 2001) and suggested in the education literature (Nilson, 2010a), faculty should utilize a variety of approaches to effectively teach ethics to their accounting students. To facilitate these efforts, this paper presents and evaluates various strategies accounting faculty can use to teach accounting ethics in ways that correspond to students’ varying learning preferences. As such, the strategies this paper provides can be used to create an accounting ethics course that affectively impacts and cognitively stimulates a diverse student body that, in turn, can lead to improved ethical reasoning skills.

This paper picks up where an earlier one was left off by this same researcher. It asserts, as a starting point, that teaching professional ethics to business students yields positive results in terms of increased moral development. It then provides several rationales for justifying the teaching of professional ethics, which is a subject whose validity students – and some faculty – challenge. The method by which ethics ought to be delivered is then proffered. Some relevant questions are presented, including: “Should ethics be taught in the academy or in the workplace?” “What constitutes the proper content of a professional business ethics curriculum?”

Forty-five years ago, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of famous experiments on obedience and authority that tested individuals' willingness to administer electric shocks to a test subject under the direction of an authority figure. This paper discusses how Milgram's work on human psychological tendencies can be used to address subordination of judgment and other ethical issues in financial accounting and reporting, including accounting for income taxes. The teaching approach described relies on readings, videos, and mini-cases to give students an appreciation for the role of organizational influences on ethical decision making in today's accounting world. This teaching approach is innovative in its use of social psychological theories to address accounting ethical dilemmas, and its incorporation of contemporary international financial reporting standards and tax reporting issues into the ethics debate.

This study examines the perceptions of accounting faculties toward ethics education, the extent of ethics coverage and reasons why ethics should (or should not) be taught in Japanese tertiary schools. Data for this research was collected from faculties that primarily teach accounting in Japanese tertiary schools in 2009. The results indicate that over 90% of accounting faculties believe that ethics should be taught within the accounting curriculum. In terms of how ethics should be delivered survey participants believed in a more holistic approach, which would encompass the benefits of teaching it as both a stand-alone course and integrating it with other relevant courses. This outcome is in direct contrast to the results obtained from previous studies undertaken outside of Japan. Of particular interest was the fact that the current survey revealed that only 55.2% of respondents actually intend to incorporate ethics into their accounting courses in the foreseeable future. This research successfully adds value to the shortage of literature existing on the perceptions of ethics education among Japanese accounting faculties.

The chapter presents the implementation of ethics education via challenge-based learning (CBL) in three European settings. At TU Eindhoven (the Netherlands), a mandatory first-year User, Society, and Enterprise course on the ethics and history of technology offers a CBL alternative on ethics and data analytics in collaboration with internal student and research teams. The University of Lübeck (Germany) initiated the project CREATE – Challenge-based Learning for Robotics Students by Engaging Start-Ups in Technology Ethics, which enables 60 students in Robotics and Autonomous Systems to integrate ethical and societal considerations into technological development processes, in cooperation with start-ups from a local accelerator. In Spain, CBI-Fusion Point brings together 40 students from business and law (ESADE), engineering and technology (Polytechnic University of Catalonia), and design (IED Barcelona Design University) for an innovation course focused on the application of CERN-developed technologies to real-world problems. The chapter documents the process of setting up three CBL courses that engage students with grand societal topics which require the integration of ethical concerns from the design stage of technological development. The authors also reflect on the challenges of teaching ethics via CBL and the lessons they learned by delivering experiential learning activities rooted in real-life challenges and contexts marked by high epistemic uncertainty. The contribution reflects the transition to remote teaching and presents strategies employed to enhance online communication and collaboration. The chapter thus provides guidance for instructors interested in teaching ethics via CBL and recommends further lines for action and research.

It is broadly accepted that ethics should be incorporated into accounting programs. Most CPA firms rely on colleges and universities to teach ethical behavior. Utilizing a quasi-experimental approach, this chapter examines the effectiveness of ethics instruction delivered via a combination of lecture and active learning methods. Specifically, the impact of ethics instruction on behavior in business settings is investigated. Though similar studies have addressed this issue, this study tests the effectiveness of a particular curriculum in a post-Enron environment. Further, a new instrument to measure moral reasoning ability in work situations is introduced. The study's findings suggest that ethics instruction is effective in increasing moral reasoning ability, particularly in upper-level accounting courses such as accounting information systems and auditing.