(1840) DEVELOPING AN ETHICAL FRAMEWORK FOR GRADUATES VIA THE OATH PROJECT

摘要

The OATH project flows from the United Nations' Global Compact (Principles for ResponsibleManagement Education Principle 2) and is based around the development of an effective learningculture through emergent reflective skills. One which encourages the students to take an activelearning approach (Ramsden, 2003;;Biggs, 2003;;Biggs and Tang, 2007). The key concept of theOATH project is that the student group explore issues linked to business and corporate responsibilityin detail and make an ethical pledge about their future professional behaviours.This presentation will review the experience of both Staff and students in facilitating students to gobeyond digesting knowledge and to garner their resources to have a long-term positive impact insociety (PRME Principle 1). Many aspects the ethics of corporate social responsibility are examinedon Nottingham Trent University's BA International Business degree course. Teaching strategies andthe educational framework on the course are utilised to enable the students to recognise that theirfuture actions can be part of both problems and solutions (PRME Principle 3). Those students that areconcerned with this dilemma are provided with an opportunity to examine the issues in greater depthand explore their collective and individual problem resolution to these issues via the OATH project.A focus group was conducted with students that have engaged with the OATH project reviewing howtheir perceptions changed and what were the triggers. The results from the research show thatreflective learning can be transformational and provide a platform to change and inform the learner'sattitudes, values and future actions. A model has been developed based on these findings anddiscussion will consider the transferability of these ideas into other disciplinary areas. An initial pilotproject is currently underway whereby students on NTU's MA in International Development arecollaborating on a cross-disciplinary OATH project initiative. External international benchmarking hasbeen developed which will allow an evaluation of multi and cross-disciplinary applications of thismodel.The purpose of this presentation will be to both share good practice on promoting ethical careerchoices and also to explore potential collaborative projects with colleagues attending INTED 2016from other institutions in order to develop a network of OATH projects that are adopted and adaptedaccording to local circumstances and job markets.