Centre for Applied Ethics

Unit for Business Ethics and Public Integrity

MPhil in Applied Ethics (Business Ethics)

Inquiries: Prof Minka Woermann

Overview

The MPhil in Applied Ethics with specialisation in Business Ethics is a one-year degree consisting of both a structured class component and a research component. 

The focus of the degree is on the ethical issues that characterise the current economic and business environment, as well as on the particular challenges that face Africa and South Africa. 

The programme is designed to equip professionals in government, business, non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations with the knowledge, skills and strategies needed to address moral issues successfully in their fields of expertise. 

The broad themes covered in the programme include the following (this list of themes is subject to change):

Contact session one

• Business ethics and its basis (Prof Woermann)
• Introduces the field of business ethics, the nature of ethical decision-making, and the goals of business ethic
• Explores the nature of business and pertinent challenges to conducting ethical business.
• Corporate responsibility (Prof Rossouw)
  • Corporate Sustainability
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Corporate Citizenship
  • Sustainable development
  • Socially Responsible Investment, and
  • Corporate Governance
• Distinguishes between, and explains, the relationships among the following family of concepts:
• Ethics and corporate governance (Prof Rossouw)
• Interrogates the King IV Report’s view of the moral status and moral obligations of corporations
• Addresses the governance of organisational ethics
• Codes of ethics and ethical culture (Prof Rossouw)
• Introduces codes of ethics
• Investigates the constituents of ethical organisational culture
• Investigates the impact of organisational culture on corporate and individual ethical behaviour
• Corporate moral agency (Prof Woermann)
• Introduces the debate on the moral status of the corporation
• Addresses corporate moral agency from the perspective of complexity theory
• Emerging issues (Prof Woermann)
• This section explores emerging issues that impact on the field of business ethics. Examples of topics include environmental sustainability, AI ethics, big data, and privacy.

Contact session two:

• Business ethics in the African context (Prof Woermann)
• Provides an overview of the developments, challenges and opportunities for business ethics in Africa
• Introduces an Ubuntu-inspired reading of stakeholder theory
• Investigates the moral justifiability of affirmative action from the perspective of distributive justice theories 

• Leadership (Prof Woermann)
• Introduces leadership theory
• Interrogates the relationship between leadership and values
• Analyses psychopathic leadership at the hand of a case study 

• Ethics in the organisation (Dr Engelbrecht)
• Explores ethical dilemmas and decision-making in an organisational context
• Analyses moral disengagement and organisational wrongdoing
• Introduces ethics management (from codes to committees) 

• Emerging issues (Prof Woermann)
• This section explores emerging issues that impact on the field of business ethics. Examples of topics include environmental sustainability, AI ethics, big data, and privacy.

Entry requirements and programme structure 

The requirements for entry into the Programme are a post-graduate qualification for which candidates must have attained an average of at least 60%, as well as an academic background in Philosophy and/or Applied Ethics. 

The structure of the Programme consists of two week-long contact sessions (around the beginning and the middle of the year), supported by independent study and research. 

For more information on the Programme, please visit, the general page of the MPhil in Applied Ethics. 

If you are interested in this Programme, but do not meet the requirements, please see our Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Ethics Programme. This Diploma Programme is designed to facilitate entry into the MPhil in Applied Ethics.