The Business Ethics Workshop

On a good day in the business ethics classroom discussion charges forward; students have read the assigned case study, they’re engaged by the conflict and want to work through it. Then, there’s a bad day: students didn’t bother to do the reading and the hour sags listlessly.

The key to going the first way is case studies that students want to read, and The Business Ethics Workshop by James Brusseau provides them with reality and engagement. Reality: No stilted and contrived stories about Steve Smith and Jane Jones. Excerpts from blogs and newspapers bring the weight—and provocation—of the world as it’s actually happening to the classroom.

Engagement: Students want to read pages touching on their own anxieties, desires and aspirations. Because the textbook responds on that level without sacrificing intellectual gravity, class gets powered by student interest while thoughtfully penetrating to the core of ethical issues.

Another key to a successful textbook is clarity in the expository sections. The Business Ethics Workshop offers:

… Straight-ahead prose to help students stay with the book. … Clear sections and subsections that hold ideas and topics together. … Natural movement from one topic to the next; instead of a laundry list of definitions and concepts for rote memorization, the book strings together themes so that each chapter makes sense as a story about ethics applied to a particular a section of life in the world of jobs and money.

What separates this textbook from others is that the examples and case studies truly engage today’s college students; they do because they’re contemporary, and because they connect with real student lives. Many texts are burdened with staid discussions of problems faced by IBM executives in the 1980s and similar. These have nothing to do with your students’ experiences and interests. James replaced those types of cases with episodes centering on:

… Tom’s Shoes, the social cause juggernaut … Blogs written by young entrepreneurs in the fashion industry … The DNA testing of baseball prospects to predict future performance … The divergent career objectives of the rock band Nirvana’s members … The Miami police officer working part time as a drug dealer … The Bernie Madoff fraud … Chippendales as a career choice ‚Ä¢ Workplace ethics at youth trendsetter American Apparel ‚Ä¢ An internet message board discussion of CD pirating, both the techniques and the ethics ‚Ä¢ Eddy Lepp’s Rastafarian church and farm in California ‚Ä¢ The College Board and the economics of the SATs

Because YOU are the source of excellence in the classroom, this textbook was created to fit into YOUR course plans. Composed of stand-alone chapters, the book may be taken as originally written, or re-compiled online in any sequence the you wish. The actual published book will then fall into that new order. More, professors may do their own line editing inside the book and, again, have those changes automatically appear in the textbook version published uniquely for your class. You can try out your own customizations by clicking on the customize link on this page.

The Business Ethics Workshop by James Brusseau was designed to incite class discussion, clearly elaborate central concepts, and allow instructors to take control of their courses. The result is a smoother classroom and more student learning which translates into better student evaluations of professors and a more enjoyable—and productive—teaching day.

• Chapter 1: What Is Business Ethics?
• Chapter 2: Theories of Duties and Rights: Traditional Tools for Making Decisions in Business When the Means Justify the Ends
• Chapter 3: Theories of Consequence Ethics: Traditional Tools for Making Decisions in Business when the Ends Justify the Means
• Chapter 4: Theories Responding to the Challenge of Cultural Relativism
• Chapter 5: Employee’s Ethics: What’s the Right Job for Me?
• Chapter 6: Employee’s Ethics: Getting a Job, Getting a Promotion, Leaving
• Chapter 7: Employee’s Ethics: Making the Best of the Job You Have as You Get from 9 to 5
• Chapter 8: Manager’s Ethics: Getting, Promoting, and Firing Workers
• Chapter 9: Manager’s Ethics: Deciding on a Corporate Culture and Making It Work
• Chapter 10: The Tense Office: Discrimination, Victimization, and Affirmative Action
• Chapter 11: The Aroused Office: Sex and Drugs at Work
• Chapter 12: The Selling Office: Advertising and Consumer Protection
• Chapter 13: The Responsible Office: Corporations and Social Responsibility
• Chapter 14: The Green Office: Economics and the Environment
• Chapter 15: The Domination Office: The Star System and Labor Unions