Business Ethics as an Accreditation Requirement : A Knowledge Mapping Approach

Most of the more prominent and highly ranked business and management schools in the United States and elsewhere are accredited by one of two international accrediting organizations, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) or the Accreditation Council for Business Schools & Programs (ACBSP). Both of these organizations require the inclusion of business ethics in the curriculum of each accredited institution. “Business ethics,” however, is a concept that includes, overlaps or integrates with such notions as social issues in management, corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship and sustainability. Larger disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, the social sciences and even religion can also impact and interact with business ethics. This paper uses knowledge mapping to organize the various pockets of knowledge that comprise the business ethics domain, relying in part on traditional library science classification systems. The paper concludes that the accreditation regime would benefit from a more carefully constructed articulation of the content of business ethics