How to build a business ethics course: a complete guide for lecturers

Central question: What is business for, and what obligations follow when commercial success affects employees, customers, investors, communities and the environment?

Start by making business ethics a problem of judgement rather than a list of good intentions. Students need a working distinction between law, compliance, morality, professional standards and organisational purpose. The objective is not to settle the shareholder-stakeholder debate in one session, but to give students language for asking who is affected, what is owed, which interests are legitimate and what counts as a defensible business decision.

What this concept covers

• Business ethics as applied moral judgement in organisations.
• The relationship between law, compliance, ethics and corporate purpose.
• Shareholder primacy, stakeholder-oriented approaches and responsible value creation.
• Positive and negative externalities, legitimacy and social licence to operate.
• How mission and purpose claims should change decisions, metrics and accountability.

Learning outcomes

• Distinguish ethical, legal and commercial questions in a business problem.
• Identify the stakeholders and obligations created by a business decision.
• Compare shareholder-oriented and stakeholder-oriented rationales without caricaturing either.
• Formulate a defensible statement of corporate purpose linked to observable decisions.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Open with a decision that is legal but ethically contestable.
• Ask groups to write a one-sentence purpose statement and then test it against a costly trade-off.
• Map benefits, burdens and externalities before introducing formal ethical theory.
• Require students to separate facts, values and assumptions in every recommendation.

Case-style example

HarbourFoods can cut annual packaging cost by £1.8 million by switching to a supplier whose recyclable-content rate is 18% rather than the current 62%. The move keeps the product fully legal and improves operating margin by 1.4 percentage points, but increases plastic waste by an estimated 310 tonnes a year. Students prepare a board recommendation, quantify who benefits and who bears the cost, and defend whether purpose should constrain the cheaper choice. They discover that legality does not resolve responsibility.

Where students struggle

Students often begin with moral labels - greedy, sustainable, fair - before establishing the decision, evidence and affected parties. Push them to state the alternative they reject and the cost of their preferred principle.

Reading and a quick check

Use the opening chapters of Crane, Matten, Glozer and Spence, then ask students to classify five statements as legal, ethical, commercial or mixed claims.

Where it leads

Ethical purpose becomes useful only when students can compare reasons systematically, which leads directly to normative ethical theories and decision frameworks.

Central question: How can students move from instinctive reactions to a structured justification of what a business should do?

Business ethics needs normative theory, but theory works best as a decision tool rather than a history of philosophy. Teach students to use consequences, duties and rights, justice and fairness, and virtue or character as competing lenses. The value lies in exposing why reasonable people can disagree, what each lens makes visible and what it ignores.

What this concept covers

• Consequentialist reasoning and the distribution of benefits and harms.
• Duties, rights and rule-based constraints.
• Justice, procedural fairness and distributive fairness.
• Virtue, character and professional integrity.
• A repeatable decision framework: facts, stakeholders, options, principles, consequences, decision and review.

Learning outcomes

• Apply at least three ethical lenses to the same business decision.
• Identify where two ethical principles point toward different actions.
• Distinguish a principle from a preference or convenient post-hoc justification.
• Defend a recommendation while acknowledging its ethical cost.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Use one decision throughout the class and change only one fact at a time.
• Assign different ethical lenses to groups, then require each group to critique its own framework.
• Have students write the strongest argument against their preferred answer.
• Mark the quality of justification, not whether students reach one predetermined conclusion.

Case-style example

Orion Diagnostics has a drug-screening algorithm that reduces laboratory cost by £900,000 a year but produces false positives for 1.6% of candidates compared with 0.4% for manual review. A human review of every positive result would cost £420,000. Students calculate the expected number of affected applicants in a 50,000-test year, then compare utility, rights and fairness arguments for three review policies. They discover that a cost-benefit optimum can still violate a defensible procedural right.

Where students struggle

Students may use theories as labels after they have already chosen an answer. Require the framework before the conclusion and ask what evidence would make them reverse their position.

Reading and a quick check

Use the textbook chapter on normative ethical theories and a short worksheet that forces the same facts through multiple lenses.

Where it leads

Once students can justify decisions, they can ask whose claims count and how stakeholder responsibilities should be prioritised.

Central question: Which stakeholders deserve consideration, and how should managers prioritise legitimate but competing claims?

Stakeholder analysis becomes ethically useful when it goes beyond listing names. Students should identify interests, rights, vulnerability, power, urgency, dependency and the organisation's capacity to create or prevent harm. The key teaching move is to separate stakeholder salience from moral legitimacy: the loudest stakeholder is not automatically the most deserving.

What this concept covers

• Stakeholder identification and material interests.
• Power, legitimacy, urgency, vulnerability and dependency.
• Primary and secondary stakeholders, direct and indirect effects.
• Trade-offs, consultation, consent and procedural fairness.
• Materiality and the difference between stakeholder engagement and stakeholder control.

Learning outcomes

• Map stakeholders and specify the interest or right at stake.
• Prioritise claims using more than financial power.
• Explain how process fairness can matter even when outcomes are unequal.
• Design an engagement process proportionate to the decision and harm.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Give students an incomplete stakeholder map and ask who is missing.
• Use a power-versus-vulnerability matrix, then compare it with a financial materiality map.
• Require every recommendation to state who loses and what mitigation is offered.
• Introduce the ESG Simulation only after students can explain stakeholder legitimacy and trade-offs.

Case-style example

ApexGrid plans a £48 million battery site that creates 130 jobs and reduces grid emissions, but construction requires 26 hectares beside a village of 1,900 residents. Noise studies predict 58 dB at the nearest homes, above the company's voluntary 50 dB target but within legal limits. Students rank investors, residents, employees, regulators and energy customers, then design a consultation and mitigation package within a £2.5 million budget. They discover that stakeholder power and stakeholder vulnerability point in different directions.

Where students struggle

Students often equate stakeholder importance with ability to block the project. Ask them to identify morally relevant claims held by low-power groups and commercially relevant claims held by high-power groups.

Reading and a quick check

Pair the stakeholder chapter in the core textbook with a recent responsible-business-conduct source such as the OECD Guidelines.

Where a simulation fits

The ESG Simulation fits after this concept. Management, Investor, Regulator and Union teams use different evidence and must negotiate one shared package, making stakeholder trade-offs visible rather than merely descriptive.

Where it leads

Stakeholder responsibilities are implemented by individuals making decisions inside organisations, so the next step is behavioural ethics and moral awareness.

Central question: Why do ordinary managers make decisions that conflict with their own stated values, and how can organisations reduce predictable ethical blind spots?

Behavioural ethics helps lecturers move beyond the assumption that misconduct is caused only by bad people. Incentives, framing, time pressure, authority, social norms, motivated reasoning and incremental escalation can narrow moral awareness. Students should learn to diagnose the situation as well as the individual.

What this concept covers

• Moral awareness and ethical fading.
• Motivated reasoning, conflicts of interest and self-serving bias.
• Obedience, conformity, diffusion of responsibility and group norms.
• Incrementalism, slippery slopes and normalisation of deviance.
• Decision friction, pre-commitment and structural safeguards.

Learning outcomes

• Diagnose behavioural pressures that can distort ethical judgement.
• Identify how incentives and framing change what decision-makers notice.
• Propose organisational safeguards that reduce predictable bias.
• Distinguish individual blame from system-level prevention.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Run a short scenario twice with different framing or incentives.
• Ask students what information was psychologically easy to ignore.
• Map the decision architecture before discussing sanctions.
• Use Volkswagen or Wells Fargo as a bridge from behaviour to culture and controls.

Case-style example

ClearCall Bank pays branch staff a £90 bonus for every week they exceed 12 new-product sales. The average customer holds 3.1 products, and only 7% of branches can hit the target without cross-selling aggressively. Complaints rose from 220 to 610 per quarter after the scheme began. Students identify the behavioural pressures, redesign the incentive within the same £4 million annual compensation budget, and specify two early-warning indicators. They discover that misconduct can be predictable even without an explicit instruction to break rules.

Where students struggle

Students may excuse misconduct entirely once situational pressure is visible. Keep responsibility and prevention separate: context can explain behaviour without making every choice acceptable.

Reading and a quick check

Use a recent article on ethical culture or organisational morality, then ask students to redesign one decision environment rather than write a generic code of ethics.

Where a simulation fits

The Corporate Governance Simulation can be introduced after this concept if the lecturer wants students to see how role objectives and conflicts shape interpretation of the same evidence.

Where it leads

Behavioural pressures become durable through culture, incentives, reporting lines and compliance systems, which is the focus of the next concept.

Central question: How can an organisation make ethical conduct easier to practise, detect problems early and respond without creating a box-ticking compliance culture?

An ethics programme is not the same thing as an ethical culture. Students should evaluate formal controls - codes, training, hotlines, investigations and sanctions - alongside informal signals such as what leaders reward, what peers tolerate and whether people believe speaking up is safe and useful. This concept also creates strong links to organisational behaviour and HR teaching.

What this concept covers

• Ethical culture, tone from the top and tone in the middle.
• Codes, training, reporting channels, investigations and discipline.
• Incentives, targets and unintended behavioural consequences.
• Whistleblowing, non-retaliation and psychological safety.
• Compliance effectiveness, monitoring and continuous improvement.

Learning outcomes

• Evaluate whether a compliance programme changes behaviour or only documents activity.
• Identify incentive structures that create ethical risk.
• Design speak-up and escalation mechanisms with credible protection.
• Recommend culture indicators that can be monitored over time.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Audit a sample code of conduct for decision usefulness.
• Compare leading and lagging ethics indicators.
• Use a hotline data set with reporting rates, substantiation and retaliation allegations.
• Ask students to explain what leaders should do after receiving bad news, not only before misconduct occurs.

Case-style example

Northstar Telecom has 8,400 employees, a global ethics hotline and mandatory annual training. Reports fell 38% after managers began receiving a quarterly "clean team" score, while anonymous pulse surveys show fear of retaliation rose from 19% to 34%. Substantiated cases have not declined. Students decide whether the falling hotline rate is good news, redesign the manager metric and propose a three-measure dashboard. They discover that fewer reports can signal a weaker speak-up culture rather than better ethics.

Where students struggle

Students often reach for more training as the default fix. Ask what behaviour the system rewards, what happens to messengers and whether leaders visibly act on concerns.

Reading and a quick check

Zaman (2024) is useful for linking corporate culture with stakeholder violations; pair it with a practical compliance design article.

Where a simulation fits

The Corporate Governance Simulation fits as a transition into formal accountability. Teams must use evidence, defend stakeholder responsibilities and negotiate safeguards rather than merely identify that a conflict exists.

Where it leads

Culture and compliance need governance authority when conflicts involve senior decision-makers, so students next move into board oversight and accountability.

Central question: Who should have authority when senior executives face conflicts, and what governance response is proportionate enough to protect trust without destroying value?

Business ethics and corporate governance overlap where power, accountability and conflicts are institutionalised. Teach governance as a system for directing and controlling decisions, not only as board composition. Students should connect fiduciary duties, disclosure, independence, oversight, executive accountability and investor confidence.

What this concept covers

• Board roles, executive accountability and oversight.
• Conflicts of interest, disclosure, recusal, divestment and restrictions.
• Fiduciary duty, loyalty, care and stewardship in comparative perspective.
• Audit, risk, compliance and nomination/remuneration mechanisms.
• Shareholder rights, transparency and governance credibility.

Learning outcomes

• Diagnose a conflict of interest and its governance consequences.
• Recommend immediate remedies and future safeguards.
• Distinguish board oversight from operational management.
• Evaluate whether a governance response is proportionate, credible and enforceable.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Use a board-paper format rather than a general essay.
• Split students into executive, compliance and shareholder perspectives.
• Ask for both an immediate decision and a system redesign.
• Debrief whether the strongest role outcome also produced the strongest collective governance outcome.

Case-style example

VertexBio's CTO owns 6% of a supplier that is bidding for a £22 million five-year contract. The CTO led the technical evaluation and argues that the supplier is objectively best, scoring 92/100 against the next bidder's 85/100. Disclosure occurred only after procurement had shortlisted two firms. Students decide whether to recuse, restart, impose safeguards or reject the bid, then design a future conflict policy. They discover that a good commercial option can still be undermined by a weak decision process.

Where students struggle

Students sometimes treat disclosure as a cure for every conflict. Ask whether the conflicted person can still shape information, timing, agenda or perceived pressure after disclosure.

Reading and a quick check

Use the governance and conflict-of-interest sections of the core textbook, plus a current governance code relevant to the local jurisdiction if desired.

Where a simulation fits

The Corporate Governance Simulation is the primary application. CEO, CTO, CCO and Shareholder teams analyse a senior executive conflict, negotiate the immediate resolution and agree safeguards for similar conflicts in future.

Where it leads

Governance establishes who is accountable. The next concept expands the ethical lens from governance events to corporate responsibility, sustainability and ESG decisions.

Central question: How should a business decide which environmental, social and governance issues are material, morally important and commercially actionable?

A business ethics course should neither treat ESG as a synonym for ethics nor dismiss it as reporting language. ESG can be taught as a set of decision, measurement and stakeholder problems nested inside wider corporate responsibility. Students need to distinguish impact materiality, financial materiality, commitments, metrics and the risk of symbolic action or greenwashing.

What this concept covers

• CSR, sustainability, responsible business conduct and ESG as related but distinct concepts.
• Impact materiality and financial materiality.
• Environmental and social trade-offs connected to operating and financial outcomes.
• ESG metrics, ratings, disclosure limitations and greenwashing risk.
• Targets, incentives, accountability and credible transition plans.

Learning outcomes

• Distinguish CSR, sustainability, ESG and responsible business conduct.
• Evaluate the materiality of an ESG issue from financial and stakeholder perspectives.
• Critique an ESG metric or rating rather than treating it as objective truth.
• Recommend a credible action plan with owners, metrics and trade-offs.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Compare two ESG ratings for the same company and ask why they diverge.
• Give students a sustainability target that conflicts with near-term EBITDA.
• Require a recommendation that states what will be measured and who is accountable.
• Use the ESG Simulation after students can connect stakeholder claims to financial viability.

Case-style example

GreenForge Metals can install a filtration system for £9 million, cutting local particulate emissions by 68% but reducing next-year EBITDA from £28 million to £20.5 million. A cheaper £4 million option cuts emissions by 31% and preserves EBITDA at £25 million. The regulator requires only a 20% reduction, while a major customer threatens to leave unless emissions fall by at least 50%. Students compare impact, financial materiality and stakeholder claims, then recommend a package. They discover that ESG decisions are trade-offs, not score maximisation.

Where students struggle

Students may treat a higher ESG score as self-evidently ethical. Ask what is measured, what is omitted, whose interests the metric represents and whether the action changes real-world outcomes.

Reading and a quick check

Berg, Kolbel and Rigobon (2022) is ideal for showing ESG-rating divergence; OECD (2023) broadens the lens to responsible business conduct.

Where a simulation fits

The ESG Simulation is the primary fit. Management, Investor, Regulator and Union teams model connected choices covering production, investment, pollution, wages, employment and ESG spending, then approve one shared ESG Policy Statement while keeping the company financially viable.

Where it leads

ESG introduces impact beyond the firm boundary. The next concept applies that responsibility to labour, human rights and supply chains.

Central question: What responsibility does a company have for harms that occur in suppliers, contractors and global value chains it does not directly control?

Supply-chain ethics makes the difference between direct responsibility and leverage concrete. Students should work with risk-based due diligence: identify adverse impacts, prioritise severity and likelihood, use leverage, remediate where appropriate and track whether action works. The course should avoid reducing human rights to supplier codes that transfer responsibility on paper.

What this concept covers

• Human rights due diligence and risk-based prioritisation.
• Labour standards, wages, working hours, freedom of association and workplace safety.
• Supplier selection, audit limits and purchasing-practice incentives.
• Leverage, remediation, disengagement and unintended consequences.
• Traceability, modern slavery risk and responsible sourcing.

Learning outcomes

• Identify salient human-rights risks across a value chain.
• Distinguish audit findings from effective remediation.
• Evaluate when to use leverage, suspend orders or responsibly disengage.
• Connect purchasing practices with supplier labour outcomes.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Map a tiered supply chain and ask where the company has knowledge, leverage and responsibility.
• Provide conflicting audit and worker-interview evidence.
• Ask students to redesign both supplier standards and buyer purchasing practices.
• Use the OECD Guidelines as an operational framework, not only a reading.

Case-style example

ModeLine Apparel sources 35% of its knitwear from one factory employing 2,400 workers. An audit finds legal pay rates but 72-hour peak weeks, while worker interviews report unpaid preparation time. Switching suppliers would add £3.2 million in annual cost and risk 380 redundancies at the current factory. Students compare immediate exit, a 12-month remediation plan and partial volume reduction, then specify worker safeguards and buyer-side changes. They discover that ethical disengagement can itself create harm.

Where students struggle

Students often assume the ethical answer is to terminate a problematic supplier. Require them to compare the likely worker outcome under exit, leverage and remediation.

Reading and a quick check

Use the 2023 OECD Guidelines and, where jurisdictionally relevant, a current human-rights due-diligence framework or regulation.

Where a simulation fits

The ESG Simulation can support the labour-and-stakeholder dimension because wage, workforce and financial choices are negotiated alongside environmental and funding terms. Use it after students have learned due-diligence logic.

Where it leads

Responsible business also includes how firms treat customers and data, which brings ethical analysis into marketing, pricing and information practices.

Central question: When does persuasion, personalisation or data use cross the line into manipulation, unfairness or avoidable consumer harm?

This concept gives Business Ethics practical reach into marketing and digital business. Students should distinguish informed choice from dark patterns, legitimate segmentation from exploitative discrimination, and consent language from meaningful autonomy. Product design, pricing, customer vulnerability and data collection can all create ethical risk even when technically compliant.

What this concept covers

• Truthfulness, omission and misleading claims.
• Consumer vulnerability, fairness and responsible pricing.
• Behavioural design, dark patterns and manipulation.
• Privacy, consent, data minimisation and secondary data use.
• Product responsibility, complaints and redress.

Learning outcomes

• Evaluate whether a marketing claim is materially misleading.
• Identify when personalisation exploits vulnerability or information asymmetry.
• Recommend data practices proportionate to purpose and risk.
• Design customer redress when harm has already occurred.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Use screenshots of real consent flows and ask what choice architecture is doing.
• Provide conversion data and complaint data together.
• Ask students to recommend a profitable alternative that reduces manipulation.
• Require an ethics test for product launches: transparency, autonomy, fairness, harm and reversibility.

Case-style example

PulsePay offers a £300 short-term credit product. A redesigned app raises acceptance from 18% to 27% by pre-selecting the fastest repayment plan and placing total fees behind a second click. Average fee income rises by £4.20 per customer, but complaints from users under 25 increase 46%. Students quantify the revenue gain, identify the autonomy and vulnerability issues, then redesign the journey with a target of preserving at least half the conversion uplift. They discover that usability and manipulation can be separated by design.

Where students struggle

Students often ask only whether consent was obtained. Ask whether the user could realistically understand, refuse and reverse the choice without disproportionate friction.

Reading and a quick check

Pair the consumer chapter of the core textbook with current regulatory guidance relevant to digital interfaces or data protection in the teaching jurisdiction.

Where it leads

Data ethics naturally develops into AI and automated decision-making, where opacity, scale and bias intensify familiar ethical questions.

Central question: How should managers govern AI and automated decisions when the technology is useful, imperfect and difficult for affected stakeholders to challenge?

AI ethics should be integrated into business ethics rather than treated as a technical appendix. Students need to evaluate purpose, data provenance, bias, explainability, human oversight, privacy, accountability and the distribution of benefits and harms. The strongest assessment asks what governance would make a deployment defensible, not whether AI is good or bad.

What this concept covers

• AI purpose, proportionality and high-impact use cases.
• Bias, discrimination and data quality.
• Transparency, explainability, contestability and human oversight.
• Privacy, surveillance and secondary use of data.
• AI governance, model monitoring, incident response and accountability.

Learning outcomes

• Identify ethical risks in an AI business use case before deployment.
• Distinguish model accuracy from fairness and legitimacy.
• Design human oversight and appeal mechanisms proportionate to impact.
• Specify governance evidence required to approve, monitor or stop a system.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Give students a model card with performance gaps across groups.
• Ask who can challenge the decision and what explanation they receive.
• Use a red-team exercise to surface foreseeable misuse.
• Require a permitted-use statement for generative AI in the course itself.

Case-style example

TalentLens screens 60,000 job applications a year and cuts recruiter time by 7,500 hours. Overall precision is 81%, but the pass-through rate is 38% for one demographic group versus 52% for the rest. Removing the disputed feature reduces the gap to 6 points but lowers precision to 76% and adds £180,000 in review cost. Students decide whether to deploy, modify or pause the system and design an appeal process. They discover that efficiency, accuracy and fairness cannot be collapsed into one metric.

Where students struggle

Students may assume a technically sophisticated system is more objective. Keep asking who selected the target variable, whose errors matter and how an affected person can contest the outcome.

Reading and a quick check

UNESCO's 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence provides a global policy framework. Pair it with a current organisational AI governance framework if desired.

Where it leads

Technology crosses borders quickly, which makes global standards, corruption risk and conflicting cultural norms the next challenge.

Central question: How should managers act when local practice, commercial pressure, law and organisational standards point in different directions?

Global ethics should avoid the false choice between moral relativism and exporting one culture's preferences everywhere. Students can work with minimum standards - human rights, anti-bribery, honesty, non-discrimination and due process - while recognising legitimate local variation. Anti-corruption is especially useful because agents, gifts, facilitation demands and public-private boundaries create realistic ambiguity.

What this concept covers

• Cross-cultural ethical disagreement and limits of relativism.
• Bribery, facilitation payments, gifts, hospitality and third-party risk.
• Agents, distributors, joint ventures and accountability for intermediaries.
• Political exposure, conflicts and public procurement.
• Global codes, local adaptation, escalation and exit decisions.

Learning outcomes

• Distinguish legitimate cultural adaptation from rationalising misconduct.
• Identify red flags in third-party relationships.
• Design controls for gifts, hospitality and agent payments.
• Recommend an escalation path where refusing a request threatens commercial objectives.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Give groups the same transaction in three regulatory and cultural settings.
• Ask students to separate facts, law, company policy and ethical judgement.
• Use a third-party due-diligence file with both reassuring and concerning evidence.
• Require a decision and a commercially credible alternative to the prohibited action.

Case-style example

MedCore is bidding for a €36 million hospital contract. A local adviser requests a 4% "success fee" and proposes paying €85,000 to a foundation chaired by the procurement minister's spouse. The adviser has won three similar tenders, and refusing could delay market entry by 18 months. Students identify red flags, estimate the financial exposure of delay, choose whether to proceed, restructure or withdraw, and design enhanced diligence. They discover that commercial dependence on an intermediary is itself an ethical-risk signal.

Where students struggle

Students sometimes label every culturally unfamiliar practice corrupt, or excuse everything as local custom. Require evidence about purpose, transparency, beneficiaries, proportionality and whether the payment could be openly disclosed.

Reading and a quick check

Use the anti-bribery and responsible-business sections of the OECD Guidelines, supported by a current local anti-corruption standard where relevant.

Where a simulation fits

The Startup Funding Simulation can be used selectively to discuss how power, information asymmetry and negotiated protections shape fairness in cross-border entrepreneurial finance, but it should remain secondary to the core ethics framework.

Where it leads

The course closes by integrating judgement, leadership, crisis response and accountability when several ethical systems fail at once.

Central question: What should leaders do when incentives, governance, stakeholder claims and reputation collide under time pressure?

The capstone should require students to make a decision rather than summarise ethical theories. Ethical leadership means creating conditions for candour before a crisis, acting proportionately during it, and being accountable afterwards. Students should combine evidence, stakeholder analysis, ethical frameworks, governance, communication and remedy.

What this concept covers

• Ethical leadership, role modelling and decision ownership.
• Crisis recognition, escalation and rapid stakeholder assessment.
• Transparency, apology, remediation and rebuilding trust.
• Trade-offs between legal defence, operational continuity and moral responsibility.
• Learning reviews, control redesign and accountability after failure.

Learning outcomes

• Integrate multiple ethical frameworks into one executive recommendation.
• Prioritise immediate harm reduction while preserving evidence and accountability.
• Design a transparent stakeholder communication and remediation plan.
• Defend a decision under challenge and revise it when new evidence emerges.

Supports the course learning outcomes most directly connected to this topic.

How to teach it

• Run an executive committee with staged release of new information.
• Require a 10-minute oral defence after a written memo.
• Mark whether students identify missing evidence and decision reversibility.
• Use FTX, Boeing or a distress simulation as a final pressure test.

Case-style example

Riverside Mobility discovers that 3,200 battery packs may overheat. No injuries have occurred, but engineering estimates a 0.08% serious-failure probability. A full recall costs £42 million and stops deliveries for six weeks; a software-limited operating mode costs £8 million and reduces estimated risk by 70% while engineers investigate. Students choose an immediate action, draft a customer and regulator communication, and set a 72-hour evidence threshold for escalation. They discover that uncertainty does not remove the duty to decide.

Where students struggle

Students can over-focus on reputation management. Ask what the company should do if nobody would ever learn about the issue and compare that answer with the public communication plan.

Reading and a quick check

Use the capstone cases and recent readings on culture, governance and stakeholder responsibility. The purpose is integration rather than another new theory.

Where a simulation fits

The Debt Restructuring Simulation is a strong secondary capstone for stakeholder fairness under distress. Lien 1, Lien 2 and Equity teams must negotiate recoveries from insufficient enterprise value, exposing priority, bargaining power and the ethics of concession under financial pressure.

Where it leads

This final concept closes the course by asking students to explain not only what decision they recommend, but why the organisation can defend the process, evidence, trade-offs and consequences.

10-week course structure

Compress without removing the decision lifecycle. Combine the foundations, integrate culture with governance and bring consumer/data ethics together with AI.

14-week course structure

Use the extra sessions for deeper behavioural ethics, separate governance and ESG application, and more time for oral defence and simulation debrief.

The Corporate Governance Simulation turns a conflict-of-interest case into a live boardroom negotiation. A successful CTO holds a financial interest in a competing company, so CEO, CTO, Chief Compliance Officer and Shareholder teams must decide how the conflict should be handled and what safeguards should govern similar conflicts in future. The live page confirms a 3-5 hour, role-based team format for undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA cohorts, with no specialist prerequisite knowledge required.

Why it fits here

• Students have already studied behavioural ethics, culture, conflicts, fiduciary responsibility and board oversight.
• The case forces a proportionate decision rather than a binary claim that conflicts are simply good or bad.
• Different role incentives make evidence, disclosure, executive continuity and investor confidence compete in the same decision.
• The final agreement includes both an immediate response and future governance safeguards.

What students do

• Review role-specific objectives and the case evidence, including performance, compliance and governance information.
• Build a stakeholder position on disclosure, restrictions, divestment, oversight and executive accountability.
• Negotiate in four-role groups containing CEO, CTO, CCO and Shareholder teams.
• Agree the current resolution and future governance guidelines, with all four roles approving the final package.
• Use Reflection to compare outcomes with same-role peers and examine whether a strong role result also produced a strong governance decision.

Recommended course placement

• At the end of Session 6 after teaching conflicts and governance.
• Across two 90-minute classes for Analysis and Structuring, followed by Reflection.
• Before a board-paper assessment so students can translate negotiated decisions into formal governance advice.

Knowledge students should have before the simulation

• Conflict-of-interest concepts.
• Stakeholder responsibilities and ethical decision frameworks.
• Basic board oversight and executive accountability.
• Ability to distinguish evidence from role preference.

Delivery format

Suggested debrief questions

• Was disclosure alone sufficient to manage the CTO conflict?
• Which evidence most changed your view of proportionality?
• What did each role have a responsibility to protect?
• Did any team optimise its role score at the expense of collective governance quality?
• Which safeguard most reduces recurrence risk, and who should own it?
• What additional evidence would a real board request before final approval?

The ESG Simulation is the most direct applied fit for Business Ethics because it connects stakeholder claims with environmental, social, governance, financial and operating consequences. Students represent Management, Investor, Regulator and Union stakeholders responding to a major sustainability challenge. The current live page confirms a 2-4 hour team-based format, beginner-accessible prerequisites and classroom, online or hybrid delivery.

Why it fits here

• Students have already learned stakeholder legitimacy, ethical frameworks, governance and ESG materiality.
• Connected decisions make trade-offs explicit: production, pollution, wages, workforce, funding and ESG spending interact.
• No role can settle the case alone; the final decision requires approval across the four stakeholder teams.
• Financial viability remains visible, including a requirement in the case to keep EBITDA above $20 million.

What students do

• Review common case materials and role-specific evidence as Management, Investor, Regulator or Union.
• Use financial and operating information to test possible terms before negotiation.
• Build an opening position that protects the team mission while recognising the need for a collective agreement.
• Negotiate connected terms covering the filter system, production, ESG budget, additional investment, management compensation, wages and workforce numbers.
• Develop and approve a shared ESG Policy Statement, then compare outcomes with same-role peers in Reflection.

Recommended course placement

• After Session 7 on sustainability, ESG and materiality.
• As a 2-4 hour intensive activity or split across shorter sessions.
• Before a written ESG decision memo or individual reflection that asks students to revisit their assumptions.

Knowledge students should have before the simulation

• Stakeholder analysis and trade-offs.
• Basic sustainability and ESG concepts.
• Ability to read simple financial and operating evidence.
• Understanding that responsible decisions must consider both impact and viability.

Delivery format

Suggested debrief questions

• Which stakeholder interest did your team initially undervalue?
• Which proposed term created the largest financial or operating consequence?
• Did keeping EBITDA above the threshold improve or constrain the ethical outcome?
• Where did the negotiated package rely on compromise rather than principle?
• Which ESG metric would you monitor after implementation?
• What would make the final policy statement credible rather than symbolic?

Grading with the ESG Simulation

The ESG Simulation involves Management, Investor, Regulator and Union teams negotiating connected sustainability, workforce, funding and operating terms. The platform records team decisions, final terms and comparative outcomes across groups. That evidence supports your academic judgement; it does not replace it, and it does not establish which individual student made which argument.

• Quality and relevance of evidence used to justify the team position.
• Recognition of stakeholder responsibilities and trade-offs.
• Financial and operating coherence of the proposed package.
• Ability to explain concessions and rejected alternatives.
• Individual post-simulation memo or oral defence where an attributable mark is required.

Grading with the Corporate Governance Simulation

The Corporate Governance Simulation asks CEO, CTO, CCO and Shareholder teams to resolve a senior executive conflict and agree safeguards for future conflicts. Scores and role-specific results can be informative, but the strongest governance outcome is not necessarily the one that maximises one role's preferred result.

• Use of case evidence rather than role assertion.
• Proportionality of the immediate conflict response.
• Credibility and enforceability of future governance safeguards.
• Ability to connect the decision to accountability, investor confidence and organisational continuity.
• Individual board paper, reflection or oral defence for attributable evidence.

Grading with secondary simulations

Startup Funding can support marking around fairness, power, control, information asymmetry and negotiated protections. Debt Restructuring can support marking around stakeholder priority, bargaining power, concessions and the ethics of a collective settlement when available value is insufficient.