Students learn to navigate ethics in the real-world
Almost every day, a new scandal involving abuse of power, fraud, or misconduct leaps onto the front page of newspapers and into the public consciousness.
These scandals served as the teaching material for two sections of BUSI 4601 Business Ethics, taught by instructor Richard Clayman. Business Ethics is a required course for all students in the Bachelor of Commerce program.
Clayman said he wanted to move away from a course that relied too heavily on ethical theory to one that balanced an appropriate introduction to theory with a strong connection to actual social and business situations.
“I researched some courses when I was first asked to do this; I went online and found presentations from major business schools that were just laden with theory,” he said. “Theory is important because it frames our understanding of the issues, but ethics seems to strongly resonate with students when they can see how those theories play out in real life situations, and that’s what I tried to bring to the classroom.”
“Ethics isn’t something that’s solely theoretical, it’s something that’s occurring around us every day,” he said.
Clayman asked students to turn off their computers and cell phones for the class so they could be fully present, both leading and contributing to the class discussion.
“We really wanted the sharing to be a two-way street, with students sharing their concerns with me and the class, and myself sharing what I wanted them to take away from it,” he said.
The culminating project for the course had each class of 50 students divide into five-person teams to analyze the Penn State sex abuse scandal, an example Clayman says illustrates many of the ethical challenges leaders face today.
“It dealt with a lot of aspects of ethics, power, influence, and capitulation,” he said, “and some of its major events occurred at a university that taught ethics.”
‘If I was in an organization and I wanted to do something unethical, and I needed someone to do that through, I would pick any one of you.'”
Clayman said he believes an understanding of ethics is critically important for graduating students as they enter the working world because they will all start off in a position of vulnerability
“We started the class off by saying: ‘If I was in an organization and I wanted to do something unethical, and I needed someone to do that through, I would pick any one of you,'” he said. “Because you don’t yet have a support network, you’re not yet sure of what can and can’t be done and you’re highly motivated to do what is needed to keep your job.”
“It makes you the perfect target, so you have to recognize those scenarios, guard against them and speak up in opposition to such behaviors.”
Clayman said he tried to use examples of how lapses in ethics could affect students, from being taken advantage of as a new worker, to how larger unethical decisions could affect their friends and family members.
“When Enron failed, it was 100’s of millions of dollars were lost from the pension fund of employees and others who had invested in the shares of Enron,” he said. “So I told students they could have had parents or grandparents trying to find new employment at 60 or 70 or more, because their retirement savings were gone.”
“That’s what unethical leadership can do; it can ruin people’s lives,” he said.
“I wanted them to sign that oath only if they truly thought they had acquired an awareness of ethics.”
After the final exam had been completed, Clayman presented an ethical oath to all the students, based on a modified version of the Harvard MBA Oath, which has become popular at business schools around the world.
In taking the oath, the students recognize their decisions affect the well-being of people inside and outside the workplace, while promising to work with honesty, a respect for others, and a commitment to protecting the rights of future generations.
Clayman said the decision to present the oath at the end of the course was a conscious one.
“I didn’t want the students thinking they needed to sign something in order to be well-considered for the assignments that were coming,” he said. “I wanted them to sign that oath only if they truly thought they had acquired an awareness of ethics.”
The response to the oath was overwhelmingly positivity, with all 100 students from both sections of the course signing their names to it.
Clayman said several students have contacted him in the months after the course asking for a copy of the oath to keep with them, or to add to their resumes as a positive discussion for future job interviews.
After showing students the impact ethics can have on the world, Clayman said he hopes they will remember the oath as they move through their careers and be able to recognize and take a stand against unethical behaviour.
“It takes principled leadership to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.