Michael Novak's Business as a Calling as a Vehicle for Addressing Ethical and Policy Concerns in a Business Law Course

• Author: Tonia Hap Murphy
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1722.2008.00045.x
• Date: 01 February 2008
• Published date: 01 February 2008

Michael Novak’s Business as a Calling

as a Vehicle for Addressing Ethical

and Policy Concerns in a Business

Law Course

Tonia Hap Murphy

n

[M]anagement education must prepare students to contribute to their organi-

zations and the larger society and to grow personally and professionally

throughout their careers.

w

AACSB member schools reflect a diverse range of missions. That diversity is a

positive characteristic to be fostered.

z

Colleges of business in the twenty-first century devote a great deal of effort

to development of relevant and comprehensive curricula. Many look to

the AACSB

1

for guidance on curriculum development and topics to be

covered. The AACSB provides a list of eleven broad topics typically to be

r2008, Copyright the Author

Journal compilation rAcademy of Legal Studies in Business 2008

17

Journal of Legal Studies Education

Volume 25, Issue 1, 17–49, Winter/Spring 2008

n

Associate Professional Specialist, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame.

I gratefully acknowledge my Notre Dame Business Law colleagues Professors Margot J.

Cleveland, James A. O’Brien, and William W. Kirk. As a team, we worked for a year on in-

tegration of the Novak book. I thank Professor Sandra C. Vera-Munoz, also at Notre Dame,

for her comments on this article and especially for her generous assistance in helping me

develop the Fall 2006 Assessment Instrumentand evaluate its data. I am indebted to Mendoza

Associate Dean William D. Nichols and Arizona State University Professor Marianne M. Jen-

nings for their insightful comments and offer thanks as well to Professor Michael Novak of the

American Enterprise Institute for discussing his book and this article with me and for sup-

porting our initiative at Notre Dame. Finally, thanks to my husband Patrick D. Murphy, a

fellow attorney, for his thoughts on this article and continuing support.

w

AACSB INT’L,ELIGIBILITY PROCEDURES AND ACCREDITATION STANDARDS F OR BUSINESS ACCREDITATION,

at 1 (2007).

z

Id.

1

AACSB InternationalFThe Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is a ‘‘not-

for-profit corporation of educational institutions, corporations, and other organizations de-

voted to the promotion and improvement of higher education in business administrationand

accounting.’’ AACSB INT’L,ELIGIBILITY PROCEDURES AND ACCREDITATION STANDARDS FOR BUSINESS

ACCREDITATION iii (2007) [hereinafter ELIGIBILITY DOCUMENT]. This and other helpful docu-

ments are available at the AACSB Web site, http://www.aacsb.edu. Five-hundred fifty-one

included in a business education, listing first: ‘‘[g]lobal, environmental,

political, economic, legal, and regulatory context for business’’ and

‘‘[i]ndividual ethical behavior and community responsibilities in organiza-

tions and society.’’

2

The AACSB notes that ‘‘[c]ombinations of topics may

be grouped to integrate learning.’’

3

Of late, there has been great interest in the concept of integrated

learning. For example, the Association of American Colleges and Univer-

sities and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

recently sponsored a collaborative project called ‘‘Integrative Learning:

Opportunities to Connect.’’

4

The Statement on Integrative Learning de-

veloped in conjunction with that project explains the theory:

Integrative learning comes in many varieties: connecting skills and knowledge

from multiple sources and experiences; applying theory to practice in various

settings; utilizing diverse and even contradictory points of view; and, under-

standing issues and positions contextually. .. . [I]ntegrative experiences often

occur as learners address real-world problems, unscripted and sufficiently

broad to require multiple areas of knowledge and multiple modes of inquiry,

offering multiple solutions and benefiting from multiple perspectives.

5

colleges of business hold AACSB accreditation, as of September 2007. See http://www.aacsb.

edu/accreditation/AccreditedMembers.asp.

2

ELIGIBILITY DOCUMENT,supra note 1, at 71.

3

Id. at 70.

4

See Ass’n of Am. Colleges and Universities, Integrative Learning: Opportunities to Connect, http://

www.aacu.org/integrative_learning/index.cfm [hereinafter AACU Project]. Ten colleges and

universities participated in the project. Id.

5

Id. Many commentators have discussed the goals and benefits of integrative learning. See, e.g.,

MARY TAYLOR HUBER &PAT HUTCHINGS,INTEGRATIVE LEARNING:MAPPING THE TERRAIN (2004),

available at http://www.aacu.org/integrative_learning/background_paper.cfm (background pa-

per produced for the AACU Project, supra note 4). The Association of Integrative Studies and

The College Entrance Examination Board have collected an excellent set of essays on the

value of integration and how integration may be achieved in INTERDISCIPLINARITY:ESSAYS FROM

THE LITERATURE (William H. Newell ed. 1998). Goals include ‘‘curricular coherence’’ and

‘‘curricula capable of enabling faculty to escape departmental confines, to attain contextual

understanding, to assess multifaceted problems, to gain a sense of the complexities and in-

terrelationships of society, and to examine the human, social, and political implications of

research.’’ Julie Thompson Klein & William H. Newell, Advancing Interdisciplinary Studies,in

INTERDISCIPLINARITY:ES SAYSFROM THE LITERATURE,supra, at 5–6. From the student’s perspective,

‘‘certain concepts or problems [are] to be examined from multiple perspectives. . . . The model

is interactive, that is, it does not just call for a one-way flow of information into the minds of

students; rather it insists that students act upon that information and construct ways of or-

ganizing it.’’ Barbara Hursh et al., An Interdisciplinary Model to Implement General Education, in

18 Vol. 25 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education

Partly driven by the accreditation process, the Mendoza College of

Business at the University of Notre Dame continues to examine its under-

graduate curriculum. In 2001, the College restated itscommitment to ethics

education across the curriculum and ‘‘called for integrative experiences in

all . . . years of study.’’

6

Among other changes, in 2005, the College launched

its Sophomore Integrative Experience, with two basic components. First, in

the introductory Principles of Management course, students consider

Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Cen-

tury.

7

Concurrently, those same students in Business Law examine Michael

Novak’s Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life.

8

The addition of

these books to the curriculum reflects at least two aims of the College: (1) to

encourage conversations across the curriculum about common themes and

(2) to motivate stimulating discussions about ethics outside the required,

one-credit-hour Introduction to Business Ethics course for sophomores.

This article describes my experience of incorporating Business as a

Calling into a Business Law course.

9

I view it as a positive addition to the

INTERDISCIPLINARITY:ESSAYSFROM THE LITERATURE,supra, at 39. If students integrate the material

(which the literature typically calls ‘‘integrating disciplinary insights,’’ e.g., id. at 27), the hope

is that they will have a deeper understanding of the relevance of each discipline, be more

creative problem solvers, and be more prepared for the working world, which inherently

brings together people from many disciplines. Fred Mittelstaedt & Joel Urbany, Curriculum

Integration Draft Report, Mendoza College of Business (May 7, 2004, revised Apr. 2005)

(unpublished report, on file with author).

6

Dean Carolyn Y. Woo, Dean’s Review (2002-present), Apr. 4, 2006, www.business.nd.edu/

cobweb/collegeResources/Deans_Review_2006-1.pdf at 7.

7

THOMAS FRIEDMAN,THE WORLD ISFLAT:ABRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (2005).

This book examines the causes and effects of globalization. It spent 105 weeks on the New York

Times bestseller list and is now in a second edition. N.Y. TIMES Bestseller List,available at http://

www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/index.html. For a thoughtful essay about this book

and its use in business schools, see Lucien J. Dhooge, Actually the World Is Quite Bumpy: Using

Friedmanin the International Business L aw Classroom,23J.L

EGAL STUD.EDUC. 243 (2006). As part

of their study of business planning, students in the Principles of Management course at Notre

Dame write papers analyzing Friedman’s ‘‘levelers’’ and recommending how U.S. companies

should respond and behave in such a dynamic environment. This assignment fosters inte-

grative thinking as it requires students to envision a global context for business and to apply

Friedman’s theories to practical business situations. E-mail from Professor William P. Sexton,

Professor of Management, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame (Oct. 11,

2006, 3:25 p.m., EDT) (on file with author).

8

MICHAEL NOVAK,BUSINESS AS A CALLING:WORK AND THE EXAMINED LIFE (1996).

9

The introductory Business Law course at Notre Dame includes an introductory unit on the

American legal system, with coverage of tort and criminal law, and units on the law of con-

2008 / Ethical and Policy Concerns in a Business Law Course 19