Status of Ethics, Corporate Governance, CSR and Environment Education in Business Schools in India: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed unprecedented excesses by businesses across the world. The largest corporate frauds have raised questions on the limits of responsibility of business. The recent financial crisis has brought into question the managerial greed and the manner in which incentive structures have perpetuated such dysfunctional behaviors in organizations. With rapid growth and internationalization of businesses, there is an urgent need to examine the vocabulary of business organizations to include deliberately sustainability, ethics, governance and corporate responsibility. There have been several calls from thought leaders in business and academia to incorporate a deeper understanding of the principles pertaining to responsibility of business in the business school curriculum. The research is an attempt at understanding the state of the field of teaching in corporate governance (CG), ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environment and sustainability. While it is recognized that teaching of this subject is essential, not much is known about the content delivered in the courses, the pedagogy in the classroom, the teaching material used and the adaptation done for different kinds of nature of participants on the courses. This study was conducted using content analysis of websites and survey using a questionnaire to understand the status of education in this field. Some of the significant findings were that a large number of business schools in India offered courses in the field of ethics, CSR, CG and environment. The widespread prevalence of business ethics courses offered in business schools and a dearth of CG courses are also of significance.