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Using Porridge to Teach Business Ethics: Reflections on a Visit to Scotland's Most Notorious Prison and Some Thoughts on the Importance of Location in Teaching Business Ethics

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Teaching Business Ethics

Abstract

For the first time in the history ofundergraduate accounting education in Scotlanda group of 44 accounting students from theDepartment of Accounting and Finance at GlasgowUniversity participated in a coursespecifically devoted to the study of accountingethics and the development of ethicalsensitivity. Film, poetry, role-play and reallife cases were used to try and developstudents' emotional engagement with accountingand business ethics. Amongst other things,students participated in a role-play of whatmight have happened if Robert Maxwell had beenresuscitated and had to face the pensioners hedefrauded; they watched the movie ``WallStreet''; and they participated in a seminar onThalidomide conducted by Simone Baker from theUK Thalidomide Society, herself severelyaffected by the drug. However, for themajority of students, a visit to Barlinnie,Scotland's most notorious prison, proved to beone of the most challenging and effective partsof the course.This paper draws on the students' reflectionson the visit to argue that this kind ofexperiential learning may be an effective wayof encouraging students to engage with businessethics issues and of developing their ethicalsensitivity. The paper develops this argumentand suggests that the location where accountingand business ethics education takes place inparticular, might be a crucial element in theeffectiveness of ethics courses.

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  1. Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Glasgow, 65-73 Southpark Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8LE, UK

    Ken McPhail

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McPhail, K. Using Porridge to Teach Business Ethics: Reflections on a Visit to Scotland's Most Notorious Prison and Some Thoughts on the Importance of Location in Teaching Business Ethics. Teaching Business Ethics 6, 355–369 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016152213178

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