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An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Identity and Ethics Teaching in Business Schools

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Abstract

Recent events have raised concerns about the ethical standards of public and private organisations, with some attention falling on business schools as providers of education and training to managers and senior␣executives. This paper investigates the nature of, motivation and commitment to, ethics tuition provided by the business schools. Using content analysis of their institutional and home websites, we appraise their corporate identity, level of engagement in socially responsible programmes, degree of social inclusion, and the relationship to their ethics teaching. Based on published research, a schema is developed with corporate identity forming an integral part, to represent the macro-environment, parent institution, the business school and their relationships to ethics education provision. This is validated by our findings.

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Abbreviations

AACSB:

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International

CI:

Corporate Identity

CSR:

Corporate Social Responsibility

EETF:

Ethics Education Task Force

MBA:

Master of Business Administration

EMBA:

Executive Master of Business Administration

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK

    Nelarine Cornelius

  2. School of Management, University of Bradford, Emm Lane, Bradford, BD9 4JL, UK

    James Wallace & Rana Tassabehji

Authors
  1. Nelarine Cornelius
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  2. James Wallace
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  3. Rana Tassabehji
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to James Wallace.

Additional information

Dr. Nelarine Cornelius, Reader in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is also a Chartered Psychologist and is Director of both the Centre for Research in Emotion Work and the Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour Research Group at Brunel University.

Dr. James Wallace, Lecturer in Quantitative Methods, School of Management, University of Bradford, is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He has considerable experience of statistical and mathematical modelling gained over several years in the UK utilities sector and in H.E. His current research interests include, applying statistical and mathematical modelling approaches to Technological, Operational and General Management problems.

Dr. Rana Tassabehji, Lecturer in Information Systems and E-business, School of Management, University of Bradford, is a member of the British Academy of Management and the UK Academy for Information Systems. She worked as an international business consultant and as a consultant in the UK IT sector and is currently an academic member of the eGISE eGovernment network. Her research interests include ethics and e-business, Internet security and e-government.

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Cornelius, N., Wallace, J. & Tassabehji, R. An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Identity and Ethics Teaching in Business Schools. J Bus Ethics 76, 117–135 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9271-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9271-6

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