ESSEC-Mannheim EMBA module

Teaching in Bodo

On October 11, 2005 Laszlo Zsolnai and Knut Johannessen Ims were co-teaching in the ecological economics course of the Bodo Graduate School of Business in Bodo, Norway. Zsolnai and Ims presented the interrelated ideas of Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics for the students.

Business Ethics course at the ISC

In September 2005 Zsolt Boda started to teach an English-speaking Business Ethics course at the International Studies Center of the Corvinus University of Budapest. Students were coming from twelve different European countries. The course gives a general introduction into the theoretical concepts as well as the practice oriented tools of business ethics. The main topics are: basic ethics concepts, the stakeholder theory of the firm, the notion of CSR, the ethical institutions of organizations and the ethics of globalization. The book edited by Laszlo Zsolnai "Ethics in the Economy: Handbook of Business Ethics" (Peter Lang Publishers, Oxford, 2002) serves as reader for the course.

Business Ethics Seminar in Milan

Business Ethics Seminar in Helsinki

Teaching Business Ethics in the the Europe-University of Viadria MBA Program

Business Ethics Lectures and Seminars in Budapest

In September 2004 the Business Ethics Center began teaching its Business Ethics graduate course at the Corvinus University Budapest using a lectures-seminars format. Lectures were given by Laszlo Zsolnai while corresponding seminars were conducted by Zsolt Boda, Laszlo Fekete, Maria Kostyal, Zsuzsanna Gyori and Peter Kardos. In the Fall Semester of 2004, more than 400 students participated in the course.

The course introduces the standard concepts and models of business ethics. Topics include the following: ethical motives, profit versus morality, the stakeholder theory of business, corporate social responsibility, ethical decision making, ethical institutions of business, gender issues in business, business & ecology, and the ethics of capitalism. The course aims to develop the competence of students for understanding ethical problems and making ethical decisions in different business contexts. Special emphasis is placed on economics and psychology as two major bases in handling business ethics issues. The grade for the course is determined by the following scheme: written exam (60%) and class participation (40%). Required reading is Laszlo Zsolnai’s Ecology, Economics, and Ethics (Budapest, 2001 Helikon) in Hungarian.

“Business and Ecology” MBA Course in Vienna

In August 2004, Laszlo Zsolnai taught a „Business & Ecology” course for the International MBA Program of the University of Economics in Vienna, Austria. The topics of the course were as follows: (1) Business and the Natural Environment, (2) Environmental Ethics, (3) The Stakeholder View of the Firm, (4) Corporate Social Responsibility, (5) Ethical Decision Making, (6) „Natural Capitalism” and (7) Sustainable Business. American, Mexican and Scandinavian students participated in the course.

On “Ethics in Business” in Oxford

On May 20, 2004, Laszlo Zsolnai presented lectures for the „Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme” at Templeton College, Oxford. His lectures on „Ethics in Business” covered three topics; namely, „The Moral Economic Man” (Which factors determine economic behavior?), „Ethics in Competitive Environments” (How can ethical behavior survive in highly competitive markets?) and „The Paradox of Ethics” (Why is the opportunistic use of ethics counter-productive?).

Teaching Business Ethics at the European University

In March 2004 Laszlo Zsolnai taught a Business Ethics course for the MBA Program of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), in Germany. The Viadrina MBA program targets managers specializing in business in Central and Eastern Europe.

Ecological and Human Values in Business

The Business Ethics Center organized the „Ecological and Human Values in Business” Blocked Seminar for the International Masters Program of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) from August 29 – September 4, 2004, in Monoszlo, near Lake Balaton, Hungary. Faculty included Knut Ims (Norwegian School of Economics & Business Administration, Bergen), Ove Jakobsen (Bodo University), Nel Hofstra (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Aloy Soppe (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Laszlo Zsolnai (Business Ethics Center), and Zsolt Boda (Business Ethics Center).

The seminar explored the ecological and human values perspective for transforming business into a more ecological and human form. Business is considered an existential enterprise because its decisions and policies greatly influence the fate and survival of nature, society and future generations. Ecological and human values provide limits for business within which business is legitimate and productive. However, by transgressing ecological and human values, business activities become destructive and self-defeating.

The seminar presented new ways of doing business, ways that respect ecological and human values as limiting principles of business activities. Practicing business within limits ensures the hope and promise of contributing to the preservation and enrichment of the natural and human world.

The following topics were covered in the seminar: Business as Existential Enterprise; Buddhist Economics, Ecology and Economics; The Governance of Global Commons; Sustainable Entrepreneurship; Banking as if Nature Mattered; and Personal Responsibility and Ethical Business. In addition to the faculty presentations, group work and discussion, invited speakers Matthew Hayes (Community Supported Agriculture Project), S-P. Mahoney (Enterprise Ireland Ltd.), and Géza Varga (Galgafarm) presented their experiences about alternative business practices. Judit Vásárhelyi (Independent Ecology Center) organized a visit to sustainability projects in the region.

Twenty-five students participated in the seminar and represented such CEMS member universities as the Helsinki School of Economics, Economics University Prague, Université catholique de Louvain, Bocconi University Milan, Albertus Magnus Universitat zu Köln, Erasmus University Rotterdam, HEC Paris, and the Budapest University of Economic Sciences. The course also served as a presentation of a forthcoming book edited by Laszlo Zsolnai and Knut Ims, Business Within Limits: Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics, whose contributors were among the faculty.

Business Ethics Blocked Seminar in Helsinki

A CEMS Blocked Seminar in Business Ethics was conducted at the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland on September 1-5, 2003. The course aimed at providing an introduction to business ethics from a European perspective. Theories of virtue ethics, applied ethics, and collective responsibility were introduced to provide theoretical background for contemporary issues in business ethics.

Classes included the following: “Ethics and Capable Management” and “Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics and Its Relevance to Business Ethics” by Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila, Academy of Finland Research Fellow at Helsinki School of Economics; “Business Ethics as Applied Ethics?” and “Knowledge-Based Economy: A Challenge for Business Ethics” by Kristina Rolin, Helsinki School of Economics; “Building Ethical Institutions,” “Case in Advertising,” “Typology of Organizational Ethics” and “Corporate Sustainability” by Nel Hofstra and Luit Kloosterman, Erasmus University Rotterdam; and “Business and Society: The Finnish Experience” by Sirpa Juutinen, STAKES, Helsinki.

The Business Ethics Center was represented by Laszlo Zsolnai and Zsolt Boda, who both taught classes on “The Moral Economic Man,” “The Stakeholder Theory of the Firm” and “Globalization and International Business Ethics.”

Ethics in Business and Economics

A graduate course entitled “Ethics in Business and Economics” has been taught in English by Laszlo Zsolnai and Zsolt Boda at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences since the Spring of 2002. The course covered the main concepts of the field at the individual level (the ethical problems of the Homo Oeconomicus model), the organizational level (corporate ethics), the macro level (theories of justice) and the international level (the ethics of the multinationals).

Ethics, Ecology and the Limits of Business

The Business Ethics Inter-faculty Group of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) held a one-week seminar entitled “Ethics, Ecology and the Limits of Business” on September 2-8, 2002 in Bergen, Norway. The host of the seminar was Knut Ims of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. Faculty members included Laszlo Zsolnai and Zsolt Boda (Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary), Aloy Soppe (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and Ove Jacobsen (Bodo Graduate School of Business, Norway). Twenty students representing eight European countries participated in the course. (Box: photo)

The main function of the seminar was to explore the possibility of using the Deep Ecology perspective, developed by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, and Buddhist Economics, represented by British economist Fritz Schumacher, for transforming business into a more ecological and human form.

Topics of the seminar included the following: “Business as Existential Enterprise,” which emphasized the existential meaning and relevance of business decisions and policies; “Sustainable Development and the Governance of Global Commons,” which investigated the limits of the dominant model of sustainable development, and global environmental governance, where market forces and business incentives are given predominance over other considerations; and “Ethical Banking,” which concentrated on current ethical approaches to banking such as sustainable banking, Islamic banking and credit unions.

Philosophy of the Internet

In Spring 2001, László Fekete taught a course entitled "A Philosophy of the Internet: Seminar in Theories of Knowledge, Communication, and Culture" at the International Studies Center of Budapest University of Economic Sciences.

The course demonstrated that the Internet transforms the traditional forms and norms of communication and its public and private spaces, thereby rewriting the textuality of our culture and our language, reconstructing social knowledge, and finally, making social, political, and economic impacts on contemporary (postmodern, postindustrial, information, or risk) society.

Classes included the following: 1. The poles of communication; 2. Text, hypertext and hypermedia; 3. Internet and the problems of the Artificial Intelligence; 4. Virtual reality; and 5. Politics, knowledge, and communicative actions in postmodern society.

Ethical Company Research Seminar

In Spring 2001, Laszlo Zsolnai conducted a research seminar for graduate students entitled "The Ethical Company." The course aimed at exploring the different elements and systems, which make the ethical company possible. The central concept was the "ethical mind" of the corporation as a complex, self-regulating mechanism by which the corporation retrains itself and its members to move away from unethical behavior and motivates itself to generate ethical actions.

Classes included the following: (1) Moral Disengagement Mechanisms of Corporations, (2) Mission, Values, and Corporate Identity, (3) Decision Making Systems, (4) Interaction with the Stakeholders, (5) Brand Development Strategies, (6) Social and Ethical Accounting, Auditing, and Reporting, (7) Ethical Institutions and Corporate Governance, (8) Philanthropy and Social Venture, and (9) Spirituality in Management.

S-P. Mahoney from Irish Enterprise Ltd. and Joanna Messing from NESst were guest speakers in the classes "Brand Development Strategies" and "Philanthropy and Social Venture." Students produced papers on the ethical profile of selected companies such as 3M, Groupe Danone, IKEA, Nokia, Ericsson, BP, Shell, Peugeot, Levis' Straus, Siemens AG, Ford - Werke AT, Co-operative Bank, Novo Nordisk, The Ecology Building Society, Swissair, Triodos Bank, Dow Jones Sustainability Group, Motorola, Volvo Group, and The Calvert Group.

CEMS Business Ethics course in the Cote d’Azur

Under the direction of Laszlo Zsolnai, the Business Ethics Interfaculty Group of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) organized a business ethics course that served as a component of the CEMS Master’s Program. The course was taught on September 9-16, 2001 in Grasse, near Nice, in France. Topics included the moral aspects of economic behavior, business and society, the stakeholder corporation, finance and ethics, personal responsibility in business, corruption, institutional aspects of the market, ethical decision-making, business and sustainability, and international ethics and globalization.

More than 30 students from CEMS member universities participated in the course. Faculty members included Hans De Geer (Stockholm), Eleanor O'Higgins (Dublin), Aloy Soppe (Rotterdam), Knut Ims (Bergen), Yvon Pesqueux (Paris), Lidmila Němcová (Prague), Tomasz Dolegowski (Warsaw), Antonio Tencati (Milan), Zsolt Boda and Laszlo Zsolnai (Budapest).

Business & Ecology Summer Course

Jointly with the faculty of the Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics and Society of the Mansfield College, University of Oxford, the Business Ethics Center conducted a two-week summer course entitled "Business & Ecology" at the Central European University on July 10-21, 2000. A total of 29 young academics from 20 countries participated in the course.

The course emphasized the fact that without the involvement of explicit ethical considerations, the natural environment cannot be preserved. Business ethics and environmental ethics supply a rich variety of principles that should be integrated into corporate, environmental and social policy. In Central and Eastern European countries, environmental sustainability is a necessary but not a sufficient goal by itself. The ecosystems of the world call for ecological restoration, not simple preservation. The course explored some opportunities in this direction.

The course consisted of the following modules: "Economics of Sustainability" by James Robertson, Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics, and Society, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK; "Sustainable Production and Consumption" by Neil Summerton, Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics, and Society, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK; "Business, Ecology and Society" by László Zsolnai, Business Ethics Center, Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary; "Social, Ethical, and Environmental Accountability" by Peter Pruzan, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark; "Corporate Environmentalism in an Evolutionary Perspective" by Thjornborn Knudsen, Odense University, Denmark; "Developing Competence in Environmental Management" by Judith Marquand, Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics, and Society, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK; and "Ecological Restoration in Central and Eastern Europe" by János Vargha, The Danube Circle, Budapest, Hungary.

Ethics of Capitalism Summer Course

In July 1998, the Business Ethics Center organized another summer course at the Central European University under the title “Ethics of Capitalism.” We had 28 participants from 12 countries.

The program included the following lectures: “Ethics, Economics, and the Capitalist Economy” by Peter Koslowski, Hannover Institute for Philosophy, Germany; “The Idea of Stakeholder Capitalism” by Edward E. Freeman, Darden Business School, University of Virginia, USA; “The Market, State, and Civil Society” by Stefano Zamagni, University of Bologna, Italy; “Moral Aspects of Economic Transition” by Wojcieh W. Gasparski, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland; “Failures of Radical Liberalism” by Lubomir Mlcoch, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; and “Responsibility and Profit Making” by Laszlo Zsolnai, Budapest University of Economic Sciences. A professional 30-minute video has been produced about the course entitled “The Future of Capitalism.”

Economics & Environmental Ethics Summer Course

In July 1997, the Business Ethics Center organized a two-week summer course at the Central European University under the title "Economics & Environmental Ethics." Thirty young scholars from 13 countries participated in the course.

The program included the following lectures: “Ecology and Economics: The Co-evolutionary Paradigm” by John Gowdy, Rensselaer University Institute, New York; “Eco-philosophy and Ecological Ethics” by Henryk Skolimovski, Technical University of Lodz, Poland; “The Legacy of E. F. Schumacher” by Laszlo Zsolnai, Budapest University of Economic Sciences; “Efficiency and Sufficiency: Perspectives for a De-materialized Society” by Wolfgang Sachs, Wuppertal Institute, Germany; “Ethics in Organic Agriculture” by Zoltan Szőcs, Central European University; “Economics, Ethics and Living Systems” by Laszlo Zsolnai, Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary; “Environmental Anthropology” by Imre Lazar, Semmelweis Medical School, Budapest; “The Common Heritage of Mankind and the Status of Future Generations” by Boldizsár Nagy, Eötvös University Law School, Budapest; and “Political Democracy and Environmentalism” by András Lányi, Eötvös Lóránd University, Human Ecology Program.

Ethics of International Business

A graduate course called „Law and Ethics of the International Economy” has been developed and taught jointly since 1997 by Erzsébet Kaponyi (Department of International Relations) and Zsolt Boda at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences. The classes on ethics deal with the following topics: concepts of international ethics, justice and the global commons, the fair trade problematic, and the ethics of the multinational company.

Ecological Economics

Laszlo Zsolnai taught ecological economics courses in the Human Ecology Program of the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest. The main topics of these courses were as follows: nature versus the economy; interactions among humans, organizations, and ecosystems; selfish organizations; the question of scale; responsible decision-making; the GDP and its alternatives; and the problems of ecological sustainability.

Ethics in the Economy

Laszlo Zsolnai developed and continues to teach an "Ethics in the Economy" course for graduate students in business administration. The course includes the following topics: deontology versus consequentialism, ethical motives (self-interest, altruism, and cooperation), the "tit for tat" strategy, Homo Oeconomicus versus Homo Sociologicus, utility and morality as co-determining factors of economic behavior, the ultimatum bargaining game, the stakeholder conception, paradigms of corporate social responsibility, ethical institutions of business, negative freedom versus positive freedom, fairness and justice in economic relations, theories of environmental ethics, the feminist ethics perspective, and the "ethical fabric" of the Hungarian economy. The course was reported in the Wall Street Journal Europe in 1995.