Beyond Standalone Ethics Courses: The Role of Institutional Ethos in a Business School

Following major corporate scandals such as Enron and the subprime crisis, debates about the mission of business schools and their responsibility to cultivate ethical leadership tend to intensify. However, Parra et al. (2022) show that, despite extensive scholarship on the topic, institutional responses to external pressure are often superficial and fragmented, falling short of the structural reforms required for robust ethical formation.
This article presents a single-case study of a Colombian private business school to examine how the alignment between institutional identity/mission and the input–process–output design of its educational system can strengthen ethical formation. The case is analytically valuable because it captures a coherent, mission-driven model operating within a competitive environment shaped by regulations, accreditations, market demands, and rankings—conditions common to many business schools yet underexplored in Latin American contexts. Methodologically, we conduct a document-based case study drawing on institutional sources (mission and vision statements, program outlines and evaluations, and accreditation reports).
The study contributes to the literature on management education and ethics by, first, proposing a conceptual model that holistically links institutional policies and practices to the effectiveness of ethics education; and second, applying this model to a concrete institutional practice to illuminate how specific educational variables interact and with what implications for learners. Findings indicate that tight identity–design alignment can deepen ethical learning while remaining responsive to external pressures; however, they also reveal vulnerabilities to misalignment and potential trade-offs in faculty socialization and adaptability. We discuss implications for designing system-level strategies that move beyond isolated pedagogical initiatives.