A national association of business leaders announced Wednesday the creation of an institute at the University devoted to examining and instilling ethics in future business leaders.
The Darden School will host the Business Roundtable's Institute for Corporate Ethics. With initial funding coming from the three-decade old business association, the Institute is charged with training a new wave of boardroom stewards for a workplace recently mired in headline-grabbing scandals.
The Institute will conduct seminars on ethics and determine and develop better business practices through Institute studies and dialogues bridging the gap between academia and the business world.
"The idea is to get the best minds in business ethics and put them in the same room with business leaders," Darden school spokesperson Brian Moriarty said.
Students also will be incorporated into discussions between corporate captains and academics.
The first study the Institute will conduct is a survey of business leaders and MBA students to determine what issues demand attention. Entitled "Mapping the Terrain," the study will define the Institute's work in the future, Moriarty said.
The new center will draw on nationwide resources from throughout academia and the business world as well as those in place at Darden. The Institute's nine-person Advisory Council will include Thomas Dunfee of the Wharton School, Xerox chairperson and CEO Anne Mulcahy, Laura Nash of the Harvard Business School and former Congressman William Gray III, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund.
Institute academic advisors also will come from other renowned business programs, including those at Notre Dame, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas.
Darden Prof. R. Edward Freeman, director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, will serve as a co-chair of the Advisory Council with Frank Raines, chair and CEO of Fannie Mae.
"This Institute will be successful if we can engage the academics, the CEOs and the students in a conversation about how to improve the connection between business and ethics," Freeman said Wednesday. "I don't think there are any easy answers for these questions, but the goal is pretty straightforward."
Established in 1972, the Business Roundtable consists of the heads of 150 corporations representing 10 million workers. Member companies net approximately $3.7 trillion in revenue annually.
The Roundtable was founded as a business advocacy group to promote less government intrusion in the corporate workplace and policies conducive to economic growth.
Funding for the Institute will come from the Roundtable for its first three years. Ideally, Moriarty said, after this initial infusion of money, the Institute will become self-sufficient with the Institute charging for the executive training it conducts.
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