A Framework for Business Ethics Education

A. Scott Carson

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A Framework for Business Ethics Education

A. Scott Carson

Queen's University, Canada

Volume 10: 2012, pp. 185-210: ABSTRACT

Business schools are frequently blamed for corporate ethical scandals by failing to develop integrity and critical ethical thinking skills in managers. What should business schools teach to address this? The paper proposes a framework for the development and evaluation of a business ethics curriculum, which is grounded on the AACSB learning goals of ethical understanding, reasoning abilities, managerial knowledge and ethical capacities. The framework is two building blocks in the form of tests, which together provide quality measures for business ethics content and a definition of the scope and depth of knowledge an ethics curriculum should contain. Overall, the framework is a supplement to the AACSB guidelines and its purpose is to be a curriculum development tool.