The status of business ethics education in business school curricula

Abstract

A survey of member schools of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) was performed to determine (1) to what extent ethics was part of the education and (2) the relationship among institutional characteristics of AACSB accreditation, National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) category, control, enrollment, and geographic location on the status of business ethics education in colleges and universities in the U.S.A. This article presents a cross-section in time of current higher education instructional activities in business ethics. Slightly more than one-fifth of the responding colleges with undergraduate business degree programs have a required business ethics course while less than one-sixth of those schools with graduate business degree programs have a required business ethics course. About half of the private colleges offer business ethics courses, while about one-third of the public institutions do.