A Place for Ethics in Education

Corporate scandals have rocked the business world in recent years and put business ethics in the spotlight. In business schools, academics are looking at the key question of whether ethics can be taught and, if so, how (see BusinessWeek.com, "Welcome to Ethics101").

Duke University's Sim Sitkin is well aware of the increasing importance of including ethics instruction in MBA programs. A faculty member at the Fuqua School of Business, Sitkin serves as the Faculty Director of Duke University's Center of Leadership and Ethics (COLE).

The center was founded two years ago by the Fuqua School of Business, and collaborates with the Kenan Institute of Ethics and Duke University Athletics to provide a central locale for the university's ethics and leadership research, support, and instruction. According to Sitkin, nearly 400 of Fuqua's MBA students participate in COLE's leadership and ethics training including off-campus workshops, formal classroom training, and situational panel discussions.

Sitkin recently spoke to BusinessWeek.com intern Lauren Lavelle. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation:

What kinds of activities for MBA students are offered through COLE?
Students participate in curricular and extracurricular activities. All MBA students are required to take an "Ethics and Leadership" course. Outside of class, they participate in an annual conference, discussion groups, and off-campus leadership training.

Last year we hosted a screening of the movie The Corporation and a discussion of the ethical implications in it. This year, students are working with Habitat for Humanity to invoke the notion that ethical leadership involves giving back to the community.

What should be the role of an MBA program in ethics instruction?
The responsibility of MBA programs in general and COLE in particular is to try to help improve the practice of management, one student at a time, by helping each student maximize his potential for future leadership roles and for the ability to exercise leadership effectively (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/30/2006, "Bullish on Integrity"). MBA programs have an obligation to teach students to improve how they think about their roles in the workplace in order to incorporate ethics and leadership.

COLE works in collaboration with Duke University's athletic department. How did the Center react to the recent controversy surrounding the men's lacrosse team?
COLE joined with a number of other organizations across the university to encourage an open dialogue of the issue. We stressed the importance of behaving ethically and speaking up when students see others engaging in inappropriate or irresponsible behavior. We are teaching our students true ethical leadership, which is to not deal with short-term, superficial issues, but to really reflect on the deeper underlying issues.

What steps did COLE take to ensure that the reputation of Fuqua students was not jeopardized by this incident?
The incident has not changed anything we are already doing but has provided us an illustration of why it is important to teach leadership responsibility in every aspect of a student's life here at Duke. At Fuqua, we have always fostered a sense of leadership responsibility in all of our students. It has been something that we initiated long before this incident occurred and something we will continue in the future.

How would you grade business schools in ethics instruction?
Schools are starting to pay more attention to ethics instruction but they adopt the labels because they're sexy and faddish and because they help raise money. They need to look at the issue of ethics as it relates to leadership and current industry problems.

How is COLE's approach unique in the way it teaches ethics to business students?
We are not unique in recognizing the importance of leadership and ethics but we have a distinctive approach to pursuing it. By making ethics training part of the core curriculum and part of the extracurricular activities for those who want to delve deeper, ethics becomes woven into the fabric of what it means to be a Fuqua graduate.

How have the recent corporate scandals changed the attitude toward business ethics?
The recent scandals have raised awareness that if students see their jobs as managers as simply making technically correct decisions divorced from the broader ethical context, then they are not acting as ethical leaders (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/6/2006, "Ken Lay's Dark, Ironic Legacy").

One of COLE's messages to students, then, is that if they're not going to be ethical leaders as well as technically excellent analysts and managers, then they're really not going to fulfill their potential and could lead their organizations astray.

What are some of the challenges for students learning ethics and how does COLE help students face those challenges?
The biggest challenge for students is resisting the temptation to back off from difficult and sometimes ambiguous challenges of ethics leadership dilemmas. At COLE, we develop a support network of students who understand the difficulty in facing ethical dilemmas so that together, they have the courage and the fortitude to be able to tackle issues ethically.

Have recruiters been more attracted to students involved in COLE?
Recruiters have been very impressed with COLE and its initiatives. They have an acute interest in students demonstrating not only their technical expertise, but also their qualifications in tackling tough ethical issues. They are looking for these qualifications in ways they didn't five years ago because, in light of recent scandals, these are the qualifications that interest top corporations.

What are some of the goals for COLE in the next few years?
We want to expand our educational and research offerings and make those accessible to the business community, as well as to the scholarly community. We want to make sure that our ethics training is based on scientific research and not a fad or superficial theory.