TEACHING ETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES IN A MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM: UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENCES TO FIND COMMON GROUND

In a global economy undermined by unethical business practices, business schools have a social mandate to teach and apply ethical decision making principles that graduates can carry into their future business professions. Management education must be designed to identify and encourage students to internalize universally accepted ethical principles. The multicultural make-up of management education programs provides business educators with a unique opportunity to engage upcoming generations of global business leaders in ethical behaviors. In 2010, approximately 691,000 international students sat in US classrooms, with the largest percentage studying business management. This plurality of cultures permits the consideration of diverse ethical views to identify commonalities among them, so that an emergent ethical framework will respect and accommodate those views, and allow for a conceptual ‘bridge’ between students’ specific, ethical systems and a shared ethical system.