Developing students' competence for ethical reflection while attending business school
Journal article, Peer reviewed
View/ Open
Date
2009Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
- Scientific articles [2223]
Original version
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 88, Iss. 1, Aug. (2009), p. 5-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0106-0Abstract
Business students early on should be offered a course presenting and analyzing ethical dilemmas they will face as human beings both in the business world and in society. However, such a course should use literature, plays, and novels to illustrate ethical norms and values in the intertwined relationships of human activities. Better than business case studies, literature offers portraits of characters as leaders, employees, consultants, and other professionals, as ordinary human beings with conflicting desires, drives, and ambitions. Literary texts offer excellent descriptions of the circumstances or the organizational settings in which people find themselves. I believe this is the best way to sensitize students without business experience when they are still open to such a formative learning process. At the same time, this pedagogical method linking ethics and literature may help to critically expose some of the weak or missing aspects of various management theories students encounter in their business curriculum and make them more observant and critical.