The moral compass of Business Administration students

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On 20 December 2018 a PhD degree was awarded to Jelle van Baardewijk at the VU university in Amsterdam with a research study on moral education of Business Administration (BA) students at three Dutch universities. He investigated both the ethical-philosophical foundation of BA programs and the impact of this acquired knowledge on BA student’ behavior. The impact is remarkably low. First of all, hardly any attention is paid to ethics in BA study programs; secondly, BA students know little about ethics at all.

Mintzberg’s criticism

Based on his interviews, Dr. Van Baardewijk discovered five types of BA students. The two most striking types are: the student who wants either to become a manager with impact or a hard market-driven manager. The surveyed students only have of vague image of their...

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