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Marketing Education
Stand-Alone Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Sustainability Course Requirements : A Snapshot From
Australia and New Zealand
Sharyn R. Rundle-Thiele and Walter Wymer
Journal of Marketing Education 2010 32: 5 originally published online 14 September 2009
DOI: 10.1177/0273475309345002
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Walter Wymer
University of Lethbridge, Canada
This article analyzes the extent to which Australian and New Zealand marketing educators use dedicated or stand-alone courses
to equip students with alternative views of business. A census of marketing programs in degree-granting universities was conducted. Program brochures were obtained via the Internet and were content analyzed. This study reports a lower proportion of
universities requiring students to take a course dedicated to society and environmental issues than previous studies have. Only
27% of universities in Australia required students to take a dedicated ethics, social responsibility, and/or sustainability course.
Only 8% of universities offered a dedicated core marketing ethical or social responsibility course. Previous sample estimates may
have overstated ethical, social responsibility, and sustainability course requirements. There is considerable room for improvement
in Australia and New Zealand if universities are to equip their students with the skills, knowledge, and ideas to benefit themselves,
the organizations they choose to work for, and society as a whole.
Keywords: ethics; sustainability; corporate social responsibility; program; marketing majors
odays managers face volatile economic forces, differences in organizational and cultural values, cultural
diversity among employees and customers, rapidly changing technology, environmental damage, and finite resources.
Through education we, as teachers, can inform our students of the global predicament that we are in and equip
our students with the skills, knowledge, and ideas to benefit themselves, the organizations for which they choose
work, and society at large. The Association to Advance
Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) noted that management education must prepare students to contribute to
organizations and the larger society and to grow personally
and professionally throughout their careers (2008, p. 1).
Standards such as those published by the Marketing and
Sales Standards Setting Body (MSSSB) suggest that a principal activity that marketers must undertake is to ensure
that an organizations strategies and policies are centered
upon customers and an organizations corporate social responsibilities (MSSSB, 2006, p. 5). Accrediting bodies such as
the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) suggest that learning environments should favor the development of students managerial and entrepreneurial skills, and
foster their sense of global responsibility (EQUIS, 2008,
p. 21). Universities seeking EQUIS accreditation must be
able to describe the means by which issues relating to
on the seminal thoughts of Friedman (1962), there is a wellestablished view that argues that the sole legitimate purpose
of a firm is to increase shareholder wealth. This is the traditional ideology embedded in business curricula. In contrast,
there is an alternate perspective suggesting the true purposes
of corporations are to make societies better off and to create
societal wealth and not just wealth for shareholders (Cohan,
2002). Students should be equipped to assess critically the
very process and nature of the firm and be capable of discussing alternatives. If marketing educators are committed to
providing students with a worldview, programs need to present students with alternate viewpoints of the role of business
in society. Alternate views would allow graduates to make
their own free, autonomous choices about the life they will
lead (Bridges, 1992, quoted in Clarke etal., 2006).
The decision on whether to integrate ethics, social
responsibility, and sustainability into existing courses or
develop dedicated courses has been debated previously
(e.g., Christensen, Pierce, Hartman, Hoffman, & Carrier,
2007; Stubbs & Cocklin, 2008). We contend that attempts
to incorporate ethics training, promote sustainability, and
foster a sense of global responsibility into current course
offerings does little to sufficiently contrast the two views of
the firm. Dedicated coverage is required if the social
responsibility and sustainability ideologies are to have a
coherent place in a business education. Some definitions of
corporate social responsibility (e.g., Carroll, 1999, 1991)
consider Friedmans (1962) economic requirement a foundation, suggesting that legal, ethical, and philanthropic
considerations be held in secondary importance to the primary wealth-producing purpose of business. These views
of social responsibility are being challenged. More liberal
stances suggest the true purposes of corporations are to
make societies better off and to create societal wealth
(Cohan, 2002). This liberal stance is in stark contrast to
Friedmans view suggesting there is little benefit in making
a profit if it is not sustainable. The recent U.S. credit crunch
provides a case in point. With millions of U.S. families facing loan foreclosures and the threat of a collapse of the
financial sector, the U.S. government resumed control of
the two largest lenders in the United States (Freddie Mac
and Fannie Mae). Business practices involving extending
unsustainable levels of credit created chaos with significant
societal and economic implications for the United States
and other countries across the globe.
Given that program requirements reflect the skills, knowledge, and ideas valued by groups of marketing educators
(AACSB, 2008), the purpose of this article is to analyze all
marketing undergraduate degree programs in Australia and
New Zealand to consider the extent to which Australian and
New Zealand marketing educators seek to provide ethical
training, promote sustainability, and foster a sense of global
responsibility using dedicated courses.
Background
The concepts of corporate social responsibility (Carroll,
1999), ethics (Tsalikis & Fritzsche, 1989), and sustainability
(Tilbury, 1995) have received a considerable amount of
research attention and they have been previously defined by
other authors. There is limited research relating to the extent
that corporate social responsibility, ethics, and sustainability
are integrated into marketing curricula. These topics can
either be integrated into existing marketing courses or marketing educators can develop dedicated courses. This literature review focuses on research that considers dedicated
corporate social responsibility, ethics, and sustainability marketing courses. Bridges and Wilhelm (2008) provided examples of sustainability courses for universities in Germany, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. They suggested that
whereas some sustainability courses are offered in undergraduate programs, the main focus appears to be in graduate
programs. Furthermore, their study suggests that although it
is uncommon for sustainability to be incorporated into the
curriculum at all, of those programs that do teach these topics, it is more common for educators to incorporate elements
of sustainability into required courses rather than offer exclusive sustainability-focused courses.
The Beyond Grey Pinstripes (2007) survey conducted by
the Aspen Institute Centre for Business Education considered how well 112 MBA programs incorporated social and
environmental issues into the training of future business
leaders in 2007 and 2008. The results of their most recent
study suggest that the percentage of universities surveyed
that require students to take a MBA course dedicated to
business and society issues has increased dramatically over
time, from 34% in 2001 to 63% in 2007. Furthermore, the
number of elective MBA courses per school dedicated to
social and/or environmental content has increased 20%. In
another MBA-focused study, Christensen etal. (2007) personally interviewed deans and directors from the top 50
business schools according to the Financial Times ratings.
Their study reported that all programs in their sample
required one or more of (a) corporate social responsibility,
(b) ethics, and (c) sustainability be covered in their MBA
curriculum. Their findings revealed that one third of the
schools required coverage of all three topics as part of their
MBA curriculum. The Beyond Grey Pinstripes (2007) and
Christensen et al. (2007) studies contrast with Navarro
(2008), who accessed Web sites of the top 50 business
schools to determine the list of required core courses. Navarros
findings indicate that less than half (40%) of the top schools
require a dedicated course on corporate ethics, suggesting
that the incidence of dedicated courses may be lower than
studies based on survey data may suggest.
Compared to the number of studies on graduate business
curricula, far fewer studies were evident for undergraduate
curricula in general and the marketing curricula in particular. Buff and Yonkers (2004) collected data online for U.S.
universities listed in the AACSB member directory who
offered undergraduate marketing programs to understand
the extent to which U.S. universities were committed to
ethical education. Their data included the title(s) of all req
uired courses in the general education, business core, and
marketing curriculum. Consistent with Navarro (2008), their
study identified that 40.6% of AACSB-accredited universities in the U.S. require an ethics course for their marketing
degree. Interestingly, their study suggested that smaller colleges and universities were more likely to require an ethics
course. Finally, their study identified that only one (1% of
the sample) program had a required marketing ethics course
for its marketing major. Stringfellow, Ennis, Brennan, and
Harker (2006) considered marketing course offerings for the
top 50 universities that offered undergraduate marketing
programs, and 18% offered a course in marketing ethics.
Our literature review indicates that there have two been
major methods of collecting data on curricula content: (a)
surveys of program directors and (b) content analysis of
program publications (including Web sites). When compared with research that collects data by analyzing the
content of the courses offered from published materials,
research using surveys (e.g., Beyond Grey Pinstripes, 2007;
Christensen et al., 2007) appears to overestimate the proportion of dedicated courses offered. It is possible that
survey methods seeking to understand the extent to which
ethics, social responsibility, and sustainability are offered in
curricula may encourage respondents to answer in socially
desirable ways. Socially desirable responding suggests that
respondents have a tendency to answer researchers questions in ways that enable themselves to be perceived more
favorably (Mick, 1996). Consequently, survey respondents
overreport or underreport, depending on the situationa
phenomenon referred to as socially desirable responding
(Baumgartner & Steenkamp, 2005). An example of socially
desirable responding is given by Zinkhan and Carlson
(1995), who reported that although consumers are eager to
describe themselves as recyclers the incidence of recycling
in the community is not as widespread as self-report data
would indicate. It is possible that when surveyed on the
extent to which students are required to take dedicated
courses professors or administrators may report a more
favorable curriculum coverage of socially desirable content
than occurs in practice.
We would expect that socially desirable responding is
likely to arise in research relating to ethics, sustainability,
and corporate social responsibility. There may be strong
public opinion but research participants actual behavior
may be incongruent with these opinions (i.e., we all think
we should be equipping our students with ethical training
and that we should be fostering our students with a sense of
global responsibility, but we may not change curricula content or develop courses to achieve these goals). Consequently,
Method
Sample
There are a total of 39 Australian universities and 8 New
Zealand universities. A census was taken of these universities and data were collected in August 2008. The option to
major in marketing was available at all Australian and New
Zealand universities. Program information for students
seeking to major in marketing was publicly accessible on
all 47 universities Web sites. The data included the program of study requirements for a marketing degree and
information on the number of required core and elective
courses in the business core and marketing curriculum.
Course titles and descriptions were reviewed using key
search terms. The key terms included ethics (ethical), social
responsibility, society, values in society, moral(s), sustainability, environment, and current issues. When unclear cou
rses descriptions were obtained and a decision was later
made to ascertain whether a course appeared to be based on
ethics, sustainability, or social responsibility. Course titles
were obtained for 99 courses, and course descriptions were
not available online for 8 courses. Course descriptions were
available for 91 courses.
Data Analysis
Content analysis, an unobtrusive method of measurement
that is not reliant on perceptions or respondent bias (Harris,
2001), has been used previously to identify the focus of
curricula (see Bridges & Wilhelm, 2008; Buff & Yonkers,
2004; Stringfellow et al., 2006). Content analysis of program requirements can yield information on what universities are actually doing rather than what individual professors
perceive. The rationale for using content analysis in this
Results
The number of courses required to complete a program
were first considered along with the numbers of core courses
required for the degree and marketing major. Core courses
represent the compulsory requirement for students to be
awarded a degree, and as such core courses represent the
skills and knowledge areas that are most valued by management and marketing educators. This is reported in Table 1.
On average, degrees in Australia and New Zealand
require students to complete 24 courses. Degree completion
for a full-time student can typically involve completing 4
courses per semester, with degree completion in six semesters and 3 years. Whereas the number of core courses varied
Table 1
Australian and New Zealand Program Requirements
Total
Average Number of
Courses required to
24 (2.1) 24 (1.9)
complete program
Core courses
8 (2.2) 8 (1.8)
required for degree
Core courses required for 6 (2.7) 7 (2.6)
marketing major
Elective courses required 2 (2.2) 1 (1.5)
for marketing major
p
25 (2.8)
7 (3.6)
4 (1.8)
.01
4 (2.1)
.01
Table 2
Number of Dedicated Courses
Number of
Core courses
Elective courses
Business courses
Marketing courses
Australia
New Zealand
Total
10
63
69
4
3
15
17
1
13
78
86
5
Table 3
Types of Dedicated Courses
Course Focus
Sustainability
Ethical training
Social responsibility
Social responsibility
and ethical training
Total
Australia
New Zealand
42
27
8
8
33
20
6
8
9
7
2
0
Table 4
Sample Course Descriptions
Ethics
The subject examines three major approaches to ethics and defends
one as preferable. This is then applied to cases in contemporary
business and professional life that present concrete ethical
dilemmas. Topics include conflict of interest, privacy and
confidentiality, bribes, insider trading; deceptive advertising; fraud;
whistle blowing; employee rights and duties; and differences in
international business culture and practice.
Charles Sturt University, MGT230
Corporate social responsibility
The focus of this course is on the role of corporations and their
accountability, accounting, and reporting issues in the context of
sustainability and social justice. Corporate social responsibility
accountability, accounting, and reporting is concerned with
communicating the social and environmental effects of a
corporations economic actions to particular stakeholders and to
society at large. This extends the corporations accountability beyond
the traditional financial disclosures to shareholders and is predicated
on the assumption that corporations have, as a consequence of implied
social contracting or ethical dimensions, social responsibilities that
are much broader than generating shareholder wealth.
Australian National University, BUSN3017
Sustainability
Key environmental debates are explored to identify the challenges
of understanding underlying scientific principles and effective
environmental management. Case studies highlight the complexity
of environmental problems and the difficult task of integrating
science, knowledge and values in their resolution.
University of Auckland, ENVSCI101
Table 5
Dedicated Course Requirements
Course Focus
Sustainability
Social responsibility
and ethical training
Core
Course
Elective
Course
Business
Marketing
1
13
41
30
42
37
0
4
Table 6
Stand-Alone Marketing Course Descriptions
Figure 1
Depth of Course Coverage
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful
comments on an earlier version of this article.
Note
1. Three quarters of the universities in the Beyond Grey Pinstripes
(2007) sample were North American. Aside from one Australian, one
Singapore, and one South African university, the balance of the sample
was from the United Kingdom and Europe.
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