What Drives Ethics Education in Business Schools? Studying Influence on Ethics in the MBA Curriculum

This paper discusses the impact of four key issues on ethics education in MBA programs: (1) the geographic location of business schools, (2) a school’s ranking in the Financial Times list, (3) the length of the MBA program, and (4) a school’s participation in the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). Our discussion is based on detailed coursework data underlying the 2009 Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey of full-time, in-person MBA programs. We find that the four discussed issues influence whether ethics education is delivered through core or elective courses. Further, we find that the four issues also impact whether schools teach ethics through standalone courses or integrate relevant content into other disciplines. However, our results also indicate that the four issues do not significantly influence in which disciplines ethics-related content is infused.