The Chronicle of Higher Education ($$$) reports:
Today's M.B.A. students are not as ethically challenged as recent reports make them out to be, according to the findings of a study being released today at a global conference of business educators and leaders. In fact, 81 percent of those responding to a recent survey believe businesses should work to improve society, and 78 percent of them want "corporate social responsibility" integrated throughout their core courses.
The survey results will be presented during a three-day conference, "Business as an Agent of World Benefit," at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland. The conference, which began on Monday, has drawn 440 management educators and business leaders, as well as about 1,000 online participants.
Milton Friedman, in a classic article, tells us that the social responsibility of business is to generate profit (i.e. to move resources to more valuable uses).
The Chronicle ($$$) also tells us something interesting:
While the proportion of tenure-track faculty job offers Harvard University made to women continued to increase in the 2005-6 academic year, the percentage of offers accepted by women dropped drastically.
The article does not offer a reason why this is so.
Update: Coyote Blog makes some very good points about the "business ethics" article.