Until recently, the question of ethics in business management has not been a major issue in the NIU curriculum. This is changing due to the efforts of Terry Bishop, an associate professor of business management at NIU.

Bishop teaches Management 333, Principles of Business Management, required by all business majors and minors.

One third of this class is devoted entirely to the question of ethics in the business world, although he stresses the question of ethics should not be relegated to just this particular field.

When asked what definition is the basis of his approach to the question of ethics, Bishop’s reply was “a system of values.”

This definition requires qualitative adjustment, as Bishop said he is concerned with “normative ethics,” or “ethical standards that are recognizably accepted” such as “stealing is wrong.”

Bishop said he is not as concerned with the answer to the question of what is right and what is wrong as he is with the need to ask the question of what is right and what is wrong. He is also concerned with evaluating the answer to this question based on the understanding of some essential and fundamental moral principals.

The object of Bishop’s attempts to integrate the subject of ethics into the curriculum at NIU is to present students with the type of moral and ethical dilemmas that will face them in the business world.

Bishop said the importance of this is indicated by a study done by the University of Columbia that surveyed 800 of its business graduates.

The results of the study indicated that 90 percent of the 800 graduates reported facing a major ethical dilemma within the first twelve months of employment.

This provides strong support for the need of integrating the question of business ethics into an undergraduate curriculum.

Integration as proposed by Bishop refers to more than just a need to offer a required course for business majors, but more importantly, “relating the question of business ethics to all areas of study in the College of Business after students have been provided with basic knowledge of the concepts of ethics, values, and morality, and the relationship of ethics to the practice in the business world.”

Bishop said a required course on business ethics should be the foundation through which students are exposed to the fundamentals of ethics, and the teaching of ethics should be reinforced as students proceed into their various areas of study.

Bishop said if such a program is implemented effectively, it will “force students to think, develop intellectually and come in contact with modes of thought unfamiliar to them, allowing them to perceive viable alternatives and solutions to the kinds of ethical questions and situations they will face in the workplace.”

“The course will “force students to think, develop intellectually and come in contact with modes of thought unfamiliar to them.”

-Terry Bishop associate professor of business management