Preliminary results of a series of interviews canvassing what ethical content is taught and how it is taught, either explictly or implicitly within the undergraduate business degrees.

1. Teaching ethics in the Faculty of Business Kay Plummer, Oliver Burmeister, Donata Muntean, Dianne McGrath, Danny Murphy, Robert Macklin 25/11/2009 1

2. Aim To find out how ethics is taught within the Faculty examining Content taught Ways of teaching The assessment procedures used To identify a range of ways through which ethics can best be taught using a lens of constructive alignment 25/11/2009 2

4. Interview sample of teaching staff who teach subjects in which there is no ethics content as identified in the CASIMS subject profile.

5. 20 Interviews recorded, in accounting, management, marketing, law, finance, human resource management, mathematics and statistics, computingand information technology

6. Transcription and coding continuing.

7. First report on the results of the coding25/11/2009 3

8. Models of teaching Ethics as a prime subject component, e.g. MGT230 Business and Professional Ethics, ITC331 Security, Privacy and Ethics. Ethics as a topic in the subject, e.g. ACC341 Accounting Theory Ethics as context for the subject matter 25/11/2009 4

9. Ethics as a prime component of subject MGT230 Business and Professional Ethics, ITC331 Security, Privacy and Ethics. Range of ethical theories taught including teleological and deontological theories, virtue ethics, etc. A range of ethical issues covered such as conflicts of interest, capitalism, privacy, justice, duties to employees, customers, employers, etc. Range of teaching methods including lecture, general discussion, student presentations, case studies, role plays/hypotheticals. Methods used depended upon the lecturer. 25/11/2009 5

10. Ethics as a topic ITC332 Site Operations for Webmasters – responsibility for ethical storage of data – ethical and legal implications – use of cases and topical examples for in class discussion. ACC100 Accounting 1 – issues such as truth in reporting taught through case study discussions and decision models. STA382 Research Methods and Statistics – issues such as confidentiality approached through cases and readings Generally at least some part of the ethics related topic assessed through MCQ (though at least one lecturer did not think that ethics questions could be adequately assessed through MCQ), essay or case study. 25/11/2009 6

11. Ethics as context for subject matter Fin211 Financial Management – ethics as a variable in decision making, evidence of the profitability of ‘ethical companies’. MKT110 – ethics and the practice of marketing e.g. responsibility of advertising agency for childhood obesity. Awareness issue – generally not assessed. Often discussed in relationship with discipline issues in the news and news analysis programs such as Insight (SBS) 25/11/2009 7

12. The lecturer At least 3 lecturers had studied ethics at a postgraduate level. Many had developed an understanding of ethics from their own life experiences. Many saw ethics as an extension of their own professional role, e.g. as manager, lawyer or accountant and developed an understanding from reading within their discipline. A number of subjects where ethics not in subject profile but included in the content because lecturer identified the importance of ethics to the content, e.g. MKT310, MKT220. Some lecturers not comfortable with teaching ethics -may not recognise opportunities for including ethics as part of the context ofthe subject. Way in which content taught driven by lecturer. 25/11/2009 8

13. Where ethics not taught at all Generally totally technical subjects such as Maths, Stats, IT Response that ethics not necessary as ‘there are specialised subjects that they actually do have in certain courses that they do.’ 25/11/2009 9