Values

Ethics & Responsibility

The position of Business Science Institute concerning academic integrity and plagiarism is made very clear to applicants and subsequently to participants who are required to sign an ethical commitment upon enrolment. All members of faculty are required to sign the same ethical commitment, and are forbidden to undertake any form of consulting activity in a participant’s business organisation during their enrolment on the programme.

Ethics and responsibility is fundamental to Business Science Institute’s philosophy concerning the ‘action research’ undertaken by and with its DBA participants. The Institution’s academic community shares a commitment to carrying out transformative research within the context of the programme. The traditional ‘top-down’ approach to research involves academics building theories, which they then teach to practitioners. The belief at Business Science Institute is that a ‘bottom-up’ approach is preferable (because ethical and responsible) through the co-construction of knowledge with practitioners who become the source of this knowledge based on their actual managerial practice.

Our DBA graduates leave the Institution with the ability to apply high-level knowledge and skills that will enhance their roles as responsible and ethical leaders in the workplace (transferring and sharing knowledge; challenging current concepts, thinking or approaches; managing others in a community of practice; life-long learning; etc.). Business Science Institute therefore supports our graduates in building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, as specified in Goal 16 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Faculty and staff at Business Science Institute are committed to maintaining certain ethical values in their day-to-day operations.

Specifically:

• The team is forbidden to ask for or receive any gifts or favours from applicants or students. Any violation of this rule should be reported via a private message to ethic@business-science-institute.com.
• The award of the Executive Doctorate of Business Administration degree, and the Certificate of Research in Business Administration, is independent of the payment of enrollment costs at Business Science Institute.
• Because the Executive DBA relies mainly on research requiring individual thinking, compliance with regulations concerning citations and plagiarism is crucial. The content of each thesis is routinely checked using anti-plagiarism software (EPHORUS).

Sustainability

Business Science Institute has been a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) since 2018. Our latest annual report can be viewed here. Within the specific context of DBA participants as experienced and/or expert practitioners, the Institution has a clear understanding of its role in addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as part of the PRME agenda. This is reflected in our approach to supporting the further development of participants’ ability to generate positive and sustainable impact within their (wider) community of practice.

As part of our commitment to ensuring sustainable consumption patterns, electronic and digital communication between professors and participants is preferred for both seminars and individual instruction.

Diversity

The Business Science community represents over 40 different nationalities and a diverse array of origin and cultures. The faculty mix is sufficiently broad and balanced to meet the requirements for supervision of an equally diverse and balanced participant base. The connections of Business Science Institute across international academia means we encourage and accept applications from practitioners with research topics covering an infinitely broad range of business and management topics. For this reason, the Institution also encourages a wide variety of formats of thesis, research questions and methodologies. Finally, diversity is encouraged through offering three languages of instruction in French, English and German.

The wide diversity of participants and professors on the DBA programme offers interesting challenges for the Institution in terms of managing the collective energy of such diverse and expert individual talents. Business Science Institute has embraced this specific characteristic of the DBA participant and its inherent challenges, to identify diversity as a value and a crucial aspect of the institutional mission.