Welcome to the Center for Business Ethics Website
The Center for Business Ethics (CBE) is one of the world’s leading research and educational institutes in the field of business ethics. It is also among the oldest, having been established in 1976, when the field was in its infancy.
CBE is guided by its mission to promote integrity and trust in business by encouraging the establishment of ethical cultures in businesses everywhere. The center staff pursues this through the application of expertise, research, education and a collaborative approach to the dissemination of best practices.
For over three decades, CBE has demonstrated unsurpassed leadership in advancing knowledge, stimulating public discourse and fostering an appreciation for the importance of business ethics among a global network of executives, ethics and compliance professionals, academics, researchers and students of business.
Learn more about CBE and its work.
Special Announcements
Ethics of Risk Management in the Information Age
John R. Boatright, Ph.D.
The Raymond C. Baumhart, S.J.
Professor Of Business Ethics
Graduate Business School, Loyola University Chicago
One of the key responsibilities of business is the wise management of risk. In less turbulent times than these, risk management might seem to be a concern only for specialists, but when the global economy suffers a catastrophe because of systemic failures in risk management, we should all pay attention. There may be no one more qualified to help us sort through the ethics of risk management than Prof. John Boatright.
Gael O’Brien, Founder and Principal, Strategic Opportunities has a weekly article blog called “The Week in Ethics.” You can locate this on the bottom of Gael's homepage http://www.strategicopportunitiesgroup.com/
CBE Executive Director Honored for Business Ethics Leadership
The Center for Business Ethics is pleased to announce that
its founder and executive director, W. Michael Hoffman, PhD
was recently honored by the Society of Corporate Compliance
and Ethics (SCCE) at its Fifth Annual Compliance and Ethics Awards for his outstanding achievements, leadership, and personal commitment to the advancement of the corporate
compliance profession.
Recent CBE Publications
“Business Ethics Perspectives on International Negotiations” by Robert E. McNulty (CBE Director of Programs) and W. Michael Hoffman (CBE Executive Director) appeared in The ABA Guide to International Business Negotiations, (2009), edited by James R. Silkenat, Jeffrey M. Aresty (CBE Research Fellow), and Jacqueline Klosek (American Bar Association, Chicago, Ill.).
In this publication, CBE scholars, McNulty and Hoffman describe how business ethics has been crucial in reconceptualizing business and that the same principles need to be applied to the process of international negotiation.
CBE’s Business and Society Review
The Fall 2009 edition of CBE’s ethics journal has recently been published. View the current table of contents.
For more information on the journal and subscription information please click here.
Turbulence is Inevitable... Misery is Optional: Ethics & integrity are your greatest assets in good times and in crisis
Howard Putnam
Speaker and Author
Former CEO of Southwest Airlines and Braniff International Airlines
Mr. Putnam drew on his past experience to comment on the critical importance of ethics in his leading Southwest Airlines to success, and turning around another airline that had been on the brink
of insolvency.
Visit Howard's home page to subscribe to his free and very popular online series, the Putnam e-Series.
Goodness In Business 
Tom Chappell
Co-founder and former CEO, Tom's of Maine
Tom Chappell shared his insights into the ways in which businesses committed to goodness are able to manage for both profitability and the common good.
Lecture Monograph
Corporate Control of Information: Ethical Challenges and Dilemmas 
George Brenkert, PhD
Director, Georgetown University’s Business Ethics Institute and Professor of Business Ethics, McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
Dr. Brenkert investigated the complex ethical issues associated with different forms of the coporate control of information from the lyrics of popular music to politically-based censorship on the internet.
Lecture Monograph
