This article attempts to understand the state of teaching, training and research in business ethics in the South and South East Asian region. The countries surveyed are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The diversity across countries in the region is high in terms of economic development, political structuring and human development. The degree of privatization and globalization is varied across countries since each of them is in a different phase of transition. In an earlier survey on Business Ethics, published in 1997, India was the only country from this region that was represented. In the current survey, 12 countries from the South and South East Asia are represented. While Business Ethics in academia is widely present, Corporate Social Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability though relatively new appear to be growing rapidly. Business Ethics courses tend to focus on functional ethics, managerial ethics and implementing codes of ethical conduct. Across the 12 countries, Business Ethics is taught either as an elective or a core course in most institutions. Training emphasis across countries is varied. While training institutions in India appear to be high, the presence of multinational consultants in Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is significant. The research focus across countries in the region is weak. The high coergence on the top issues in Business Ethics, across respondents in different countries, is worthy of mention.
The article examines the ways that business schools in India should take to structure their curriculum given the unique characteristics of the country's management education such as young student population with no work experience and the presence of a large number of business schools. It notes the author's experience of teaching courses in the field of responsible business. It discusses the need for faculty to position such business as a source of competitive advantage for businesses.
Organisations the world over in today's rapid growth context are faced with the challenge of understanding a multi-generational workforce and devising policies and processes to build collaboration between them. In its first part, this article synthesises the literature on generational studies, with emphasis on the definition of generations and the characteristics of the generational cohorts. It emphasises that such studies are embedded in the socio-economic-cultural-context and India-specific scholarship must take into account the demographic and economic variations across the country. It then discusses the challenges of multi-generations in the Indian workforce, their impact on leadership styles and managerial practices, and the task of building inter-generational collaboration with an eminent panel of practitioners and researchers.