摘要：Despite the continued outbreaks of
business scandals, the agency that
accredits business schools internationally
has not drafted standards that would
mandate sound ethics education. Spe-
cifically, the Association for the Advance-
ment of Collegiate Schools of Business
(AACSB) chose not to require even one
standalone ethics course in its new stan-
dards formulated in 2003. Instead, the
agency decided that schools can meet ac-
creditation standards by integrating eth-
ics across the curriculum. Similarly, the
National Association of State Boards of
Accountancy, while finally poised in the
wake of accounting scandals to require
ethics education as a qualification to sit
for the CPA exam, now appears willing
to allow accounting programs to point to
coverage broken asunder throughout the
curriculum as meeting its ethics require-
ment. Faced with a tumultuous moral
crisis in business, both standard-setting
associations have refused to strengthen
ethics education by simply requiring a
course dedicated to ethics and taught by
faculty trained in the area. In response to
the claim by AACSB that ethics can be
integrated across the curriculum absent
a foundational ethics course, Ray Hil-
gert, emeritus professor of management
and industrial relations at Washington
University’s Olin School of Business,
said: “If you believe it’s integrated in all
the courses, then I’m willing to offer you
the Brooklyn Bridge” (Nicklaus, 2002,
p. C10).
