Ethical Leadership - The experience of JCU's 3rd IBD cohort

MBA Sweden – Bjorn Schantz

1.       Can you briefly discuss the role of ethical decision-making in a business environment in your country?

·         Same role as the United States, but the ethics themselves differ

·         Sweden has not had the same kind of U.S. ethics scandals such as the case with Enron so cases are less explicit, but still there; fewer ethics scandals in Swedish businesses

·         Swedes are more group oriented and more likely to ask “is this the right thing to do?” and are concerned with the group as a whole, rather than personal benefits

·         The sense of ethics and business is more engrained in the culture and no courses or training occur in ethics

·         No ethics courses occur in business schools (not 100% sure)

2.       How has ethical decision-making been incorporated into your school’s curriculum?

·         More part of his religion class (high school in Sweden)

·         Topics on ethics and morality, but not similar to the MBA program here

·         Light ethical discussion in Sweden vs. here

·         Ethics in Sweden does not seem to be a topic that is stressed as much as in the United States

3.       Can you describe an ethical challenge in your personal, professional or academic life?

·         One parent of a swimmer on swim team keeps offering swim team coaches gifts – tickets to games, etc.

·         Bjorn accepting the gifts is considered a conflict of interest in the way that Bjorn feels pressured into favoring the man’s daughter over the other swimmers

·         She is a star swimmer, so she swims more than other teammates as is, but Bjorn noticed the ethical dilemma within the situation when accepting the gifts