The Presence of Business Ethics and CSR in the Higher Education Curricula for Executives: The Case of Spain

José Luis Fernández Fernández; Anna Bajo Sanjuán

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The Presence of Business Ethics and CSR in the Higher Education Curricula for Executives: The Case of Spain

José Luis Fernández Fernández and Anna Bajo Sanjuán

Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Spain

Volume 7: 2010, pp. 25-38: ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the study plans and programmes offered in Spain to present and future businesspeople and executives in the academic year 2009-10. These offerings represent business administration studies in all Spanish universities, as well as postgraduate programmes taught by the universities themselves and/or other business schools. This is of special relevance because there are few data for assessing how our executives are trained, even though such data are essential to any attempt to improve corporate performance. Clearly, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and other core courses related to sustainability can and should contribute to this end. But the actual results are not very promising: these essential courses are offered in a minority of postgraduate programmes, and they barely exist at the undergraduate level. We consider it long overdue that academic institutions explore the inherent value of this type of training and seriously reconsider alternative course planning for their students.