CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY Philosophy 318: Business Ethics (Web Course) Course developed by Dr. Robert Noggle, Professor of Philosophy, Central Michigan University Syllabus revised June 2015
Instructor for this section: Dr. Heather M. N. Kendrick
I. Instructor information Rank/Department: Dr. Kendrick is a Lecturer (II) of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Teaching Experience: CMU, 2005-present; Albion College, 2004-2005. Educational Background: B.A., Philosophy, Earlham College, 1996; M.A., Philosophy, Miami University (Ohio), 1998; Ph.D., Philosophy, Michigan State University, 2004. Phone: (989) 774-1787 E-mail:
[email protected] During the week, I usually respond to e-mail within 24 hours. On the weekends, it may take up to 48 hours. Occasionally emails get lost, so if I have not answered an email from you in 24-48 hours, please do not hesitate to send your message again. It is helpful to include the section number of the course in your message, as I am often teaching multiple sections. Availability: E-mail is the best way to get in touch with me (see above).
II. Textbooks and instructional materials Purchasing textbooks is part of the cost of taking a class. The two textbooks in this class are both required, and you will need to have them to complete assignments. Textbooks may be ordered from MBS, CMU Online's official partner bookstore: http://bookstore.mbsdirect.net/cmu.htm 1. Business Ethics by William H. Shaw. See the CMU Global Campus Web site for the current edition. Note 1: This book may be purchased through MBS. Other sources (such as Amazon) may offer new or used copies of this book at competitive prices. Note 2: Although the edition listed on the CMU Global Campus Web site is the "official" edition, you are free to use the next most recent edition. For example, if the Global Campus website lists the 8th edition, you may also use the 7th edition.) You may be able to find the older edition at a very good price. The reading assignments in the course will include the proper page numbers for the latest (official) version of the text, as well as the next most recent version. Note 3: Do not purchase the book by William Shaw and Vincent Barry. Although the two textbooks are similar and often confused, the Shaw/Berry text will not work for this course. 2. Business Ethics: Supplemental Readings and Cases, a custom course-pack produced by McGraw-Hill Higher Education (ISBN 0-256-98172-8). Typically, MBS just lists this as Business Ethics - Custom.
Note 1: The only reliable source of this text is the MBS textbook service. If you think that you have found a copy from some other source, make absolutely sure it has the correct ISBN before purchasing it, and compare prices with MBS. Note 2: Dr. Noggle is listed as this text's author, but he simply compiled the readings and does not earn any money or compensation for the sale of this text. 3. Other documents that will be available electronically via Blackboard.
III. Course Description and Goals The course has four main goals. First, it will provide a general introduction to ethical theory and, more importantly, the tools of ethical decision-making and problem-solving. Although this material is derived from moral philosophy, it will be presented in a way that emphasizes practical application rather than pure theory. Second, this course will acquaint students with the generally accepted ethical standards in the business world. These standards pertain to such matters as conflict of interest, insider trading, price-fixing, employment discrimination, and the ethics of advertising and sales. The goal will not only be to explain what the ethical expectations are, but why the particular standards are generally accepted (if not always practiced). In some cases, these standards overlap with the law, and in such cases we will often discuss the ethical spirit (rather than the letter) of the relevant laws. Third, this course will give students a chance to think through various positions on several controversial ethical, political, and public policy issues related to the business world. These issues include product liability law, the proper balance between employee rights and free enterprise, criticisms and defenses of advertising, and the nature and extent of business's obligations to society. The goal here is not to convince students to accept the instructor’s view about these issues. Rather, it is to help students understand each side of the controversial issues we will discuss, so that they can draw their own informed, intelligent conclusions. Finally, this course will encourage students to develop an ethical perspective on business activities--a perspective which emphasizes integrity as the balancing of economic goals with other important values, including moral values. The course is based on the assumption that students are already decent, basically ethical persons who already endorse a basic set of ethical values. This course is meant to help students see how to integrate those values into a career in business, and in so doing to remain decent, ethical persons as they pursue their business careers. A note about Web-based courses: This web-based course is designed to be as similar as possible to the business ethics courses that the course's creator, Dr. Noggle, teaches on campus. The goal of a good webbased course is to provide through an alternative format an educational experience that is as close as possible to the educational experience available in more traditional classroom settings. As per university policies, the standards and expectations for student workload for this web-based course will be as close as possible to those of a “face to face” course taught on campus. A web-based course should be neither easier nor more difficult than the same course taught on campus.
Keep in mind that this course covers in 8 weeks the same material that is normally covered in 15 weeks. Also keep in mind that instead of listening to lectures, you will be reading them, and that instead of asking questions or making comments out loud, you will be writing them. Students in campus-based courses are commonly told to expect to spend 1-2 hours outside of class for each hour in class reading, studying, and working on other class-related activities. This adds up to a total time commitment of between 90 and 135 hours for a 3-credit course (3 hours of class per week, plus 3-6 hours outside of class, for 15 weeks). You should expect to spend approximately the same amount of time completing the same 3-credit course as a web-course. Since you have only 8 weeks in which to complete the course, you should not be surprised if you need to spend ten hours or more each week on it. (Of course, you do get to choose when and where you spend those hours, and this is a major advantage of Global Campus over face-to-face courses.)
IV. Methodology General teaching/learning methodology: Student learning in this course will take place via several different methods. Much of the factual material will come from the required course texts, especially the William Shaw text. This material will be supplemented and expanded upon by “virtual lectures” provided through Blackboard, and by several supplementary readings from the McGraw-Hill supplemental readings collection. The “virtual lectures” are based on Dr. Noggle’s lecture notes for his face-to-face business ethics courses taught on campus. In addition, various exercises will help students process, think about, and apply the information and ideas gained from the texts and virtual lectures. These exercises include reading comprehension questions for some of the more difficult course readings (most of which are in the McGraw-Hill supplemental readings collection), initial response questions designed to get you thinking about the weeks’ material, to be completed via Blackboard’s survey function, case study exercises which will require you to apply the material from the readings a series of “tutorial/self quiz” exercises set up as PowerPoint slides to be downloaded from Blackboard, on-line discussion forums conducted through Blackboard’s discussion board function. Course environment: This course will be administered via the Blackboard Learning System, and all course content and interaction (other than direct email) will take place in the Blackboard environment. You can access Blackboard at http://blackboard.cmich.edu/ and log in with your CMU global ID and password. Note: If you experience problems with Blackboard, please contact the Help Desk, not the course instructor. Their Web site is https://www.cmich.edu/office_provost/OIT/help/help_desk/Pages/default.aspx
V. Course Assignments and Criteria The major assignments for this course will be three exams, completion of a number of 5 case study assignments, and participation through an on-line discussion forum and several initial response surveys. Point values for these assignments are as follows. Item
Points
Exam 1 Exam 2 Exam 3 Case study exercises (15 pts. each) Participation (discussion forums & surveys) Total
100 100 100 75
Approximate Percent 25% 25% 25% 19%
25
6%
400
100%
Grade information will be posted onto the Blackboard “My Grades” page as it becomes available. 1. Exams: The three exams will be taken online, but they must be proctored. (If you do not already have a designated and approved proctor, you should find one ASAP. The Distance Learning section of the CMU Off Campus Program website has information about how to do this.) When you select a proctor, you must make sure that your proctor is equipped to handle an online exam. Timing and Coverage: 1. The first exam will take place after the end of the 3rd week of the course and will cover material from the first three weeks of the course. You should take it as soon as possible after the end of week 3, but in any case, it must be completed no later than the end of week 4. 2. The second exam will take place after the 6th week of the course and will cover material from weeks 4, 5, and 6. You should take it as soon as possible after the end of week 6, but in any case it must be completed no later than the end of week 7. 3. The third exam will take place at the end of the 8th week of the course. The third exam will be “semi-cumulative:” approximately two thirds of it will cover material covered after the second exam (i.e., weeks 6 and 7), and about one third of it will cover material from weeks 1-6. It must be completed by end of the term. Format: Each exam will consist of 50 objective (multiple choice and true-false) questions. Grade Scale: The grade scale for the exams is as follows: 90 to 100% is the A and A- range; 80-89% is the B-/B/B+ range; 70-79% is the C-/C/C+ range; 60-69% is the D-/D/D+ range; below 60% is failing. Exam grades will not be “curved.”
2. Case study exercises: Much of the point of this course is to help you apply ethical decision-making to real-world ethical dilemmas. The course includes FIVE case study exercises. These exercises are connected, respectively, with weeks 2 (ethical principles), 3 (markets and morality), 5 (obligations to employees), 6 (employee obligations), and 7 (obligations to customers). In the assignment page for each week in which a Case Study Exercise is required, you will find detailed instructions about how to access and complete these exercises. Due Dates: The case studies should be completed as soon as possible after the end of the week in which they are assigned; in any case, they must be completed no later than one week after the week in which they are assigned. Grading: The instructor will spot-check your answers, and give each student a completion grade. (That is, if you have made a good-faith effort to provide thoughtful answers to all of the questions, you will get full credit.) Once the due date has passed and your instructor has had a chance to look over the answers submitted, s/he will post a set of answer keys and commentaries to the cases. In some cases these will constitute what most ethics experts would consider to be the “correct” answers; in others they will simply be Dr. Noggle’s (or your instructor’s) own opinions (you’ll always be told when something is just the instructor’s personal opinion). Once you have seen the keys/commentaries for the cases, you may wish to discuss them or the cases further on the course discussion forum. 3. Participation in on-line forums and surveys: Discussion between students and the professor and among the students themselves is an integral component of almost any course in philosophy. Business ethics is no exception. Obviously, this sort of discussion cannot take place in the normal face-to-face manner. Instead, we will conduct discussions electronically. Most of these will take place via bulletin boards that set up on Blackboard’s “discussion board” page. At least some participation (even if it only involves asking an occasional question) in these forums is expected from each student. The more frequent and more thoughtful your contributions to our discussions, the higher your participation grade will be. One other form of virtual class participation mirrors the common “show of hands” that occurs in face to face courses. Our version of this will take place via “surveys” that you will complete during many of the weeks of this course. (Instructions appear in the “assignments” section of any week in which one of these surveys is to be completed.) Your instructor will not grade the answers you give on these surveys, but completion is mandatory. From time to time, your instructor may comment on the overall patterns of the class’s response to them in contributions to the on-line discussion. Participation will be graded at the end of the course. The expectation will be that an engaged student will complete all of the surveys and will post, on average, at least one substantive contribution (not just a “me too”) to the discussion forum each week. (“Me too” posts are OK, but they don’t count as significant participation.) A student who has met this standard can expect to earn at least 80% of the participation points.
VI. CALENDAR
With the exception of Week 8, which ends on a Friday, all weeks run from Monday until Sunday. Assignments for each week should be done by the end of the week (defined as the end of the day on Sunday). Week 1 Topic
Assignments
Work Due
1
Introduction to Ethical Complete steps in Week 1 Thinking Assignments folder
"What Do You Value?" and "Parable of the Sadhu" surveys
2
Principles of Ethics
"Applying Ethical Principles" case study
3
Markets and Morality Complete steps in Week 3 Assignments folder
"Markets and Morality" survey and case study
4
Corporate Social Responsibility
Complete steps in Week 4 Assignments folder
Exam 1 (as early as possible in the week)
5
Business's Obligations Complete steps in Week 5 to Employees Assignments folder
"Employee Rights" survey and "Obligations to Employees" case study
6
Employee Obligations Complete steps in Week 6 Assignments folder
"Employee Obligations" survey and case study
7
Obligations to Customers
Complete steps in Week 7 Assignments folder
"Obligations to Customers" case study; Exam 2 (as early as possible in the week)
8
Advertising and the Environment
Complete steps in Week 8 Assignments folder
Final exam (recommended by Friday; hard deadline is Monday night after Week 8)
Complete steps in Week 2 Assignments folder