Center for Business Ethics

Programs and Events

Events

Ethics @ Work
In this new series, convened virtually, the HCBE brings together academics and practitioners to discuss ethical issues confronting working professionals. The HCBE has a rich history in the field of ethics and compliance, but this series will be of interest to anyone who cares about, and who seeks help in navigating, ethics at work. Among the topics to be explored are retaliation, diversity, moral courage, and moral motivation. The series will feature the unique perspectives and experiences of both practitioners who have dealt with these issues and academics who have studied them.

Brown Bag Business Ethics Research Series
HCBE invites a select group of distinguished academics to present their work-in-progress on topics in business ethics, broadly construed, to the Bentley community. Our aim to assemble a group of speakers that represent a diversity of intellectual backgrounds and perspectives. Click on the link to see who we have lined up for this year. Got something you want to share with us? Get in touch!

Executive Lectureship in Business Ethics
For many years, HCBE has brought corporate and other leaders to campus to speak about the value of ethics in organizations. In recent years we hosted the CEOs of The Coca-Cola Company, S.C. Johnson & Sons, Inc., Costco, TIAA-CREF, and The Marvin Companies. Click on the link above to see the full list of speakers, view the videos, and read the monographs.

Global Business Ethics Symposium
The Symposium was the product of a multi-year partnership between Bentley University and the State Street Foundation. The Symposium brought together corporate leaders, academics, journalists, and government representatives for an intensive one-day conference dedicated to exploring practical challenges in business ethics and best practices for responding to them. For many years the Symposium was convened by Bentley's Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility; now it is the responsibility of HCBE. The Symposium is currently on hiatus, but we hope it will return in the near future. If you are interested in this event, including as a sponsor, get in touch.

Visiting Professorship in Business Ethics
The purpose of this professorship is to bring a distinguished scholar to the Bentley campus to speak to faculty, staff, and students about important issues in the field of business ethics. Visitors give a public lecture and talk to selected classes. Recent visitors include Ed Freeman (Virginia), Daryl Koehn (DePaul), John Hasnas (Georgetown), and Linda Treviño (Penn State).

Programs

Thanks to our generous donors, HCBE offers mini-grants to Bentley University faculty to support research and teaching in business ethics. We fund travel, support events, purchase pedagogical materials, help bring speakers to campus, and more. We take a broad view of what counts as business ethics and have given awards to faculty in departments across campus. Calls for proposals are issued twice per year, once in the fall and once in the spring.
 
In 2021, Bentley's Department of Philosophy and Department of Law, Tax, and Financial Planning joined forces to create the undergraduate minor in ethics and compliance, one of the first programs of its kind in the U.S. Students take courses in ethics, including business ethics, and choose from a variety of relevant courses in law. They have an opportunity to interact with the members of the HCBE’s Advisory Board to gain a practical understanding of the importance of ethics and compliance in modern organizations.

Managing Ethics in Organizations 
HCBE offers a three-day executive development course on current issues in ethics and compliance. Introduced in 1995, Managing Ethics in Organizations was the first course in the world to provide ethics and compliance practitioners with a professional credential as well as the practical knowledge and tools to manage an organization's efforts to ensure business integrity. This course can be tailored to meet the needs of your organization.

Global Business Ethics Teaching Workshop
Since 1991, Bentley has been helping faculty integrate ethics into their classes. The multi-day Business Ethics Teaching Workshop brings together approximately 20 professors each year, drawn from various academic disciplines, to learn about and share innovative teaching methods and class discussion tools. Since 2004, with support from the State Street Foundation, the Business Ethics Teaching Workshop has been open to professors from universities all over the world. For many years the Workshop was organized by Bentley’s Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility. Now it is part of HCBE’s offerings.