Business ethics as a discipline has changed significantly over the past decades. Originally, it had mostly to do with issues within the company, in an era in which it appeared to be clear what was ‘inside’ and what was ‘outside’ of the company, with issues such as safety, discrimination, the ethics of advertising etc.. Over the past years, the focus has shifted to the relationships between organizations and societies, with attention to issues such as sustainability and corporate social responsibility (which comprise the afore-mentioned issues).
Also, the discipline was originally reactive (what to do when things go wrong in a certain way?), while now it is increasingly pro-active (what do you stand for?, etc.) this has also come to mean that business ethics is now more connected to other business courses than it was before, offering the student more of a systematic picture.
The course is taught at undergraduate level, in an MBA program and in an Executive MBA program. Of course, the format changes with the program.

Typically, the course offfers exercises in stakeholder dialogue and group discussion. After all, ethics - also business ethics - usually takes place within a social context and can only be meaningfully resolved through that social context. Therefore, the students do not only acquire knowledge and insight, but also practical experience.

Special mention deserves the annual workshop on international corporate social responsibility, organized jointly by Nyenrode University (prof. dr. R. Jeurissen) and the Maastricht School of Management (J. Remmé).

This course was set up from the idea that students represent society and have therefore much to learn to managers, especially as their companies express a wish to be resonsible to the societies in which they are active.