Career Development and Lifestyle Planning

Ethics, Governance, & Accountability

3 Credits

135.301.XX[NOTE: Each section must have a separate syllabus.]

[Day & Time / ex: Monday, 6pm-9pm]

[Start & End Dates / ex: 3/24/15-5/12/15]

[Semester / ex: Fall 2016]

[Location / ex: Washington, DC]

Instructor

[Full Name]

Contact Information

[Email Address]

[Phone Number, (###) ###-#### (Optional)]

Office Hours

[Please specify the day and time of the 2 hours that will be dedicated to office hours each week. For evening classes, faculty may wish to hold their office hours by phone or email. While faculty are permitted to state and by appointment, office hours should not be held exclusively by appointment.]

Required Text(s) & Learning Materials

Hartman, L. P., & Desjardins, J. (2013). Business ethics: Decision making for personal integrity and social responsibility (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Irwin.

Articles and Chapters on Blackboard

Badaracco, J. (1997). Defining moments. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Pp. 1-24.

Bok, S. (1980, Summer). Whistleblowing and professional responsibility. New York University Education Quarterly, 11. In Donaldson, T., & Werhane, P. (2008), Ethical issues in business: A philosophical approach (8th ed.). (pp. 128-35). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Freeman, R.E. (2007). Managing for stakeholders. In Donaldson, T., & Werhane, P. (2008), Ethical issues in business: A philosophical approach (8th ed.) (pp. 39-53). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Times Magazine.

Hamilton, S. (2003). Case study: The Enron collapse. In Donaldson, T., & Werhane, P. (2008), Ethical issues in business: A philosophical approach (8th ed.). (pp. 39-53). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Kidder, R. (2003). How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living. New York: HarperCollins. Chapter 1.

Magretta, J. (1997, March-April). Will she fit in? HBR case study. Harvard Business Review.

Mead, E., and Werhane, P. (2007). Case study: Cynthia Cooper and WorldCom. In Ethical issues in business: A philosophical approach (8th ed.). Edited by Thomas Donaldson and Patricia Werhane. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Pinker, S. (2008, January 13). The moral instinct. The New York Times.

Porter, M. E., and Kramer, M. R. (2006, December). Strategy and society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard Business Review.

Prentice, R. (2010). Student guide to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2nd ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Schein, E. (1990). Organizational culture. American Psychologist, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 109-119.

Films and Audio Clips

Friedman, Thomas (2004). The other side of outsourcing. Washington, DC: Discovery Education.

Frontline (PBS). (2004, November 16). Is Walmart good for America?

Gibney, A., Director. (2005). Enron: The smartest guys in the room. New York: Magnolia Pictures.

Mann, M., Director (1999). The Insider. Burbank, CA: Touchstone Pictures.

Course Description

This course examines the role of ethics in business decision making, with an eye to corporate governance and accountability. Beginning with an exploration of their own values and beliefs, students develop an awareness of the role of emotion, reason, and culture in moral judgments. Through readings, films, and discussion, students sharpen their ability to argue and negotiate from ethical principles. They then apply these tools to an examination of issues impacting contemporary business, ranging from work/life balance to intellectual property, whistleblowing, and insider trading. The course concludes with a look at recent scandals (Enron, WorldCom, the subprime mortgage crisis) and the role of boards of directors, shareholders, managers, employees, governments, rating agencies, and other stakeholders in holding businesses accountable, in the United States and globally.

Prerequisite(s)

None

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. Understand and apply ethical frameworks and codes of conduct that guide personal and organizational decisions and conduct.

2. Reason from ethical principles and build logical arguments in addressing issues.

3. Reflect on their own values and beliefs and their role in decision making.

4. Understand the mechanisms of corporate governance that keep organizations accountable to a variety of stakeholderslocally, nationally, and globally.

5. Identifyand develop strategies to addressthe needs of diverse stakeholders in business decisions and ethical dilemmas.

6. Understand the relation between culture and ethical value systems and the issues that arise when doing business globally.

The course will also reinforce undergraduate competencies in team building, oral and written communication, and analytical and critical thinking.

To view the complete list of Carey Business Schools general learning goals and objectives, visit the Carey website.

Attendance Students are expected to attend all class sessions. If you must miss a class, you are nevertheless responsible for all information covered. Failure to attend two or more class sessions will likely impact your final grade. If you must miss a class, you should inform the instructor in advance. Out of respect to your classmates and instructor, you should plan to arrive on time in this course, and to be courteous and respectful in all class interactions. Turn off cell phones and laptops in class unless they are needed for a group project.

Assignments

The following percentages apply to the assignments; for specifics on how the assessments will be done, please refer to the rubrics for the essays and team presentations on pages that follow.

Assignment

Course Learning Objective(s)

Weight

Attendance and participation in class discussion

1-6

15%

Reading Assessments

1, 4, 6

15%

Essay 1: Right-vs-Right Dilemmas, Defining Moments, and Whistleblowing in The Insider

1, 2

15%

Team Presentation 1: Corporate Culture & Values

1, 2, 6

10%

Essay 2: Enron

1, 2, 4, 5

15%

Team Presentation 2: Corporate CSR

1, 2, 4, 5

10%

Essay 3: Ethical Audit: Corporate Strategy and Social Responsibility

1, 2, 4-6

20%

Total

100%

Class Participation (15%)

Active participation in classroom discussions and debates is a requirement of this course. Criteria include not only timeliness and regularity of attendance but the quality and quantity of student comments and contributions to group exchanges. As this is the one area in which learning objective #3 will be measured, your participation in exercises examining your own moral vision, moral code, and defining moment will be an important part of this grade.

Reading Assessments (15%)

There will be four short quizzes (25 multiple-choice questions each) on the reading.

Essay 1: Right-vs-Right Dilemmas, Defining Moments, and Whistle-blowing (15%)

Analyze the film The Insider using the notion of defining moments and right-versus-right ethical decisions. Identify what you think are the right-versus-right dilemmas facing Jeffrey Wigand and Lowell Bergman and the factors that enter into their decisionspersonal and professional, emotional and rational. What makes whistle-blowing particularly difficult for an employee? To what extent do utilitarian and deontological perspectives enter into their decisions? What do you think is each characters defining moment in the film? How would you say the characters values make them leaders? Combine your answers to these questions into a coherent, unified essay with a thesis and supporting argument. Using APA style for format and documentation, apply the course readings by Kidder, Bok, Badaracco, and Hartman & Desjardins, with at least one citation for each work and a list of references at the end. Do not use any other outside sources beyond these four. Do not provide an abstract. Scope: 4 pages (1,000 words), double-spaced, 12-point font.

Team Presentation 1: Corporate Culture and Values (10%)

You will be assigned a team and the team will be asked to choose an organization. In the first presentation, you should describe to the class the mission, structure, values, and culture of the organization and the role of its leaders in shaping these. Each team will have 15 minutes to present, and every member should participate in the presentation. You will be evaluated as a group on your teams knowledge of the company, your use of time and AV, your ability to engage the audience, the quality of your research sources, and your ability to coordinate with one another. Individuals will be evaluated on their preparation, knowledge, presentation skills, and ability to answer questions.

Essay 2: Enron (15%)

Using the template for ethical analysis, analyze the Enron case and identify the key ethical issues that arose. What were the salient facts in the case? Who were the key decision makers and stakeholders? How did Enrons culture contribute to the wrongdoing of its leaders and traders? How did the internal and external mechanisms of Enrons governance structure fail? Look particularly at conflicts of interest among managers and the role of Enrons investors, board of directors, partners, auditors, government agencies, and the press. What provisions in the Sarbanes Oxley Act address each of the major issues that arose? Combine your answers to these questions into a coherent, unified, well developed essay and consider how Enron might have foreseen and avoided the mistakes made by its leaders. Apply class readings where appropriate, providing citations and references. Use APA style. Scope: 45 pages (1,0001,250 words), double-spaced, 12-point font.

Team Presentation 2: Corporate Strategy and Social Responsibility (10%)

Your team should select a multinational company and conduct a CSR audit. First examine the companys governance structure and how its board, shareholders, top management, and employees hold each other accountable. What governance tools does the company have? Does it have a code of conduct? A values statement? How do these relate to its mission? What reports does it generate? In what corporate wrongdoing has firm been involved? What criticisms of the firms responsibility to society can you find? How has it erred in the past? Then apply Porter and Kramers article, Strategy and Society, to the firms CSR initiatives. You should provide a brief overview of what some of its CSR initiatives are, and then focus on one major effort that is international in scope and that illustrates Porter and Kramers thesis, that corporations and society can be mutually beneficial and not antagonists. The authors give as an example Nestls network of dairy farms in India.

Each team will have 20 minutes to present, and every member should participate in the presentation. You will be evaluated as a group on your teams knowledge of the company, the quality of your research, your use of time and AV, your ability to engage the audience, your ability to apply the Porter & Kramer model to your firm. Individuals will be evaluated on their preparation, knowledge, presentation skills, and ability to answer questions.

Essay 3: Corporate Strategy and Social Responsibility (20%)

Using the information gathered by your team, you should write up your own analysis of the companys Corporate Social Responsibility efforts. Your analysis should present an argument, taking a position on whether the company has demonstrated strong or weak responsibility to its various stakeholders, as well as society in general, and whether the initiative on which your team focused exemplifies the kind of synergy between business and society that Porter and Kramer advocate.

Your essay should demonstrate critical thinking, giving both positive and negative accounts of the firm you are examining. It should also show a detailed understanding of the article by Porter and Kramer: what the authors see as the deficiencies of traditional arguments in favor of CSR; what they mean by value proposition and value chain; and how their model maps a companys CSR efforts onto its value chain through inside-out and outside-in linkages. You should apply at least four course readings (including the Porter and Kramer) and at least four additional sources related to your firm. Follow APA format and citation guidelines. Scope: 5 pages (1,250 words), double-spaced, 12-point font.

Grading

The grade of A is reserved for those who demonstrate extraordinarily excellent performance. The grade of A- is awarded only for excellent performance. The grade for good performance in this course is a B+/B. The grades of D+, D, and D- are not awarded at the graduate level.

Please refer to the Carey Business Schools Student Handbook for grade appeal information.

Tentative Course Calendar**The instructors reserve the right to alter course content and/or adjust the pace to accommodate class progress. Students are responsible for keeping up with all adjustments to the course calendar.

Abbreviations: Munter and Hamilton, M&H; Browne and Keeley, B&K; Blackboard, (Bb).

Week

Topic

Readings & Films

Exercises and Deliverables

1

Ethics and Business

Text, chapter 1

Article by Pinker (Bb)

View in class: clip from Huckleberry Finn

2

Ethical Decision Making

Text, chapter 2

Badaracco, pp. 1-24 (Bb)

In-class exercises on moral vision and Badaraccos 3 cases

3

Ethical Dilemmas and Defining Moments

Text, ch. 3, pp. 102-121; readings by Kidder (Bb) and Bok (Bb)

Quiz 1: readings

4

Ethical Schools of Thought

Text, finish chapter 3

View The Insider before class

Essay 1: The Insider.

In class: defining moment

5

Moral Codes and Reasoning from Principles

Text, begin reading chapter 4

In class exercise: moral code

6

Corporate Values & Culture

Text, finish chapter 4

Schein (Bb)

Quiz 2: Readings

View in class: clip from TED

7

Corporate Social Responsibility

Text, chapter 5

Team Presentations

Team Presentation I

8

Shareholders and Stakeholders

Friedman, Freeman (BB)

9

Employers, Employees, and Work/Life Balance

Text, chapter 6

Case to be assigned

10

Property, Privacy, and Technology

Text: chapter 7

Case: Google in China

Quiz 3: Readings

11

Corporate Governance

Text: chapter 10

12

Enron and the Sarbanes Oxley Act

Prentice (text)

Case Studies: Enron and Worldcom (Bb)

Film: ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Essay 2: Enron

13

Global CSR;

Strategy and Society

UN Global Compact;

OECD; Porter and Kramer (Bb)

Quiz 4: Readings

View in Class: The Other Side of Outsourcing

14

International cases: Outsourcing

View film: Is Walmart Good for America?

Teams prepare for final presentations

15

Team Presentations

Team Presentations

Final paper due by

135.301.XX Ethics, Governance, and Accountability Instructor Name Page 6 of 19

135.301.XX Ethics, Governance, and Accountability Instructor Name Page 3 of 19

Academic Writing: Checklist

Writing Process

1. Are you certain you understand what is expected on the assignment? Have you asked your instructor for clarification on anything you don't understand?

2. Who is your audience? What are the purpose and scope of your essay?

3. Have you scheduled adequate time to plan, research, write, and revise your paper?

4. Did you conduct a preliminary review of what's available on your topic?

5. Have you used an outline to see logical relationships between the parts of your essay?

Topic and Thesis

1. Is your topic too narrow or too broad for the scope of the assignment?

2. Have you adequately distinguished between your topic (your general area of interest) and your thesis (your central idea and attitude about that idea)?

3. Have you expressed your thesis clearly in the introduction to your paper?

4. Is your thesis reflected in the title of your paper?

Organization

1. Does your introductory paragraph establish the significance of your topic and provide necessary background?

2. Does your introduction articulate the thesis of your paper? Suggest subtopics and the order in which they will be developed in the body of your paper? Or is there a research question that suggests the material you will cover and your approach to it?

3. Are the subtopics related logically to the thesis?

4. Are the subtopics different, yet related to each other?

5. Does your conclusion restate your thesis in a fresh way? Answer a question posed in the beginning? Suggest an appropriate action?

Paragraph Structure

1. Does each paragraph have a single central topic, stated or implied?

2. Is each paragraph well developed? (Have you provided enough reasons, examples, facts, definitions, etc., to support the topic sentence?)

3. Is each paragraph unified? (Do all sentences clearly relate to one topic?)

4. Is each paragraph coherent? (Does each sentence relate to the ones before and after it in a logical way? Are there appropriate transitions?)

Mechanics (Grammar, Punctuation, etc.)

1. Have you proofread your sentences carefully to detect and correct errors in

sentence completeness (fragments, run-ons)?

subject/verb agreement?

pronoun reference (be sure all pronouns have only one antecedent)?

modifiers (adjective/adverb form; misplaced and dangling modifiers)?

verb tense?

punctuation?

2. Where appropriate, have you

eliminated unnecessary words?

varied your syntax, sentence length, and word choice?

put parallel thoughts into parallel form?

checked to see that comparisons are worded logically?

preferred active to passive verb forms?

3. Have you checked your words to be sure that they are

correctly spelled and used? Have you consulted a dictionary? Thesaurus?

appropriate? (Avoid inappropriate slang, trite expressions and clichs.)

4. Have you used the proper format? Is your paper

typed, double-spaced with 1-inch margins, in 12-point font, with page numbers and name on all pages?

in line with APA style for quotes, citations, reference list, etc.?

Information Sources

1. Have you properly attributed all quotes and paraphrases of other's work?

2. Have you checked your sources to see that they are sufficiently numerous, authoritative, various, relevant, and timely?

Evaluating Academic Writing

Criteria for Grading:

A. Assignment (parameters, instructions, purpose)

M Mechanics (grammar, style, usage, format)

O Organization (thesis, introduction, body, conclusion, paragraphing, transitions)

T Thought (analysis, research, content, creativity, logic)

Characteristics of the "Excellent" Paper (A) [exceeds expectations for graduate work]

A Response to the assignment fully addresses its purpose

Paper follows instructions regarding length, number of sources, etc.

Tone and approach are appropriate for and sensitive to the target audiences needs

Choice of topic meets and exceeds the instructors expectations

The topic is distinguished from the papers central thesis

M Format follows appropriate guidelines (MLA, APA, instructor's own)

Usage is correct and language is appropriate and unbiased (gender, culture)

Punctuation, spelling, capitalization, etc., are correct; paper was carefully proofread

Sentences are clear, varied, and concise

Writing style is concrete, avoiding jargon and preferring active to passive voice

O The paper is logically organized, with an introduction, body and conclusion

Writer has clearly articulated his/her thesis or controlling idea

Paragraphs are coherent, well developed, and unified around a single topic

Transitions are logical, signaled by connecting language.

Introduction captures attention, establishes topics significance, and articulates a thesis

Conclusion effectively ties together the papers key points, whether through a creative

restatement of the thesis, or by offering recommendations and actions to be taken

T Paper demonstrates in-depth knowledge of subject

Controlling idea (thesis) is fully supported with evidence, reasons, quotes, etc.

Conclusions follow from the information presented

Writer shows ability to think critically and creatively

Sources of information are examined critically and weighed against other sources

Characteristics of the Good Paper (B) [at expectation for graduate work]

A The paper topic addresses the purpose of the assignment

The paper follows instructions regarding length, number of sources, format, etc.

Choice of topic considers assignments scope and purpose

Effort was made to identify and address target audience

M Sentences are clear, complete, and generally varied in length and structure

Format follows appropriate guidelines (MLA, APA, instructors own)

Usage is generally correct and language is appropriate

Punctuation, spelling, capitalization, etc., are generally correct

O The paper is generally focused, with an introduction, body, and conclusion

Writer has clearly articulated his/her thesis or controlling idea

Paragraphs are coherent, well developed, and unified around a single topic

Transitions are logical, signaled by connecting language

Introduction identifies topic and thesis

Conclusion restates thesis and provides helpful clarifications

T Paper demonstrates knowledge of subject

Controlling idea (thesis) is supported with evidence, reasons, quotes, etc.

Conclusions follow from the information presented

Writer shows some ability to think critically and creatively

Sources of information are examined critically and weighed against other sources

Characteristics of the "Adequate" Paper (C) [below expectations for graduate work]

A Choice of topic may show lack of care in considering assignment's scope and purpose

Student has not adequately considered the audience (s) for which he/she is writing

Student does not follow instructions in all regards. Paper may be too short or long; it

may not incorporate enough sources, etc.

M Occasional grammar errors appear (e.g. fragments, subject/verb agreement)

There is little variety or sophistication in the length and structure of sentences

Writing is occasionally wordy and unclear

Format may be inconsistent or does not fully follow academic guidelines

Other errors appear (in usage and word choice, spelling, capitalization, punctuation)

O Organization is not always logical; introduction, body, or conclusion may be incomplete

Student attempts to provide coherence and unity but is not always successful

Controlling idea is unfocused and only partially developed; thesis is too narrow/ broad

Paper occasionally skips around without adequate transitions

T Knowledge of subject is adequate but not deep

Controlling idea is supported but not extensively

Conclusions are incomplete or do not follow directly from the information presented

Information sources are flawed or accepted uncritically

Approach to subject lacks creativity, mastery

Essay 1: Right-vs-Right Dilemmas, Defining Moments, & Whistleblowing Assurance of Learning

Assessment Criteria

Not Good Enough0 score