The challenge of preparing ethically responsible managers: Closing the rhetoric-reality gap

Abstract

This article begins by questioning the commitment of business, government, and education leaders to the goal of ensuring that our public and private sector organizations are directed by ethically responsible individuals. Noting that while there appears to be genuine concern with the most recent outbreak of ethical failings as well as widespread support for the concept of morally and ethically educated current and future managers, there is less agreement on the most efficient and effective means of realizing this goal. For perspective purposes, recent research findings and opinions of leaders in higher education and business on the issue of ethics and the curriculum are highlighted.

This paper challenges business, government, and higher education to disengage the “cheap” talk and to engage in a collaborative effort to develop a required, team-taught, interdisciplinary business ethics course based on philosophical inquiry, organizational theory, and actual business situations. Course goals, content, leadership, and benefits to students, managers, and ethicists are identified and discussed.

Perhaps the failure of America's higher education institutions in preparing ethically responsible future leaders of business and government reflects the inability to “teach” ethics under any format. Could the problem be, however, that the approaches, to date, have not sufficiently incorporated the talents and experiences of line managers in conjunction with the theoretical frameworks of moral philosophers? This relatively simple conceptual approach, though admittedly difficult to successfully implement, is offered as a means of closing the business ethics rhetoricreality gap.