The Wilson College of Business emphasizes business ethics education through both courses and the annual Ethics Case Competition, where students present real-world solutions before a panel of judge
“It’s all about the money!” Sports fans probably recently read or heard sportswriters and commentators employ this “hoary chestnut” (a phrase that is itself a cliché) in the wake of the collapse of the venerable Pacific-12 conference. For once, a cliché is apt. The scramble for desirable Pac-12 teams (sorry, Oregon State and Washington State fans) was all about the money.
Johnny Paycheck’s song, “Take This Job and Shove It,” expresses a fundamental human right in the United States. Many workers fantasize about the day they can use Paycheck’s song title in confronting their boss. Yes, it is a rude and crude sentiment, but it is an American right.
Milton Friedman advocated profit-focused business responsibility, while John Elkington introduced the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit). Today, businesses prioritize stakeholders' well-being, environmental impact, profit, and purpose-driven initiatives. Corporate social responsibility attracts customers and recruits socially conscious employees.
For years defining and pigeon-holing generations has been a cottage industry. Some pundits have pitted generation against generation, including the condescending dismissal expressed by some contemporary young people: “Okay, Boomer.”
Suppose you just graduated from UNI with a degree in marketing. You’ve converted your summer internship into a permanent sales job. Congratulations. A few years into your job, however, you start noticing prospectuses regarding robots.
Electric vehicles are all the rage. Prospective buyers believe they are helping to reduce carbon emissions; of course, the electricity to manufacture and power the vehicle have to emanate from somewhere, including carbon-based electrical producers.
I’ve never watched Tom Hanks in the movie Forrest Gump. I have heard his famous line about life resembling a box of chocolates and never knowing what you are going to get. A local television station ran a story exposing the increasing amount of plastic in boxes of Valentine’s Day chocolates.
Dan Snyder owns the Washington Commanders (formerly Redskins). The National Football League probably wishes he wasn’t an owner and that he would go “quietly into the night.” Mr. Snyder, however, has no intention of relinquishing his franchise. According to ESPN, Snyder claims to have incriminating evidence on his fellow owners and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
I attended Texas Christian University as an undergraduate accounting major in the early to mid 1970s. I then got an MBA and PhD in business-related fields, and began my teaching career in 2000. Now, nearly 50 years later, I am thinking about what we do in our business schools across the USA. Clearly, nothing much has changed in the last half century that would impact business education—sorry, just being a bit sarcastic there! On the contrary, the past 50 years have seen unprecedented change in nearly every aspect of our lives.
