The scope of Wharton’s Environmental Management Program is modest, reflecting the current demand for graduates specializing in environmental management skills. Wharton is committed to maintaining a well-balanced, interdisciplinary program for students who wish to combine tough-minded skills in finance, management and marketing with courses in cost-benefit and risk analysis, insurance, law and public policy. The focus is on the real world of business and the serious tools needed to navigate the turbulent shoals of environmental problems.
The principal teaching objectives of the program are to strengthen student understanding of the ethical issues they may confront in business and to provide students with the basic tools for addressing and resolving such issues.
The principal research objectives are to produce outstanding research on ethical issues confronting business managers and firms; to study the effectiveness of management strategies for creating an ethical environment within firms; to study the impact of public policy on ethical behaviors in business and to critically consider the content, role, and effectiveness of ethics education.
Joseph Wharton stipulated that business law should be one of the three required courses (along with finance and accounting) when he planned the first business school in the world. Albert Bolles, a former judge and editor of Bankers Magazine, was appointed the first business law professor in the country. The Law Program carries on the agenda created by Joseph Wharton.