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DCU Institute of Ethics

Ethics Training

The purpose of Ethics Training is "to enable employees to identify and deal with ethical problems developing their moral intuitions, which are implicit in everyday choices and actions" (Sacconi, de Colle & Baldin: The Q-RES Guidelines for Management, 2002). At the same time, ethics training activities aim "to enable all organisational members to understand, share and apply the values stated in the code of ethics" (de Colle & Gonella, "The Social and Ethical Alchemy", 2002).

Training in Ethics helps the members of an organisation judge the moral legitimacy of their decisions, enabling them to apply moral principles and values in business decision-making. At the same time, ethics training fosters the employees' agreement and compliance with the organisation's ethical vision representing a mutually-acceptable balance between different stakeholders. Therefore, implementing ethics training does not only mean informing employees about choices made by the management of the company, but also putting each individual corporate member in a position to understand, interiorise and contribute to the corporate mission achievement through a conscious orientation of their own choices and everyday behaviour.

The DCU Institute of Ethics experts offer assistance in designing and delivering a wide range of ethics training activities that will provide participants with a set of "ethical capabilities" and generate the following organisational benefits:

  • With regard to employees in general: Enhancement of their capability to identify and analyse ethical dilemmas (Awareness-Raising Training);
  • With regard to decision-makers: Enhancement of their skills to interpret and apply corporate values in their specific, everyday decisions and in their relationships with the organisational stakeholders (Function-specific Ethical Training);
  • With regard to the organisation as a whole:
    • Strengthening the communication of the corporate values and promoting a shared ethics culture within the organisation, and
    • Facilitating the implementation of sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility tools (e.g. code of ethics; social and ethical accounting; sustainability reporting; Internal ethical auditing; ethics committee, etc.);

These benefits can be achieved through various training formats and methods, including:

  • Awareness raising seminars;
  • Dilemma analysis training;
  • Focus groups on specific organisational issues/stakeholder relations; and
  • Group role-play.

For more information please contact us: ethics@dcu.ie