December, 2003

New Ethics and Legal Studies PhD Program in 2004

What's the best approach to launching a brand-new doctoral program in ethics and legal studies? Wharton's Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department is solving that puzzle by getting the word out that the program isn't really brand-new — it's an extension of scholarship and relationships that are already thriving at Wharton.

Even as the department was developing a curriculum, faculty members continually worked with doctoral students from the Management Department and others who wrote dissertations and researched topics on business ethics and law. The difference, says Donaldson, is that "this is the first time that we'll be able to bring things clearly under one roof and have students graduate under conditions that the department establishes."

The PhD in Ethics and Legal Studies has been designed so that anyone who completes the program will also have one foot in another major discipline, such as marketing, finance, accounting, or management. Graduates will be prepared to teach this second area of expertise, as well as ethics, law, and social responsibility. This should make them more attractive to the university job market.

"The area of ethics is thoroughly interdisciplinary," explains says Thomas Donaldson, Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics and coordinator for the new PhD program. "Here at Wharton we have people approaching ethical topics from different directions ethics in marketing, ethics in financial institutions, or ethics in economics. The subject can relate to any of the traditional silos around which business schools are built."

The department expects to attract a wide variety of applicants — those with law or business backgrounds, as well as those who have studied ethics, philosophy, sociology, or psychology. David Hess, who recently completed his Wharton PhD in the Management Department but also worked closely with Legal Studies and Business Ethics faculty, is a good example.

"I had a law background before I came to Wharton, so I naturally found my way to Legal Studies Department," he says. "Tom Dunfee and Tom Donaldson gave a seminar on business ethics in the spring of my first year. I started that summer as a research assistant to Tom Dunfee, and we continued to collaborate."

Hess, now an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Business School, thinks the program will meet strong demand. "Wharton already has a larger faculty working in this area than other schools, as well as good relationships with other related departments, so they're perfectly set up to offer the program," he says.

The application deadline for the 2004-2005 academic year is December 15, 2003.

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