Ethics Education of Business Leaders

Events on Wall Street and Main Street reveal that some business leadersmake dramatically unethical self-serving decisions that ignore the publicinterest. How can business schools educate future business leaders to makeethical decisions? Unfortunately most business schools fail in teaching ethicaldecision-making. They erroneously assume that such decision-making isprimarily conscious and reason-based reflecting the western cultural orientationtoward science and logic.In this book Thomas Culham cites neurological findings showing that unconscious processes andemotions play a much more significant role than reason in making ethical decisions. Culham urges businessschools to teach a modified form of emotional intelligence linked with research-supported contemplativepractices from the great meditative traditions. This book details the author's ethics curriculum and explains itssuccessful application at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. This fascinatinginterdisciplinary and highly practical curriculum integrates philosophy (virtue ethics) Daoist thinkingpsychology and neuroscience. This curriculum intends to transform the way business schools teach decisionmaking.Such an effort might just transform the way we do business.