Business Ethics Week 2012 Faculty Activities

Department of Accounting 

Kenneth Danko, PhD: (ACCT 831) –

Discussion of IMA and AICPA codes of conduct, corporate codes of conduct, and video of interview with convicted perpetrators of fraud.

Mohsen Naser-Tavakolian, PhD: (ACCT 100 / ACCT 302) –

Ethics case studies in accounting and accounting practices in business.

David Franz, PhD: (ACCT 305) –

Class discussion of the IMA codes of conduct and their impacts on business.

Tina Caratan, CPA, Lecturer: (ACCT 504)

Ethics discussion on the CPA profession to prepare students entering the accounting profession and discussion on its adherence code of professional ethics.

Theresa Hammond, PhD: (ACCT 802 / ACCT 101) -

(Acct 802) Class discussion of European black markets and (ACCT 101) Class discussion of Ethical issues in budgeting.

Department of Decision Sciences 

Leyla Ozen, PhD: (DS 412/DS 212) - 

• (DS 412 Operations Management) In the Quality Control module, students will discuss examples of the ethical issues related to poor quality when companies fail to promptly address problems that pose safety risks to consumers. 
• (DS 212 Business Statistics) Students have been assigned an extra credit project to analyze placement of taps for filling water bottles on campus.

Theresa Roeder, Phd: (DS 412) –

Discussion in classes on the difference between ethics and morality, and then we'll discuss ethical and sustainability issues in operations. 

V. Udayabhanu, PhD: (DS 412) -

Lecture and discussion on ethical issues in quality management.

Susan Cholette, PhD: (DS 855/DS412) –

• (DS 855 Supply Chain Management) Guest speaker, Rudi Becker from Method, talks about sustainable packaging.  
• (DS412 Operations Management)  Students will learn about how a firm's transportation choices can impact the environment and we will cover the basics of performing a carbon footprint analysis.

Department of Economics

Kirill Chernomaz, PhD: (ECON 301) –

Discussion with students on the ethical dilemmas associated with production externalities, as well as free riding and provision of public goods. 

Department of Finance

Michael Needham, Lecturer: (FIN 350) –

Show and discuss the Frontline video “The Warning,” about Brooksley Borne and the treatment she received as head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Daniela Balkanska, PhD: (BUS 785 / FIN 350) –

Viewing and and discussion of  the “Inside Job” documentary about finance and the market impacts of unethical financial business practices.

Yuji Shibuya, Lecturer: (FIN 350) –

Assigned a written homework essay on any of four YouTube videos selected from author Michael Lewis' explanations of his book 'The Big Short' on why and how the financial crisis happened, what were the problems of Wall Street at the time, and what could be the solutions to avert this crisis. 

Department of International Business 

Yikuan Lee, PhD: (IBUS 590) –

Class will discuss ethics and global business using case studies and business issues.

Bruce Heiman, PhD: (IBUS 690) –

Nov. 7th, Leadership discussion, then essay on this topic: "Global Strategy for Ethics: Industry Dynamics or Industry Leadership Perspective?"

Department of Management

Bruce Paton, PhD: (MGMT 655) –

(Business Innovation to Meet Emerging Needs) – Students will study two cases focused on using business skills to deliver nutrition and health care to the poor.  One focuses on Group Danone's joint venture with Grameen Bank to bring low cost, vitamin-fortified yogurt to the poor in Bangladesh.  The second case looks at delivery of vitamin A to the rural poor in Tibet.

Caran Colvin, PhD: (MGMT 684.3) –

Students will pick one of the BEW events to attend. They will write a paper about how the talk could benefit a company’s top leadership team.

Toni Petkova, PhD: (BUS 690 / MGMT 655) –

• (BUS 690) Two weeks discussing ethics and sustainability issues: Nov 2: discussion of Monsanto case and course topic "Corporate governance, business ethics and strategic leadership."
• Nov 9: discussion of Holland America case, followed by sharing student thoughts based on previous-day Holland America guest speaker.
• (MGMT 655) All students are working on semester long projects that include an innovative idea based on the electric vehicles technology and mini-business plan for implementation.  Previously, covered Tesla case and the corresponding environmental, social, and ethical issues related to the developing electric vehicles technology. Also, a discussion of the business ethics case, “Creating a community of purpose: Whole Foods Market” on Dec. 6th.

Mike Albert, PhD: (MGMT 405) –

Lecture topic in this mega section introductory Management course will be focused on ethical issues and Human Resources in organizations.

Denise Kleinrichert, PhD: (BUS 682 / BUS 440) – 

• (BUS 682 Seminar) Discussion of the challenges of globalization based on in-class student partnership presentations of Solidarity Fund & Gildan Activewear, Inc. and Mattel & Toy Safety case studies. Further, a case discussion of Conflict Diamonds mining and sales. In class viewing – The Story of Stuff video.
• (BUS 440 Ethics Class) Students will attend the Ethics Game event on Nov. 7th to contribute to the discussion and team competition of the analysis of the case study, Experimenting on Monkeys (pharmaceutical research and development).

Peter Melhus, PhD: (BUS 682 / BUS 784) –

• (BUS 682) During classes, students will take their second mid–term exam, which covers a variety of topics related to corporate social responsibility and business ethics. After the exam we will view  "An Inconvenient Truth" with the intent of discussing it the following week.   
• (BUS 784) We will spend 2/3 of the class discussing sustainable development, businesses' responses to date and what businesses can do to be more sustainable in their operations.

Eric Lamm, PhD: (MGMT 605) –

Thorough class discussion of ethical challenges when delegating tasks as a business leader.

Mark Starik, PhD: (MGMT 855/ BUS 690) –

• (MGMT 855) Class discussion on distributed renewable energy technology management and related policy.
• (BUS 690) Both on Monday and Wednesday of the following week, our topic is Business Ethics and Governance.

Jason Harris-Boundy, PhD (IBUS/MGMT 659) –

In addition to a regular in-class negotiation simulation that always involves various ethical dimensions, students have been assigned and will discuss several readings directly focused on ethics in negotiation: "Negotiating with Liars" (by Robert Adler, MIT Sloan Mgmt Review, 2007), "Negotiation Ethics" (by Charles Craver, Negotiator Magazine, 2005), and "Three Schools of Bargaining Ethics" (by G.Richard Shell, excerpted from Bargaining for Advantage, 1999.)

Ann Koch, PhD: (BUS 690) –

Discussion topics will be sustainability of strategy and marketing of products in the coffee industry.

Mark Juliano, Lecturer : (Mgmt 650) –

(Creativity and Innovation class) During this week, we will discuss Entrepreneurship and starting small businesses. As part of the class, I give the students two mini-cases. They discuss each in small groups, and then we have a general discussion.

• Case 1 is a situation whereby a colleague has told you about an idea for a business, and given you his/her Business Plan. You’ve read it, and actually had an idea in the same industry space for a few months. The question is how to deal with this, including legal, ethical, friendship and business issues.  
• Case 2 is a situation where you and a colleague are planning to leave your consulting company and start a new one – different but related to the existing company. The questions are 1) should you tell your employer and how, 2) what do you do about existing contacts and customers, 3) how do you deal with using company computers, databases, etc. The discussion is about legal, ethics, business, competing with ex-employer, and so on.

Aaron Anderson, PhD: (BUS 888) –

In this session, we ask and answer the question of whether ethics can harmonize with corporate strategy and use different cases such as Enron, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Walmart to lever into the conversation. We also discuss broader concepts like increasing shareholder value and if there is a way to maximize it while focusing on the triple bottom line. 

Caterina Tantalo, PhD: (BUS 690) –

Corporate Governance, Business Ethics and Strategic Leadership will be discussed along with Monsanto's international expansion case study – ethical and legal issues. Several practical exercises/examples about ethical/unethical business practices will be developed in class.

Jennifer Tosti–Kharas, PhD: (MGMT 648 / BUS 788) –

• (MGMT 648) Students in her class will discuss ethics in leadership, and will attend the November 8th BEW speaker event.
• (BUS 788) Students in this class will discuss how to foster change in organizational and social systems, including a case study on installing water pumps in regions of Africa suffering from water-borne illness.

Department of Marketing

Bruce Robertson, PhD: (MKTG 431) –

Lecture devoted to business/marketing ethics. As part of that lecture we will examine student responses to two ethical dilemmas drawn from the business press.