CHAPTER 5

Empowering Learners to Behave Ethically: How Learners Can Find Their Way to Treat Others with Dignity?

Hamid H. Kazeroony

Abstract

This chapter provides recommended guidelines for educators who want to help their learners create foundations for anti-corruptive approaches in treating their organizational stakeholders with dignity. The chapter provides practices that can help learners find their own way to treat others with dignity. This chapter will review the background and urgency of the issue, ways that ethics-based curriculums can connect to learners’ behavior through streamlining syllabi objectives, outcomes, and assessments. Finally, this chapter will provide recommendations for designing business curricula that can address ethics and treat learners with dignity through a multicultural lens with appropriate an approach to creating course objectives, activities, and learning outcomes.

Introduction

The 21st century ushered in a new era of teaching challenges for business educators in preparing higher education graduates with the necessary tools to ethically function in a multicultural and globalized context irrespective of the economic sector and country in which they serve. This chapter will provide recommended guidelines for educators who want to help their learners create foundations for anti-corruptive approaches in treating their organizational stakeholders with dignity. This chapter will review the background and urgency of the issue, ways that ethics-based curriculums can produce behavioral outcomes leading to ethical decisions by learners through streamlining syllabi objectives, outcomes, and assessments. Finally, this chapter will provide recommendations for designing business curricula that can address ethics and treat learners with dignity through a multicultural lens with an appropriate approach to creating course objectives, activities, and learning outcomes.

Thus, this chapter argues that it is important to uncover the reasons for addressing the relationship between learners’ dignity, curricula design with an eye on ethics, and the way we teach or facilitate the conveyance of the ethical decision making. To establish the connection and explain the relationship between the learners’ dignity, and teaching ethics through curricula design in producing the right outcomes (i.e., helping learners to become ethical decision makers), this chapter will (1) explain the terms, (2) scan the literature to explain why it is urgent to address the issue now, and (3) it will explore the relationship between the teacher and the learner (i.e., teacher approach in treating the learners with dignity while constructing the nature of ethics with respect to the learners’ culture). Finally, through tying dignity, ethics, and ethical curricula design, this chapter will provide recommendations as to how one may proceed in implementing the process.

Operational Definitions

Defining terms, as the first step, will help us examine the topics from the same perspective with the same understanding and hence, eliminating the challenge of discerning the meaning of intended statements. As higher education evolves within the 21st century and technology can provide plethora of information to learners, educators are facilitators who help learners make sense of information and move from describing a phenomenon to evaluate its impact on how they use/apply the phenomenon on their own. In this context, educators are no longer the givers of knowledge or source of information but rather guides who help learners make sense of what they acquire—through class environment or other sources. Dignity is the appreciative approach, when interacting with others, to recognize and reconcile one’s own values with others to assure the conveyance of idea is respectful of the receiving/intended parties. Dignity can be characterized as (1) fair treatment of others with respect to social justice as norms dictate¹ and (2) autonomy of the learners with respect to their human value and the nature of interaction² as they engage in the process of learning. However, the degree of latitude that guides (teachers) possess will provide the contextual framework for treating learners with due dignity in conveying the learning³ of ethics in the proper paradigm so that the learner can correctly interpret each case and arrive at higher levels of analytical and evaluative understanding of it. Ethics is the practical application of right and wrong when interacting with others, to be respectful of others’ values, treating others with dignity. Therefore, these ethical standards should be applicable to various cases where a reasonable person, irrespective of culture (or subsets) can distinguish between right and wrong and act on it based on a set of moral principles which keeps the good of others in mind. Teaching ethics like any other topic requires sensitivity and care in guiding learners to arrive at their own conclusion and; hence, we should be mindful of the level of dignity that is used when interacting with learners. Ethical decisions are those that are respectful of others’ values. Ethics and law may not coincide and in some cases what may appear unethical may be legal and; therefore, it is important to follow ethics. Curricula design, for the purpose of this writing, includes any part of a course design, the course of study, and/or any part of the aggregate program design within a given domain of inquiry, which produces an academic outcome for learners. Syllabi objectives, outcomes, and assessments can be defined as the document/s which outlines intended topics of discussion for a given course/s (objectives), the synthesized knowledge gained by learners (outcome), through evaluative tools that can determine the degree of learning by each learner (assessment).

Background and the Urgency

A number of factors has contributed to the urgency for reexamination of the role of ethics in professional fields such as business and accounting. A range of elements, from changing environment within which organizations operate to outcome of programmatic changes, within the last 20 years have provided higher level of awareness in addressing the need for a closer look at the role of ethical integration in business teaching in higher education institutions.

First, social responses to organizational behavior have acted as catalysts in the creation of urgency for integration of ethics in teaching. A recent study commissioned by European commission for Education and Training (2011) outlined ethics as a required training. Also, the need for leadership in global organizations and differences in cultural orientations have required addressing ethical dilemmas through integration of ethical teaching in business and accounting curricula.⁴,⁵ Additionally, organizations, indirectly, might have been contributing to the rise of unethical behavior by accepting resumes from perspective employees who through manipulation of words have been providing unqualified statements about themselves.⁶ Therefore, the ethical decision making process, as argued by Buchholz and Rosenthal (2008) has been left open to interpretation due to the fact that

Therefore, integration of ethics in the decision-making process becomes important in addressing behaviors and highlighting its importance.

Second, the arguments and evidence have provided the necessary connection between the emphasis on ethics in teaching business programs, accelerating the urgency of the issue. The irresponsiveness of MBA programs to stricter legal business environment concerning ethics,⁷ based on the observed unethical behavior within the last several years in the corporate world, has led to business schools to take on the responsibility of preparing their graduates to act ethically when entering workforce⁸ to better grasp the impact of their actions as global citizens.⁹ Empirical evidence suggests that once ethical training is integrated into business curricula, learners can benefit from better ethical decision making.¹⁰ However, a review of some professional programs such as strategic management in tourism and hospitality courses indicates lack of sufficient attention to the topic of ethics¹¹ as of five years ago. Therefore, the need for closer scrutiny of the integration of ethics and teaching is required by academicians to make sure the issue is addressed at every level of postsecondary education.

The Learners

Few points can be established about learners. Ethical behavior, as learners’ attributes, must be carefully screened at the outset of entry to any educational program, shifting the burden of addressing ethics from institutions to individual learners.¹² Despite skepticism by some that learners can and/or are interested in ethics at higher education institutions, the learners have generally expressed high degree of interest in honing their skills in dealing with ethical behavior.¹³ Therefore, one can suggest that although ethical behavior may be viewed as learners’ responsibility, by integrating ethical cases, business schools can help students improve their skills in dealing with complex ethical issues.¹⁴

The established points lead a reasonable educator to believe that although learners carry their own burden of acting ethically from the outset, based on their values, one should act on behalf of an educational institution to create a conducive environment through the creation of curricula (encompassing the programmatic, course, and lesson plans within each course) that can help learners examine the values and circumstances of various severities in different contexts as a way of practicing their skills. Such an approach by educators would enable learners to reexamine their own values when making decisions to make sure that such decisions can lead to the right thing for all concerned in a particular situation.

Connecting the Learner to Ethics-Based Curriculum

To instill ethical competency (skills, knowledge, and ability) in each learner requires understanding learners’ values, beliefs, and possible ways that they can arrive at differentiating various scenarios, generating alternative courses of action, appraising each alternative consequence, and identifying the optimal ethical action. Through understanding learner’s needs for tools and pathways in arriving at ethical decisions, academicians must change higher learning institutions to positively impact society at large¹⁵ and build a bridge between learners’ needs and regulatory requirements to make sure learners are successful in performing their job after graduation.^16,17 For example, simulations, scenarios, and cases can be used to help learners explore, examine, and reflect on different sets of circumstances and review the possible outcomes to better equip themselves with appropriate tools for identifying ethical concerns, examining each case from the recipient point of view, making better decisions that can treat others with dignity when rendering ethical decisions. Some educators and institutions may have already developed ethical curricula to address such pathway suggested here. However, one should be aware of the nature of changes.

When making changes in curricula, the focus should be on creating a cadre of virtuous students rather than simply teaching them to avoid the bad.¹⁸ Therefore, as guides, educators must help learners, by using various andragogical facilitation techniques, develop their own tools in resolving the fundamental issues such as fairness, justice, correctness, and appropriateness that arise in solving ethical problems. Essentially, educators, as guides, must be able to design the process for connecting the dots for learners.

In response for the call to action, there is an increasing interest by business and accounting departments to integrate teaching ethics into each course.¹⁹ The process of connecting learners to ethics-based curricula can begin with the thought that ethics should serve as the basis for the decision making in all economic transactions as a universal principle²⁰ and focus on helping learners appreciate fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice as a way of introducing them to ethical behavior.²¹ To illustrate the qualities required for ethical decision making, a scan of business environment can provide plethora of examples for learners’ examination of the issues and they can be assessed for their ability to develop the mental models in dealing with such challenges at the beginning points and gradually shifting to the rationale for the process, and finally the reasoning provided to continually improve each learner’s skills. In addition, colleagues have already explored other means of helping learners with ethical decision making and treating others with dignity as well.

Numerous avenues have been explored in connecting learners to ethics-based curricula. Integration of ethics into business curricula can be achieved through socialization with the concept of ethics, which may actually shift students’ approach to be less lenient with unethical actions.²² Changing MBA programs to integrate public management market efficiency with market failure can prepare graduates to better address unethical behavior.²³ The presence and consistency between institutional ethical standards, faculty engagement in ethical teaching, and course ethical design can help improve graduates’ ethical behavior.²⁴ Developing assessment tools in conjunction with specific computerized presentation to increase students’ awareness about the importance of ethical decision making in accounting profession in different countries has been suggested as a way to increase recognition of the importance of ethical behavior;²⁵–²⁷ and incorporating it into social responsibilities in business education curricula to help remedy unethical behavior in the corporate world. Also, adding particular courses in the final stages of any business/management programs can help improve graduates’ reflective thinking in making better ethical decisions.²⁸ In some programs, such as hospitality management programs, more rigorous ethical integration into curriculum has been advocated to prepare graduates who can respond to the industry needs.²⁹ Connecting learners to ethics-based training has been pronounced in recent years. Currently, Financial Times top 50 business schools include ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability in their curricula.³⁰

Various methods have been offered in connecting learners to ethics-based training. Some have suggested that including service learning in the curriculum can enhance students’ positive perception of doing good and therefore acting more with ethical consideration when making decisions.³¹,³² In addition, case studies with reflective journaling can lead learners to become entrenched in behaving ethically when making real-life decisions.³³,³⁴ It has also been pointed out that using video case studies, presenting realistic work environment, supplemented with discussions would allow learners formulate appropriate ethical responses and practice the way each individual would take action to correct unethical behavior.³⁵ Some, such as Fleming, Pearson, and Riley Jr. (2008) have added experiential learning as a requirement for learners to become better equipped with practicing ethical behavior and identifying unethical behavior in professions such as accounting. It has also been argued that integrating cases at the beginning of each course can provide more reflective time for learners to examine, grasp, and follow ethical behavior when graduating and serving public institutions.³⁶ Therefore, there is sufficient evidence about the availability methods to connect learners to ethics-based training. However, the question arises as to how do we know that learners have successfully internalized ethical decision making and what evidence can we have as individual faculty and institutions that our learners would actually behave ethically once they leave our institutions; how can we assess the outcomes?

Connecting Objectives, Outcomes, and Assessments

Professional accrediting bodies such as Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) and The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) have created the underlying requirements in leading the way for integration of ethics into business and accounting curricula. ACBSP, in its Article II, Section I, item 3, delineates, as a part of its objectives, “to promote lawful and ethical practices” (p. 1). AACSB steps 1 through 5 standards, aligns desirable ethical learning objective with outcomes, which can be assessed and results can be improved through analysis over time (Rexeisen and Al-Khatib, 2009). At institutional and programmatic level,³⁷ using Ignatian pedagogical paradigm, constructed an approach to teaching ethics by applying “context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation” (p. 453), which can serve to connect course and programmatic objectives to outcomes while allowing assessment and evaluation of outcomes.

In addition to accrediting bodies’ requirements, colleagues have advanced ideas such as film viewing and discussions, role playing, guest speakers who are practitioners, journaling, adding moral reasoning to non-business courses as a part of graduation requirement, adjusting and integrating students’ diverse value systems into universities’ curricula, creation of overarching ethical consideration and assessment of its understanding with pre and post-tests, coping, modeling, problem solving (CSPS), simulations, relating ethical behavior to larger social needs within curricula context, and service learning have been put forth.³⁸–⁴⁵ Natale and Sora (2010) suggested creation of a link between ethics and all courses offered in a degree program, linking ethics to creation of knowledge by learners within a wide spectrum of learning. However, one should be mindful that efforts to help learners with ethical decision making should also allow for learners’ own values and beliefs to be integrated in the process to assure lasting results by those who are learning rather than catering to the wishful ideas of educators.

Designing Business Curricula with Ethics and Dignity

Cultural context within which learning takes place, learning objectives are communicated, and activities are conducted must consider learners’ cultural perceptions and orientation about the process and stakeholder expectations about the outcome transnationally and relationally. Cultural perception of the learner should be evaluated as one begins constructing the andragogical method of pedagogy for ethics. For example, in some cultures, it is customary to tip individulas involved in business transactions from government offices to expedite interactions and produce results. However, such behavior is considered unethical in most Western countries. Therefore, the curricula construct should be observant of the prevailing values underlying learners’ culture. Consequently, learners’ dignity takes the center stage.

Three factors should be considered to make sure learners are treated with appropriate dignity in integrating ethics into business curricula. First, curricula should be created based on a grading process which validates outcomes where learners, irrespective of their cultural orientation, can perceive values associated with grades in the same way; hence, the legitimacy of learning process differently, leading to different understanding of ethics, pertains to justice.⁴⁶ Second, depending on the supervisory nature of faculty who may simply attempt to seek faults rather than helping to improve learners’ ability to improve himself/herself, learners can be treated with different level of dignity as they attempt to proceed through learning ethics.⁴⁷ Third, the process of teaching ethics should consider the rights of the learner and the teacher equally and as mutual relationship to be considered dignified.⁴⁸ The three principles can act as relational agents for treating learners with dignity. However, business curricula design should also be capable of providing sufficient latitude to address cultural variation, experiences, epistemological underpinning, and the rationale for the process of ethical decision making.

A Road Map for Integrating Ethics into Business Curricula

A roadmap for integrating ethics should consider five principles. First, within global context, instructors must help students to follow experimentation, reflection, and conceptualization to recognize the necessary cultural intelligence required in realistically and correctly assessing each stage in the cycle to arrive at the correct ethical decision.⁴⁹ Second, a new epistemological framework to synthesize experiences and theories helping learners evaluate ethical challenges with a more retrospective lens is essential.⁵⁰ Third, pedagogical approaches should frame teaching to inspire students by disengaging them from materialism and enabling them to see the consequences of greed which lead to unethical behavior.⁵¹ Fourth, curricula should enhance rigor in helping students make critical inquiry and to conduct analysis and evaluation of alternatives to enable them develop a better framework for making ethical choices after graduation.⁵² Fifth, educators should be held accountable to effectively teach their students the organizational context of practicing ethics and the organizational subtlety that could lead to ethical players losing momentum and getting discouraged.⁵³ Based on the principles discussed, various techniques, as already discussed throughout the chapter such as case examination, journaling, simulations (just to name a few) can be used to help learners internalize and practice ethical decision making.

In a discussion, at the academy of management conference in 2012⁵⁴ the following emerged as techniques that one can employ to help learners frame, reflect on, and move their thoughts to ethical action:

Conclusion

This chapter examined (1) the importance of connecting educators and learners in a dignified manner, (2) making changes in curricula to afford learners opportunities to examine ethics from their own perspective and formulate solutions with educators’ guidance, (3) role of academicians in advancing the case for such approaches, (4) role of accrediting bodies to promote changes to empower learners with new ethical tools for operating in their respective future organization, and (5) various tools that are available to help learners earn the necessary competencies to be effective ethical decision makers. However, ethics is inherently organic in its relationship with social, cultural, and technological changes and; therefore, tools and approaches require occasional refinement in education to adapt new ways of examining the changes.

Key Terms and Definitions

Educators: Facilitators who help learners make sense of information and move from describing a phenomenon to evaluate its impact on how they use/apply the phenomenon on their own. In this context, educators are no longer the givers of knowledge or source of information but rather guides who help learners make sense of what they acquire—through class environment or other sources.

Dignity: An appreciative approach, when interacting with others, to recognize and reconcile one’s own values with others to assure the conveyance of idea is respectful of the receiving/intended parties.

Ethics: Practical application of right and wrong when interacting with others, to be respectful of others’ values, treating others with dignity. Therefore, these ethical standards should be applicable to various cases where a reasonable person, irrespective of cultural (or subsets) can distinguish between right and wrong and act on it based on a set of moral principles which keeps the good of others in mind.

Ethical decisions: Those respectful of others’ values. Ethics and law may not coincide and in some cases what may appear unethical may be legal and therefore, it is important to follow ethics.

Curricula design: Any part of a course design, the course of study, and/or any part of the aggregate program design within a given domain of inquiry which produces an academic outcome for learners.

Syllabi objectives, outcomes, and assessments: The document(s) that outlines intended topics of discussion for a given course(s) (objectives), the synthesized knowledge gained by learners (outcome), through evaluative tools that can determine the degree of learning by each learner (assessment).

Study Questions

Additional Reading

Cam, P. (2012). Teaching ethics in schools: A new approach to moral education. Camberwell, Australia: ACER Press.