RESEARCH PROJECTS

Paradigms and Management Ethical Tools

Benefits for Business:

•  Measure the paradigms and ethical tools used by businesses;

•  Create training programs designed to develop integral ethics;

•  Evaluate the development of these ethics with a computerized tool.

The results of this research project will permit the identification of the paradigms and tools currently in use and thereby expand the number of those which best address the increasingly complex and global nature of business. A computerized tool, currently in development, will permit the measurement differences on an individual and sector by sector basis, the creation of training programs and the evaluation of their success. This project will also lead to the creation of a seminar for top executives, called the "Seminar of Great Ethical Authors".

Our current research suggests that out of more than 40 schools of thought relating to ethics identified to date, only three are routinely applied in corporate settings. At the same time, another study is being conducted on the tools managers use to integrate ethics in their work. This study has already identified 50 evaluative tools and ethical methods employed in organizations, which have been evaluated and classified using an innovative integral model developed by the Chair.

The next step involves using research on ethical schools of thought to examine the relationship between the personality of decision-makers in businesses and their ethical approach. This step will allow the subsequent development of methods to help managers discover and use those ethical tools best adapted to their personality.

This project has the potential to make a positive contribution to management ethics theory, going beyond codes of ethics and mission statements to impact management and employee training through the use of computerized audits and scientifically validated instruments.

What should an organization, faced with demands for improvements in their ethical conduct by all their shareholders, do? Conform to an ISO norm? Appoint an ombudsman? Define a code of ethics? How can they objectively measure the “ethical potential” of the managers they recruit?

The findings of this project will bring answers to these questions.

Fundraising campaign for this project

Project Director: Christiane Gosselin

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