Development of Sustainable Ethics Education in Business: A Framework

Abstract

Recent research has indicated that people can learn ethics and that in their 20s & 30s develop new ethical values and utilize them in their basic problem-solving (Rest as summarized by Velasquez, Andre, Shanks & Mayer, 2012). Yet, concern with ethical behavior in business at the undergraduate and graduate level has grown sharply and has been a point of discussion in the past few years. Although some universities have tried to integrate business ethics courses in the curriculum, but they were not able to implement and empower this issue in an effective way. However, some people argue that trying to teach ethics at the college level comes far too late because ethics are taught through one’s upbringing under the influence of one’s family and peers. The case of Lebanon is not an exception. The purpose of this paper is to establish functional administrative management reforms in favor of teaching ethics and moral responsibilities in students and their communities. This reform should be based on international standards and cultural considerations. This paper argues that fostering ethics education at universities starts with re-establishing course content, instructional method and to question what is and what is not, what practices have to be developed, and what skills have to be acquired. The main intent of this particular intervention program is to determine if ethics education and discussion had a measurable impact on people’s perceptions and whether teaching what is acceptable and what is not acceptable can be combined with preventive measures to create a positive environment encouraging collaborative partnership with constructive ramification towards management of ethical behavior in appropriate and innovative way in the community.