MBAs Participate in Business Ethics Experiential Learning Module

Part-time and full-time MBAs recently attended the three-day Business Ethics Experiential Learning Module (ELM). The Business Ethics ELM included some outstanding speakers and some very interesting role-play exercises.

Invited speakers included:

• Keith Darcy, Executive Director, Ethics and Compliance Officer Association
• Scott Avelino, a Managing Director, Forensic Practice, KPMG
• Lesley Fair, Esquire, Senior Attorney, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
• Craig Cash, Ethics Director, Lockheed Martin Corporation

Day 1
Speakers on Friday (Day 1) included Keith Darcy and Scott Avelino. Darcy, in his thoroughly engaging style, kicked off the ELM by walking the students through the various corporate scandals in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic. He reminded students of the tremendous loss of shareholder value as scandals came to light and how once heralded corporate titans were sent to jail for their mistakes.

Darcy explained how legislation in the form of Sarbanes-Oxley was passed to make American executives more accountable. He also pointed out that some of the most successful companies in the history of corporate America had one thing in common; they took great pride in their culture. Darcy concluded his talk by urging the students to look within themselves and find the moral courage to do the right thing.

Darcy’s talk was followed by Scott Avelino’s delivery of “Corporate Social Responsibility: Real or Imagined?” Avelino’s talk focused on the increased emphasis on corporate social responsibility in the last few years. He also described the various difficulties in comparing the disclosures made by various companies. He gave several examples of both good and poor corporate citizenship. He cited the need for continued vigilance since surveys reveal that there continues to be a prevalence of misconduct that goes undetected.

Day 2/3
All students had the choice of attending either the Saturday lecture/role play with Lesley Fair or the Sunday lecture/role play with Craig Cash. Students were divided into 5-8 person teams and were given a role plays which posed some ethical dilemmas and then asked to prepare short skits based on the issues in the cases. These skits were presented before other students and made salient the various difficult ethical issues.

Some of the cases included topics such as to what extent should business take responsibility toward the environment, how should a business balance the interests of the employees and shareholders, how should executives deal with the Wall Street pressure to beat the expected earnings estimates, how should businesses resolve the issue of younger employees versus older employees, and also what accommodations should be made for people with special needs.

The skits generated some interesting discussions and some intense debate. The audience and the role-players both gained a better appreciation of the finer points of some of the ethical issues that were involved.

On Saturday, Lesley Fair gave an extremely thought-provoking talk. She spoke about the importance of truth in advertising. She showed several video clips of commercials that were not allowed by the Federal Trade Commission because they deliberately or unknowingly made misleading or deceptive claims. She urged the students to visit the Federal Trade Commission Web site for regular updates and guidelines.

On Sunday, Craig Cash discussed the evolution of Lockheed Martin’s ethics department. He covered how the department came into being, the types of issues covered by the department, and the resulting pervasiveness of ethics throughout the organization. Several audience members were current employees of Lockheed Martin and attested to the company’s focus on and reward of ethical behavior, including regular e-news publishings of employees that committed unethical acts.

Second-year MBA candidate Vikas Tyagi said, "I really liked the ELM because the corporate examples used during the speaker presentations were helpful in understanding the fine line between business strategy to maximize the profits and harming the interest of shareholders by taking unethical steps. Furthermore, the ELM was very well positioned in the curriculum that is when most of the MBA classmates have accepted their full-time job offers and looking forward to their graduation. All of us could really understand the perspective of ethical business conduct in relevance to our own chosen field of work."

▓ Sachin Agarwal & Susannah Campbell, MBA Candidates 2007, Smith Media Group