As the fallout from corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco continues, business schools across the country have been feeling the pressure to reform their approach to teaching ethical standards. And Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow received a degree, is no exception.
The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business recently pushed business schools to redefine the role that ethics plays in their courses. Kellogg currently does not require students to take ethics classes to receive a degree, nor do many other schools in the United States. According to association officials, only one-third of business schools, including Kellogg, even offer ethics as a separate course.
“(Schools) are trying to avoid creating an ‘ethics ghetto’ where ethical issues are kept separate from the functional areas of business,” said Milton Blood, the association’s managing director of accreditation services. “More than two-thirds of business schools include ethics education by integrating it in multiple courses throughout the curriculum.”
To bolster its ethics-based curriculum, Kellogg officials have developed a 10-day program for next year’s incoming students that will feature training in ethics, leadership and teamwork — or what Prof. David Messick calls “the human side of management.”
“(The 10-day program) will help remind our business students about their duties and obligations to other people in the world,” Messick said.
Fastow, who is awaiting trail on fraud charges, was a key player in Enron’s implosion and bankruptcy. He received a master’s of business administration from Kellogg in the mid-1980s.
Messick, Kellogg’s Morris and Alice Kaplan professor of ethics and decision in management, said it will be difficult for one conference to change a student’s ethics. Instead, ethics need to be integrated into all of the business school’s courses, he said, to avoid having a graduate such as Fastow become the center of controversy.
Although moral behavior is a major concern, the business school association has decided not to require a specific ethics course, Blood said. The association does require business schools to teach certain ethical ideas, however, and a proposal in April will further define those standards.
Heidi Diedrich, Kellogg’s director of media relations, said the business school has revised its curriculum independent of the association’s review.
“(We’re) making changes based on student feedback as well as faculty and the administration,” Diedrich said.
Messick said he agrees with the association’s focus on integrating ethical ideas into courses. Presenting ethics along with other management objectives in class will give the message a real-life context for students, he said.
Shari Gordon, president of Kellogg’s Business Leadership Club, said some of her fellow students are skeptical about ethics courses — but she’s open to the idea.
“(The importance of ethics) depends on who you talk to,” Gordon said. “Some will say it’s pointless. I definitely think you can’t teach ethics, but I see the value of opening it up to discussion.”
But Gordon said Kellogg’s efforts to ensure that students are taught the principles of ethical business decisions make sense.
“Kellogg is the kind of place that puts an emphasis on values and giving back to the community,” she said. “It’s part of the personality of the school.”
