Kreps Symposium - Teaching Ethics and Responsible Leadership in Business

This symposium explores key questions in teaching ethics to business leaders: What do students need to understand about individual decision-making, organizational design, and societal institutions to be able to engage productively with ethical issues and do the right thing?

In-person attendance is by invitation only. Guests can register to view the livestream on Zoom.

Date

Friday, April 25, 2025

Companies and their leaders continually grapple with ethical questions on which there is profound disagreement. Sometimes, these disagreements are driven by people’s self-interest and self-serving worldviews; but often they are based instead on legitimate differences between the principles and values sincerely held by business leaders who aspire to be ethical themselves, to design organizations in which others behave ethically, and to build companies that have a positive impact on the world.

For business educators, the challenge is how best to train such leaders to help them achieve these goals. This symposium draws on key insights from philosophy, psychology, and political economy to consider the following questions:

At an individual level, what is the right thing to do, especially in situations where people have profound ethical disagreements? How can business leaders clarify their values and thinking about the right course of conduct?
At an organizational level, how do individual and contextual factors shape people’s ethical (and unethical) behavior? And how can organizations be designed to help people live up to their values?
At a societal level, what responsibilities do companies have, whether in setting their own company policies, influencing public policy, or building and supporting institutions for governance?
At the university level, what are the best practices to productively engage students with all of these questions, and ensure future business leaders leave with the tools they need to address them?

For insight into these questions, the symposium will feature talks by three leading thinkers: Rebecca Henderson, Adam Galinsky, and Kwame Anthony Appiah.

This event is part of the GSB Centennial.

Agenda

Friday, April 25, 2025

All time in Pacific Time

12:00pm – 1:15pm	Registration Opens & Check-In
1:15pm – 1:20pm	Welcome Remarks Peter DeMarzo, Stanford GSB Interim Dean
1:20pm – 2:10pm	Session 1 - Ethics in a World on Fire: Exploring the Private Sector’s Response to Climate Change Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard Business School
2:10pm – 2:25pm	Break
2:25pm – 3:15pm	Session 2 - Inspiring Ethics: Designing More Moral Leaders Adam Galinsky, Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics, Columbia Business School
3:15pm – 3:35pm	Break
3:35pm – 4:25pm	Session 3 - How to Teach Ethics to Ordinary People Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law, New York University
4:25pm – 4:45pm	Break
4:15pm – 5:35pm	Session 4 - Panel Discussion Panelists Kwame Anthony Appiah, Adam Galinsky, Rebecca Henderson
5:35pm – 5:45pm	Closing Remarks
5:45pm – 7:45pm	Reception and Dinner - Invite Only