George Williams in Thailand: an Ethical Decision-Making Exercise

Abstract

This article presents a classroom ethical decision-making exercise designed to help students make reasoned ethical decisions while gaining insight into their own and others' ethical decision-making strategies. During the exercise, students individually analyze an original mini-case, then meet in small groups to reach consensus on the advice and ethical decision-making strategy to offer the entrepreneur in the case. The exercise satisfies three learning objectives for students: understanding ethical decision-making strategies, increasing awareness of one's own ethical decision-making criteria, and understanding the bases for diverse group members' (often different) ethical decision-making strategies. Evidence of student learning shows that these three learning objectives are exceeded in that the exercise also spurs students to integrate their learning of ethical decision making with their learning of the organizational behavior concepts of group dynamics, conflict management, and personality.