The Center for Ethics and Business is an arm of the College of Business Administration at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. Our mission is to provide an environment for discussing issues related to the necessity, difficulty, costs and rewards of conducting business ethically. Recognizing the special challenges connected with discussing ethical issues in a diverse global economy, the Center encourages a secular and philosophical approach to these matters. While we respect the variety of traditions historically connected with ethics, we believe that a philosophical approach offers the greatest hope for agreement across opposing traditions and cultures.
Our primary program is Business Ethics Fortnight, an annual multi-week event held in the spring. Its centerpiece is an intercollegiate student team presentation competition. Business Ethics Fortnight also includes: the LMU Run for the Bay, a fundraiser for the local environmental organization, Heal the Bay; and "L.A.'s Weirdest Biathlon," a combined academic/athletic contest.
We prefer activities that are more "practical" than "theoretical" and ask participants to take on a truly active role. We constantly seek ways to use new technologies to facilitate communication and to promote the importance of ethics in business. Likewise, our website is designed to provide various tools to help people wrestle with ethical dilemmas in business.
We work with the Southern California Business Ethics Roundtable to find ways to assist area corporate ethics officers with the practical challenges of administering corporate ethics programs. The Center is particularly interested in building bridges between the corporate and university communities.