In some ways, this is already happening. A variety of schools are
increasing the focus of their programs to include more
nontraditional subjects. The Aspen Institute, in a previous study,
identified a dozen or more graduate schools worldwide whose
curricula move beyond the usual into social and ethical issues.
Kellogg added a major this year for students interested in business
in the social environment.
Employers and recruiters are focusing more on ethics, says Jeremy
Farmer, a longtime recruiter at
Bank One in
Chicago. "We're asking
the ethics-type questions, and we're doing behavioral
interviewing," he says.
Perhaps most importantly, students want to learn what's at stake.
The evidence is mostly anecdotal, but deans, professors, and
recruiters are picking up on a new mood among MBA students. There's
more to life after an MBA than a six-figure starting salary, these
students are saying. Many schools report waiting lists for
available ethics classes.
"During the stock market bubble, when the economy was booming,
there was not that much interest in ethics," Feldman says. "Now
that we have a different economy, ethics is being taken much more
seriously - at least on a superficial level."
And perhaps more deeply than that. "We've had some quite lively
discussions about it, actually, both in class and outside of
class," says Bob Carruthers, a second-year MBA student at the Cox
School of Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"It's driving the news, it's driving the markets. How can we not
talk about it? You're looking at a situation where it doesn't
matter how sound a company is financially, if no one has any
confidence in it."
execs in ethics class, too
mba students aren't the only ones who are getting extra
opportunities to brush up on their ethics. their counterparts in
the real world are as well.