School of Business to host conference on business ethics

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Business and its International Center for Ethics in Business will host the fifth Partners in Business Ethics Conference on Sept. 29-30.

The event, which is presented with support from the Deloitte Foundation, is a unique gathering of business school deans, thought leaders in the field of ethics and corporate business leaders.

"The goal of the Partners in Business Ethics Conference is to facilitate dialogue between academic and business leaders around issues in the field of business ethics,” said Douglas May, professor of business ethics and organizational behavior and director of KU’s International Center for Ethics in Business. “This year we plan to explore the future of the field through presentations by thought leaders in both business and academia focused on the conference theme, ‘Where Business Ethics is Going.’”

The conference will begin Thursday evening at the Eldridge Hotel with a reception, dinner and the business school’s Walter S. Sutton Lecture, which features keynote speaker Gen. David G. Perkins, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Friday’s conference activities will take place in Capitol Federal Hall, and topics range from the ethical implications of big data to the ethical issues in a business’ supply chain.

Speakers include Bill Self, Kansas men’s basketball coach; Murli Buluswar, AIG chief science officer; Marc Elkins, Cerner Corp. chief compliance officer and associate general counsel; Roger Woody, KU business school executive lecturer and director of the Center for Supply Chain Management; Beth Ward, Hallmark Cards senior vice president for supply chain; Keith Darcy, Deloitte LLP partner; and John Tyler, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation general counsel and chief ethics officer.

KU held the first-ever business ethics conference in 1976, organized by Richard T. De George. In 1991, De George and KU business professor emeritus H. Joseph Reitz founded KU’s International Center for Ethics in Business, which promotes individual and corporate integrity through research, teaching and training on the nature, conditions and consequences of ethical conduct and disseminates such knowledge to a wide business and academic audience.

“As we celebrate 40 years of tradition in business ethics, we are honored to host this event and to continue to support efforts promoting business ethics research and leadership,” said Interim Dean Jim Guthrie.

In previous years, the Partners in Business Ethics Conference has been hosted by the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University; the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin; the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.

More information about the agenda is available on the business school’s website, where attendees can register for the event.