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Business Ethics: Teaching ethics

Introduction

In this section you will find references to principles, guidelines and theory (books and journals) regarding teaching ethics in the curriculum.

Books

Teaching ethics materal

In this section you will find references to material that could be used for raising the moral sensitivity and ethical awareness, and advancing the ethical decision-making skills, of our students in lecturing - such as a textbook titled ‘Ethical Dilemmas in the Creative, Cultural and Service Industries’ which has been written by colleagues from all five academies and contains 21 case studies covering the vast field of BUas’ knowledge domains (more information will follow soon); an educational film ‘Ethics in Business’ which contains 12 short video clips depicting different ethical dilemmas that (future) professionals could encounter in their work; references to case studies and also fully developed modules that could be used in teaching.

NHTV Textbook

Bouwer, J. (2019)(Ed.). Ethical Dilemmas in the Creative, Cultural and Service Industries. London/New York: Routledge (ISBN: 9780367209155) (Forthcoming)

 

NHTV Educational Film

The educational film ‘Ethics in Business’ consists of 12 short video clips titled ‘company behaviour, professional loyalty, supplier relationships, sustainable business, choosing customers, customer safety, ethical business, honest marketing, responsible behaviour, employee privacy, professional moral duties and responsible game development’.  

Access the film and instructions for use by following the URL:  https://vimeopro.com/nhtvbreda/ethics-in-business

Password: Ethics!2016

Case studies

The website of the Tepper School of Business harbours a large range of case studies and corresponding teaching notes that could be used in lecturing. They span issues like accountancy, finance, management and marketing. See http://public.tepper.cmu.edu/ethics/aa/arthurandersen.htm .

 

For a model that could be used in solving ethical dilemmas, see the tab CASES.

 

UN ‘Doha’ Modules ‘Integrity and Ethics’ 

The Education for Justice (E4J) initiative of the United Nations has developed a series of Integrity and Ethics modules. It is an ‘Open Educational Resource’ that could be used by lecturers across the world.

www.unodc.org/e4j/en/tertiary/integrity-ethics.html

 

Cases

In order to add some flavour to ethical thinking and decision-making, the following (fictitious) cases from BusinessEthics.ca might be inspirational.

Ethical decision-making

Many models for ethical decision-making can be found in literature, such as the Potter-Box model, the Markkula Framework, the Wittmer model and the Integrated EDM model, but the following steps – analogous to the ‘classical ethical decision-making model’ – will be of great help as well:

  1. Collect all the facts and define the ethical dilemma or problem

  2. Indentify feasible options/actions that could be taken for solving the dilemma or problem

  3. Establish the effects of these options/actions on all stakeholders (of the company)

  4. Establish the criteria for determining which action will solve the dilemma or problem most adequately (think of principles such as (a) duties and rights (b) conSKEuences and (c) implications for personal integrity and character)

  5. Make a decision by selecting the best option/action based on the established criteria

  6. Monitor the implementation of the action and learn from the outcomes