Is There a Decline in Teaching Ethics in U.S. Business Schools?

Abstract

With recent financial scandals at Global Crossing, Enron and WorldCom involving manipulation of company earnings and the collapse of shareholder values, there has been increased debate concerning ethical decision making among business leaders in America and abroad. This debate has been accompanied by an increased expectation that US business schools give more emphasis to ethics in their business curricula at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. With A.ACSB mandating the coverage of ethics in business school curricula for member schools, administrators and faculty have shown considerable latitude in the coverage of this topic. This paper looks at differences in the coverage of ethics in the business school curricula of two universities: one a public state university, one a private religious university, as well as trends in the coverage of ethics at several public and private universities cited in recent research articles.