Source: Diane Swanson, 785-532-4352, swanson@k-state.edu
http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/MediaGuide/dswansonbio.html
News release prepared by: Angie Johnson, 785-532-6415

Monday, November 24, 2003

DESPITE CALLS FROM PRESIDENT BUSH, BUSINESS SCHOOLS STILL GET A BAD REPORT CARD FOR ETHICS

MANHATTAN -- After the outrage over corporate scandals in 2002, President George Bush asked for ethics coursework in American business schools. However, according to Diane Swanson, associate professor of management and von Waaden business administration professor at Kansas State University, he's still getting a lame response.

The White House issued press releases after the scandals in which Bush called for business schools to be "principled teachers of right and wrong, and not surrender to moral confusion and relativism."

With this said, however, only one third of business schools in the United States offer ethics as a separate course, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a leading accrediting agency and training source for business schools. Swanson said the statistic is outrageous.

"I can't believe only a third of accredited schools just offer a course. All schools should be requiring it," she said. "I think it should shock the public given all the damage that has come from illegal and unethical corporate conduct. Students need a course to explain their future business responsibilities."

Even the top-ranked schools are not answering Bush's call to the best of their abilities, Swanson said. She has been researching ethics in education with co-investigator Tammy Mac Lean, assistant professor of management at Suffolk University, Boston, and Barrie Litzy, assistant professor at Penn State Great Valley, in Melvern, Pa. The team recently completed an audit of the nation's top 13 business schools, based on an analysis of online course catalogs and curricula posted to university Web sites in spring 2003. The audit showed that, of the schools polled, 23 percent require a business ethics course, 30 percent stipulate a course in which ethics is combined with another subject, and 46 percent or nearly half offer only an elective, which equates to no requirement at all.

"This is why business schools are getting a bad report card. Even many of the top-ranked schools are not doing the job thoroughly," Swanson said. "It's a huge concern."

Some of Swanson's recent efforts to persuade business schools to strengthen ethics coverage include chairing a Business Ethics Education Initiative, sponsored by K-State's College of Business Administration. The organization seeks to help strengthen business ethics education internationally, nationally and locally. Its goals include enhancing public awareness of the importance of business ethics coursework and identifying effective models of ethics education for relevant stakeholders. Swanson has enlisted the support of more than 200 teaching colleagues, ethicists, human resource specialists and two academic conference boards to try to persuade the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business to require at least one ethics course as a condition of accreditation. So far, the accrediting agency has rejected the proposal.

Swanson also spoke recently on "Denial and Leadership in Business Ethics Education" at a Business Ethics Symposium in collaboration with William C. Frederick, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. She and Frederick have also co-authored several publications regarding business ethics in education.

Swanson said she thinks several groups should be aware of and concerned with the issue of business ethics teaching, including agencies that accredit business schools, business leaders, students, investors, consumers, employees and the general public. She said corporations should not hire graduates lacking even basic ethics reasoning skills as it suggests another wave of scandals in the future.

"Provosts and presidents of universities should make sure they require a business ethics course. They shouldn't wait for faculty to form committees and hold meetings; they should take immediate action," Swanson said. "And the public should surely be aware as it suffered from all the scandals."

As for K-State's business ethics education, Swanson said it's covered. K-State has required all undergraduate business students to take a business ethics course to graduate since 1967 and graduate students have been required to do so since the inception of the master's of business administration program. She said something is wrong if other schools aren't catching on.

"K-State is part of a cadre of schools leading the pack in ethics coverage. We have acquired a reputation of strengthening ethics education," Swanson said. "I think we deserve some credit for that."

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