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Through hands-on classroom activities,
JA Business Ethics fosters students’ ethical
decision-making as they prepare to enter the workforce and
take part in the global marketplace. Students will recognize
and analyze theory, terminology, and concepts; apply skills;
and evaluate ethical decision-making. Seven required, five
supplemental, volunteer-led sessions.
The key learning objectives listed
beside each session state the skills and knowledge students
will gain.
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Session One: Ethos Island
Students participate in a simulation that introduces
them to the topic of ethics. They examine the rationale
for ethical standards in an interdependent group.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Define ethics and interdependence.
- Express the rationale of the importance of ethical
behavior in an interdependent group—personal interest
verses society’s best interest.
- Recognize how ethics are different from rules.
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Session Two: Values, Goals, and Choices
Students analyze personal ethical beliefs and examine
their own values and goals. Students begin to make plans
for achieving one-, five-, and ten-year goals.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Evaluate personal values in ethical dilemmas.
- Articulate and identify the steps necessary to
maintain and accomplish personal values and goals.
- Recognize the importance of identifying and
understanding personal values as a means of avoiding
unethical choices.
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Session Three: How to Decide?
Students are introduced to four major ethical
theories and apply them to scenarios while analyzing
their own ethical philosophy.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Recognize their assumptions and beliefs about
ethics and how their views align with the major
theories of ethics.
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Session Four: Ethical Decision-Making
Students explore an ethical decision-making model and
evaluate their personal decision-making processes.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Apply an ethical decision-making process to
workplace dilemmas.
- Evaluate possible changes to their own
decision-making processes.
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Session Five: Organizational Ethics
Students explore professional duties and ethical
conflicts within various departments in a business.
Working in groups, they apply their knowledge to a
real-life situation.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Express ethical conflicts as situations vary by job
and department in a business.
- Apply to the scenarios information about each
department’s potential ethical challenges.
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Session Six: Social Responsibility
Working in groups, students explore two prevalent, but
conflicting, theories of social responsibility in business
ethics and compare their personal beliefs and behaviors
with both theories.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Recognize and apply the two prevalent theories of
social responsibility in business ethics.
- Evaluate personal values related to the theories of
social responsibility in business ethics.
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Session Seven: Multinational Issues
Through a role-playing activity, students explore
several complex ethical issues found in global business.
This culminating session incorporates the overall program
concepts.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Recognize the connections between interdependence,
social responsibility choices, and ethical
decision-making through exploring global issues.
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Supplemental Session A: Ethos Island Code of Ethics
Students learn the importance of a code of ethics and
practice writing one for their Ethos Island society.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Articulate the benefits or advantages of having a
code of ethics.
- Develop a code of ethics for a simulated society.
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Supplemental Session B: Heroes, Role Models, and
Mentors
Students examine the importance of obtaining external
assistance when making ethical decisions. They explore the
characteristics of heroes, role models, and mentors and
the importance of having them in their lives.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Express the importance of positive, external
assistance during the ethical decisions-making process.
- Recognize characteristics and sources of heroes,
role models, and mentors.
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Supplemental Session C: Bad Choices from Bad
Logic—Fallacies
Students are introduced to 10 common fallacies so they can
act on what they know is ethical.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Recognize common fallacies of logic in persuasive
arguments.
- Act on what they know to be the ethical choice.
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Supplementary Session D: Organizational
Ethics—Marketing vs. Propaganda
Students learn about organizational ethics by examining
the duties responsibilities, and unique ethical challenges
faced by a marketing department. They compare ethical
decision-making using a code of ethics with unethical
marketing using propaganda.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Express the importance of a code of ethics.
- Analyze a department in a business to consider how
it balances potential ethical conflicts with the duties
of that department.
- Compare the ethical guidelines of the marketing
field with common propaganda techniques.
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Supplemental Session E: Employee Ethics
Students explore practical ethical guidelines they may
encounter in the world of work. Working in groups, they
create public service announcements.
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Key Learning
Objectives Students will be able to:
- Express the need to recognize and avoid ethical
pitfalls in a new work environment.
- Understand practical guidelines they may encounter
in the world of work.
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JA Business Ethics enhances
students’ learning of the following concepts and skills:
Concepts–Advantage,
Demand, Economic systems, Exchange rates, Fiscal policy,
GDP, Government, Global economy, Income distribution,
Inflation, International trade, Investment, Labor, Markets,
Opportunity costs, Productivity, Scarcity, Supply, Trade
Skills–Applying
information, Classifying, Critical thinking,
Decision-making, Giving reports, Graphing, Interpreting
data, Leadership, Math computation, Public speaking,
Reading, Research, Taking notes, Working in groups, Writing
JA Business Ethics is a
seven-session course with five supplemental sessions, and is
recommended for students in grades 9-12. Instructional
materials are packaged for 32 students and include detailed
activity plans for the volunteer, workbooks for students,
and consumable materials to be used in the classroom.
All JA programs are designed to support
the skills and competencies identified by the Partnership
for 21st Century Skills. These programs also
augment school-based, work-based, and connecting activities
for communities with school-to-work initiatives.
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