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Teaching Business Ethics in UK Higher Education: Progress and Prospects

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Teaching Business Ethics

Abstract

A large proportion of students in UK highereducation now study business and management. Although universities might be expected to aimto produce well-rounded graduates, there hasbeen a perception that business schools havetended to take a narrow view of businessstudies, paying little attention to ethicalissues. However, recently there have been somesigns of change. A survey was thereforeconducted to investigate the teaching ofbusiness ethics at both undergraduate andpostgraduate levels in the UK. Althoughprovision is still on a limited scale, signs ofgrowth are evident, with a significantproportion of institutions offering at leastsome business ethics teaching, either within a``mainstream'' subject or as a separate module. This provision was reported as being wellreceived by students, but several challengesfor the future were identified, including thesupply of suitably qualified lecturers and theavailability of non-US case study material. The findings provide a baseline for trackingthe future development of business ethics inthe UK. Several suggestions for furtherresearch are also made.

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Cowton, C.J., Cummins, J. Teaching Business Ethics in UK Higher Education: Progress and Prospects. Teaching Business Ethics 7, 37–54 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022665221990

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