UC MBA Students to Hear Timely Message on Corporate Responsibility

With the scandals of the last year as a backdrop, it is widely recognized that business ethics are the most vexing problem facing corporate America today.

Current and future corporate managers in Cincinnati will be offered insight into these issues at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Business Administration in January during a special seminar, “Corporate Responsibility: Fostering Confidence and Integrity from Board Room to Front Line.” UC visiting scholar Frederick D. Sturdivant and a cross-functional team of faculty will address corporate responsibility issues from strategic, managerial and personal perspectives.

“For more than five years, the College of Business Administration has sought to integrate the topic of corporate/social responsibility throughout our undergraduate and graduate programs,” explains Marianne Lewis, the college’s associate dean for innovation and program development. “Each ‘core course,’ which are focused on functions such as marketing, accounting, operations management, etc., includes a section on ethics. Such integration helps students understand how issues of ethics and integrity permeate all facets of business. Yet in today’s context, students need additional exposure to means of managing ethical challenges and responsibilities.”

During the course, MBAs will learn about pressures at the highest level of corporate leadership, how those issues can filter down to create problems in daily practices within a corporation, and what individuals in the corporate world can do when these challenging issues surface in their offices. The structure of the seminar features weekend sessions on Jan. 10-11 and Jan. 24-25, with participants working with case studies and other support materials in the interval between sessions.

Sturdivant is an advisor to CEOs and corporate boards around the world on issues of corporate responsibility. His nine books include two leading texts on the subject. His experiences also include a full professorship at Harvard and an endowed chair at Ohio State.

Joining him on the seminar’s faculty from UC will be James J. Kellaris, an expert on business ethics and a professor and the PhD program coordinator of marketing; Chamu Sundaramurthy, an expert on corporate governance and an associate professor of strategic management; and Steve B. Wyatt, an expert in corporate financial analysis and professor and head of UC’s finance department.

The seminar will also involve a host of business leaders joining the class in on-site panel discussions or via video teleconferencing.

Guests include Candace Kendle, chairman and CEO of Kendle International; Lou Peluso, a specialist in managing downsizing and outsourcing strategies from Cambridge, Mass.; CBA Dean Frederick A. Russ; Christopher R. Trimble, the executive director of Dartmouth College’s William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership; and Steven C. Wheelwright, former senior associate dean of the Harvard Business School, who will participate via video conference from London.