In an attempt to “keep it real,” business schools have taken a novel approach to teaching ethics by hiring white-collar felons to tell their stories in the classroom. Jane Porter’s recent article in businessweek.com explores the phenomenon as she profiles Walter A. Pavlo Jr, who, by the time he was 40, had an MBA from Mercer University, worked as a manager at MCI, concocted a $6 million money laundering scheme, served a two-year sentence in federal prison, and was divorced, unemployed, and living with his parents.

Now that’s a spectacular plunge from glory.

These days, business school professors pay Pavlo in the neighborhood of $2,500 to speak to their students about corporate crime. B-schools rushed to create courses dealing with ethics and corporate morality in the wake of the Enron-era scandals, and BW reports that recently some, including New York University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Purdue, have made the conversation less academic by inviting those with practical experience into the classroom.

Pavlo, who was released from jail in 2003, is one of the busiest convicted felons on the B-school speaking circuit. “Here’s a real person telling students what happened to his life. I don’t think there is any substitute for that,” says Linda K. Trevino, a professor of organizational behavior and ethics at Penn State Smeal College of Business, where Pavlo has appeared several times. He doesn’t just speak at universities, though; companies and conferences also pay to witness the transformation of someone who has learned the error of their ways.

Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to pay ex-cons to share their stories, BW has found. “I’m disturbed that so many professors seem to be willing to invite Pavlo and other convicted felons into the classroom without verifying that the stories are true,” says John C. Knapp, director of the Center for Ethics & Corporate Responsibility at Georgia State University. “Paying the ex-cons is rewarding them for committing a crime.”

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Pavlo confesses how the chance to make easy money seduced him. “All you need to know to cook the books you learn in your first semester of accounting,” Pavlo tells the students. Except that he got caught by his manager before a year was out, the article reveals. “Thinking about the pressures of the workplace, particularly in a not-so-great economy, you see what people might be capable of,” says Wayne Shyy, a student who heard Pavlo at Purdue.

What do BW readers think about using ex-cons as case studies? Here’s a sampling of their reactions:

And how else is Walt supposed to feed himself and his family? Is this not the best use of his experience? If you want to make a point with students, there is no better way to do so. Talk about “scared straight.” If you meet Walt and/or read his book, you don’t need to do much verification on his history. -Rich

I’ve heard Walter Pavlo speak of his experiences in my ethics class. He isn’t perfect and no one is, he is trying to make the best of his situation and we can all learn from his mistake. He provides a service and he should be compensated for it.–Simond

Too bad they don’t pay $2500 to honest people who never embezzled a penny to tell students that they shouldn’t be crooks. –In Colorado

If we are serious about reducing or stomping out this kind of corruption then we need to focus more on rewarding employees for the good things they do. Our system is the problem.–Michelle

source: businessweek.com

Columbia’s Professor Nachum Sicherman noticed that dancers often gather outside to smoke after performances. As he put it: “the contradiction of seeing a person smoke who you would assume puts a high premium on staying healthy [was puzzling].” He posited that smoking in this context indicated a present-oriented time preference, supported by the fact that dancers have relatively short careers with little prospect of future income. Specifically, Sicherman wondered whether smoking among dancers reflected a preference for present benefits over future benefits (smoking may be gratifying now but is injurious in the long-run). After studying the problem, he concluded that “smokers, presumably because they are more present-oriented, are more likely to self-select into jobs that have lower wage growth and invest less in their own human capital.” (see article)

Pique your curiosity? This and more is available on the Columbia Ideas at Work site, which purports to serve as a bridge between business research and practice. Check it out. Staying in tune with cutting edge research is a good way to stimulate creative business thinking, learn more about current trends in business, and stay up to date on the work being done by faculty at your school (or the school you are applying to!).

For comparable sites at other schools, visit:

HBS Research Publications

Stanford GSB Knowledgebase

Knowledge@Wharton

MIT Sloan Faculty Research Spotlight

Kellogg Insight

Good news for applicants! Even though Soni’s MBA Adventure swears he’s STILL not planning on applying to Harvard, he shares the news that HBS will release their essay questions early ….in mid-May, about six weeks earlier than last year.

Miss Curly Bee has come up with a 20-point To Do List after getting admitted into B-school.

With the B-school blogging community’s help, B-School Bound has thought up some great gift options for recommenders.

Le blog hog @ INSEAD bids a nostalgic goodbye P4 from Singapore, urging all future students to take advantage of both campuses because he can’t imagine missing this opportunity.

One Columbia J-termer’s B-school Odyessy has just left the last class of his business school career and is waiting for the emotion to kick in. In the meantime…it’s off to the CBS Follies!

Young women aged 13 to 19 will get a taste of the B-school experience when Cornell University’s Johnson School hosts its seventh annual Camp $tart-Up from June 21 to 28, 2008. Teaming up with Independent Means and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the Johnson School, the camp is dedicated to exposing young women to the fundamentals of business.

According to a press release, campers learn about several key areas including marketing, finance, and research. While at the camp, the young women interact closely with current MBA students, professors, alumni, and local businesspeople to foster the campers’ capabilities in leadership and teamwork.

Five female MBA students (all class of 2008) are involved in all aspects of the camp, from coordinating leadership activities to planning the camp’s promotional materials, and working alongside campers as mentors and counselors. Each student plans to leverage her own business expertise and experiences to teach and empower the young women to become successful business leaders. A group of Johnson School students brought the Camp $tart-Up program to Cornell in 2002.

Camp $tart-Up is an important initiative to the Johnson School and its Office of Diversity and Inclusion, aimed to combat the relatively low enrollment of women in graduate business programs. Throughout most MBA programs, including the Johnson School, approximately 30 percent of students enrolled are women. The most effective way to increase the pool of qualified women for business education, and in business itself, the school says, is to reach out to them at a younger age and to teach them fundamental business and leadership skills.

During the eight day camp, girls will work in teams to develop a business idea and create a business plan to present at the end of the week. When the experience culminates, they will have learned the business, research and networking skills, as well as gained the self-confidence needed to plan their business together. For more information about this empowering venture, visit the Camp $tart-Up website.

This week’s GMAT challenge from PrepForTests.com is a problem solving question.

Have a go at answering this and then review your answer.

While salary is still a high priority for MBA students at top schools, the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education (Aspen CBE) has just released a survey revealing that more of them, especially women, place greater importance on business’s responsibility to society. For those unfamiliar with Aspen CBE, this international nonprofit seeks to create business leaders for the 21st century who are equipped with the vision and knowledge necessary to integrate corporate profitability with social value.

The survey titled “Where Will They Lead? MBA Student Attitudes About Business and Society (2008)”, conducted in fall 2007, probed the thoughts of 1,943 students at 15 business schools around the world, from Wharton to the London Business School to the University of California, Berkeley. The questionaire addressed a variety of issues, including business ethics, business school coursework and the corporate recruitment process. The previous survey was conducted in 2002.

Through these surveys, the Aspen CBE has discovered that MBA programs definitely influence the way students think about the role of business and its relationship to society once they become managers and leaders.

“In a broader sense, the most important finding is that students seem to be taking a more holistic view of the role of business in society,” says Nancy McGaw, deputy director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, in a press release announcing the results. “But the findings also suggest that while students may have these values, many of them sense those beliefs are not valued by employers or linked to career opportunities.”

For example, only half of the respondants felt that recruiters placed a high value on personal integrity, and a mere seven percent beleive recruiters place a premium on their understanding of sociopolitical issues. The survey also found that while more of today’s students say they want a job that has a positive impact on society (25 percent, compared to just 15 percent in 2002), this priority decreases in importance for men as they move through their MBA program.

According to the press release, these findings indicate that the tension between financial compensation and pursuing a job that aligns with personal values is becoming even more pervasive as the so-called Millenials enter business schools, and that recruiters ignore these growing concerns at their own peril if they wish to attract top talent.

Click here for an executive summary with detailed findings of the MBA Student Attitudes Survey.