A Ranking of the Most
Productive Business Ethics
Scholars: A Five-Year Study
ABSTRACT. This paper presents the results of a
study that counted articles and the number of pages
written on business ethics and published during the
five-year period 1995–1999. Individual scholars were
ranked on the basis of total articles and total pages
published. Institutions were also ranked based on the
number of pages and articles their scholars published
in selected business ethics journals. This article is the
first one to rank schools and individual scholars on
the basis of research productivity in business ethics.
KEY WORDS: business ethics, faculty productivity,
ranking
Why this study was conducted
There are a number of reasons why this study was
conducted. Perhaps the primary reason was
curiosity. From reading business ethics articles
over the years, it seemed like the same names
kept popping up over and over again. Over a
period of months, the question gradually arose
as to which authors and institutions had pub-
lished the most articles in the area of business
ethics. This article is an attempt to answer that
question.
However, this study has value aside from
satisfying the present author’s own curiosity, or
at least one would hope that it does. From time
to time, universities seek out ethics scholars to
add to their faculty, either to head an ethics
institute, to award an endowed chair to, or
Murray Sabrin is professor of finance at Ramapo College
of New Jersey, U.S.A. He has taught social studies in
the New York City public school system. He was born
in Germany and educated in the United States. He is
currently writing a book on political economy.
Journal of Business Ethics 36: 355–379, 2002.
© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Murray Sabrin
merely to supplement the expertise of existing
faculty in arts and sciences, humanities, law,
medicine or business. Providing a list of the most
productive individuals would aid in their search
for faculty. Including a listing of the university
affiliations of the business ethics scholars would
also provide useful information to anyone who
is interested in knowing which schools are
engaged in business ethics research. Ranking the
institutions where the scholars are employed also
gives some idea of where the business ethics
research is being conducted.
Review of the literature
Studies have been conducted that rank law
schools (Lindgren and Seltzer, 1996), business
schools (Dichev, 1999) and various subdisciplines
of business such as economics (Kalaitzidakis et
al.,1 1999; Smyth, 1999; Jin and Yau, 1999;
Medoff, 1996), advertising (Henthorne et al.,
1998) and accounting (Marston and Ayub, 2000)
where scholarly productivity has played a part.
Rankings for nonbusiness departments such as
science (Hagmann, 2000), political science
(Garand and Graddy, 1999; Ballard and Mitchell,
1998) and athletic training education programs
(Voll et al., 1999) are also affected by faculty pub-
lications. Promotion decisions are also at times
based on publishing productivity (Omundson and
Mann, 1994; Milne and Vent, 1989 and 1987).
Various studies have ranked universities and
specific programs on the basis of citations to
articles published by faculty (Anon., 1998).
Medoff (1996) looked at citations to rank the top
250 academic economists in the United States.
He went on to rank schools based on the number
356 Murray Sabrin
of top-250 economists they had on faculty and
ranked economics Ph.D. programs based on the
number of top 250 economists who earned their
Ph.D.s at the institution. Chung et al. (1992),
Heck et al. (1990, 1991) and Brown and Gardner
(1985) conducted studies that looked at the
productivity of individual accounting scholars.
Lindgren and Seltzer (1996) conducted a study
that ranked the most prolific individual legal
scholars and law faculties based on a page count
and article count over a five-year period.
U.S. News & World Report (Monks and
Ehrenberg, 1999) and other U.S.-based publishers
publish rankings annually, as does the London
Times, for British schools. Although it is not
possible to rank business ethics departments or
programs, since few schools have such depart-
ments or programs, a listing of the most pro-
ductive business ethics scholars and faculties
could be used, along with other information, to
rank universities. Whenever a university receives
a high ranking in any field, it would tend to help
its overall ranking. A university that ranks high
in business ethics might also improve its overall
business or philosophy ranking. There is some
evidence that there is a correlation between a
faculty’s publication record and its university’s
ranking (Baughman et al., 1999).
Articles that attempt to rank business schools,
law schools, medical schools, other professional
schools, departments or journals run well into
the hundreds (Williams, 2000). Such studies are
popular among academics and the press such as
U.S. News & World Report, Business Week,
Newsweek and others, which sometimes refer to
some of these studies when compiling their own
rankings (Etkin and Coutts, 1999). However, a
review of the literature failed to find a single
study that ranked individual scholarly produc-
tivity or a school’s productivity in the subdisci-
pline of business ethics. Thus, there was a need
for this study. The methodology adopted for this
study is like the methodologies used in many of
the studies that have been done over the years for
the various other disciplines. The present study
does not break any new methodological ground
in that regard. The new ground broken is in
the application of existing methodological
approaches to the field of business ethics.
Many studies have been conducted that rank
journals in various academic disciplines.
Economics (Barrett et al., 2000), and even inter-
national human resource management (Caligiuri,
1999) and construction management (Wing,
1997) have studies on journal rankings. Marston
and Ayub (2000) conducted a study of the rela-
tionship between publications in selected journals
and the British Research Assessment Exercise
(RAE) used to rank accounting departments.
Numerous other studies have ranked various
business departments, usually either on the basis
of articles published, pages published or number
of citations.
Methodology
Any methodology suffers from some weaknesses.
The methodology used in this study is no
exception. If another time period had been
chosen, the rankings would have been different.
Also, the mere fact that a scholar is prolific does
not mean that the quality of the work is also top
notch. One may not assume that those individ-
uals who rank high on the list are also the best
business ethics scholars or the best classroom
teachers. Likewise, absence from the list or a low
ranking does not mean that a scholar or a school
is substandard. Neither Jesus nor Socrates ever
published anything, yet many scholars would feel
that these two individuals should be included on
any list of “the best” ethics scholars, if a “best”
list were compiled.
Having said that, the decision had to be made
about the length of the study. This study covered
the five-year period 1995–99. There are a
number of reasons why five years was chosen
rather than a longer or shorter period. A longer
study would have included many articles that
were written by authors who may no longer be
active. A ten-year study would have included
articles that may have been written twelve years
ago, since going through the pipeline from the
manuscript stage to published article can take two
years. The goal of this study was to measure
recent scholarship, so a ten-year period would
have been too long.
A shorter period would skew the rankings in
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars
favor of authors who have done most of their
work in recent years, which actually might be a
good idea, especially if one wants to identify
those scholars who are currently very active in
the field. The Lindgren and Seltzer (1996) study
covered a five-year period, so there is some
precedent for this time period. Lindgren and
Seltzer also compiled both an article count and
a page count, as does this study. But whereas
Lindgren and Seltzer only counted articles and
pages in the top 20 law reviews, the present study
is less elitist, for a number of reasons. For one
thing, there has never been a study that ranks the
top business ethics journals, so there was no way
to restrict the compilation to the top business
ethics journals. Furthermore, many business
ethics articles are published in discipline-specific
journals in the various business subdisciplines, so
including only those articles published in business
ethics journals would exclude many business
ethics articles. Thus, the present study is more
inclusive than the Lindgren and Seltzer study.
Another reason for choosing five years is
because the American Association of Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB), the agency that
accredits business schools in the United States
and elsewhere, only looks at the most recent five
years of faculty scholarship. Thus, a five-year time
line would be in keeping with the AACSB
approach to evaluating faculty scholarship and
would be more useful as a reference by AACSB
accredited schools.
Using a methodology that counts only articles
published and not pages published tends to give
more credit to authors who publish many short
articles rather than fewer longer articles.
Alternatively, counting pages while ignoring the
number of articles published skews results in favor
of authors who might have published just one
very long article, which is the case with some
of the law review articles on business ethics that
were included in the statistics for the present
study. This study included statistics on both the
number of articles published and the number of
pages published. While using both methodolo-
gies does not eliminate the bias inherent in either
approach, it does give the reader more informa-
tion than would be the case if just one of the
methodologies were used. A faculty personnel
357
committee must decide for itself whether it is
better to hire a scholar who has published just
one 70-page business ethics article in the last five
years rather than an applicant who has published
five business ethics articles totaling 60 pages.
The first step in compiling the statistics for this
study was to find business ethics articles that had
been published in scholarly journals during this
period. Several journals are devoted exclusively
or primarily to business ethics, so a list was made
of all the authors who authored or co-authored
one or more articles in any of these journals
during the period under study. The number of
articles and pages published by each author were
compiled. The following thirteen journals were
consulted for this purpose:
Business & Professional Ethics Journal
Business and Society
Business and Society Review
Business Ethics: A European Review
Business Ethics Quarterly
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
Ethics and Information Technology
International Journal of Value-Based
Management
Journal of Accounting, Ethics & Public Policy
Journal of Business Ethics
Journal of Markets & Morality
Research on Accounting Ethics
Teaching Business Ethics
While many business ethics articles were pub-
lished in these journals during the period under
study, many other business ethics articles were
published in other journals. Omitting these other
articles would have skewed the results in favor
of authors who published primarily in these top
thirteen business ethics journals. So the search
was widened to include articles that were listed
in the Accounting & Tax Index, Index to Legal
Periodicals, Business Periodicals Index, Journal
of Economic Literature and the Philosopher’s
Index during the period. Consulting these data-
bases expanded the pool of articles and authors.
However, it is likely that some business ethics
articles still were not found because it takes some
time to catalog articles on databases and journals
are not always prompt in submitting their issues
to the databases for inclusion. However, this
358 Murray Sabrin
study was conducted almost a year after the
December, 1999 cutoff, so most of the business
ethics articles that exist for the 1995–99 period
were able to be located.
The Accounting and Tax Index lists articles
published in more than 1000 journals, mostly in
the English language. The hard cover indexes
covering the period 1995–99 plus the first
quarterly supplement for 2000 were consulted.
Relevant articles listed under the captions ethics,
business ethics and professional ethics were
included.
The Business Periodicals Index lists English
language articles appearing in about 500 journals.
The hard cover indexes for Volumes 37–41,
covering the period August 1994 for July 1999,
were consulted, as were the quarterly supple-
ments up to September 2000. Relevant articles
listed under the captions accounting ethics,
advertising ethics, banking ethics, business ethics,
insurance ethics, marketing ethics and sales ethics
were included.
The Index to Legal Periodicals lists journal
articles from more than 800 legal journals pub-
lished in English, French and Spanish. The hard
cover index for Volumes 34–38, covering the
period September 1994 to August 1999, were
consulted, as well as the quarterly cumulative
supplements up to August 2000. All articles listed
under business ethics that had a publication date
after 1994 and before 2000 were included.
The CD-ROM version of the Journal of
Economic Literature, Volume 38, No. 3, dated
September 2000, was consulted. The CD-ROM
version was used rather than the soft cover
version because the CD-ROM version includes
more journals and has a search feature. The key
word “ethic” was used to search so that all article
titles or abstracts that included any version of the
word “ethic,” such as “ethics” or “ethical” could
be located. The author used subjective judgment
in some cases to determine whether an article
should be included because some articles dealt
with ethics but not with business ethics.
Philosopher’s Index lists articles from about
650 journals published in English, French,
German, Spanish and Italian. The internet
version of Philosopher’s Index was consulted. It
was thought that the internet version would be
better than the hard cover version because the
internet version includes articles that were added
after the 1999 hard cover version was published.
All articles listed under business ethics that had
publication dates after 1994 and before 2000
were included. This index was consulted in
October 2000.
By including articles listed in all of these
indexes, plus the articles that appeared in the top
thirteen business ethics journals mentioned
above, it was thought that nearly all English
language (and some foreign language) business
ethics articles would be located. However, it is
possible that some business ethics articles were
missed. Although the quarterly supplements for
2000 were consulted in cases where such sup-
plements were available, it is possible that some
articles published during the relevant period have
not yet been indexed, especially in cases where
a journal publishes behind schedule. Also, it
should be kept in mind that the various indexes
take some time to include articles in their
database.
After all these databases had been searched, a
search of ABI/INFORM ProQuest was con-
ducted to see if any additional business ethics
articles could be found. The PA Research II
database, which includes only peer reviewed
journals, was searched for business ethics articles
having publication dates after 1994 and before
2000. The Guided Search mode was used, using
“business ethics” as the key term. The vast
majority of articles found in this search had
already been included in the database created for
the present article. However, this search did
uncover a few additional articles. Statistics for
2371 scholars were included in the present study,
meaning that 2371 scholars authored or co-
authored at least one business ethics article
between 1995 and 1999.
Both an article count and a page count were
made to determine where each author and insti-
tution should fit in the ranking. Where an article
had two authors, each author received 50 percent
of the credit. For example, each author would
receive 0.5 points for the article and 50 percent
of the page count, rounded to the nearest page.
Where there were three co-authors, each author
received 0.33 points and one-third of the page
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars
count, rounded to the nearest whole page.
Where there were four authors, each author
received 0.25 points and 25 percent of the total
page count, etc. Page counts were computed by
taking the total number of pages in the article
and dividing by the number of authors, rounded
up to the next full page if they ended in 0.5 or
more. For example, if an article was 33 pages
long and had two co-authors, each author would
be assigned 17 pages. Point counts were not
rounded. This weighting scheme is not perfect
but it simplified the computation.
Articles had to be at least 3 pages in length to
be included. Items that were obviously not from
refereed journals (such as Fortune, the Wall Street
Journal, etc.) were excluded even if the article
was more than 3 pages in length. Articles in
practitioner journals were included. Articles from
practitioner newspapers (such as Accounting
Today) were excluded. In cases where an index
listed one or more authors, followed by “et al.”
or “and others” the authors who were listed
received a weighting of 0.25 and the pages
assigned were one-fourth of the total pages in the
article. The Business Periodicals Index uses this
approach for listing articles written by multiple
authors. In most cases where such an article
appeared in the Business Periodicals Index, it also
appeared in another index, so it was often
possible to obtain a correct listing of the authors
even if the Business Periodicals Index did not
provide such a complete listing.
Findings
Table I ranks individual authors based on the
number of business ethics articles they published
between 1995–99. Some cutoff had to be made
regarding the minimum number of articles that
would be included. Otherwise, the list would
include all of the 2371 authors who authored or
co-authored at least one article over the five-year
period under study. The minimum number of
equivalent articles required to be included in the
list is four. It was thought that a cut-off of four
would result in including every author who
published nearly one article a year on business
ethics. Thirty-six authors published at least four
359
articles during the period under study. As is seen
in Table III, nearly 99 percent of the authors who
published on business ethics during the period
under study published less than four articles.
Robert W. McGee of International Business
& Technical Consultants, Inc., located in Vienna,
Virginia ranked #1 with 61.50 articles. McGee’s
total is more than the next seven authors
combined. The top five authors published a total
of 98.25 articles, which is more than the next
15 authors combined. Several institutions had
more than one person on the list. Professors from
the University of Michigan ranked 3 and 26.
Professors from the University of Washington
ranked 6 and 23. A student from the University
of Pittsburgh ranked 9 and a professor ranked 13.
Professors from Loyola University in New
Orleans ranked 11 and 31. Professors from Loyola
University in Chicago ranked 16 and 33.
Curiously, no one from either the London
Business School or Saint John’s University made
the list, although they each had 20 professors
who authored or co-authored at least one article.
Bentley College, Boston College, Bowling Green
State University, Bryant College, Curtin
University of Technology, DePaul University,
Florida State University, Indiana University at
Bloomington, the University of London, Massey
University, the University of Memphis, the
University of Mississippi, the University of New
Orleans, the University of North Texas, Valdosta
State University and Virginia Polytechnic all had
10 or more authors but did not make the list
because none of their authors published at least
four articles during the five-year period. No one
from Harvard made the list, in spite of the tens
of millions of dollars that Harvard received to
fund an ethics program. Seven of the universi-
ties are Catholic – the University of St. Thomas,
Georgetown, Notre Dame, Loyola in Chicago
and New Orleans, Santa Clara University and the
University of Navarra in Spain. One of the
universities is Jewish – Yeshiva.
It may seem strange at first glance that it is
possible to rank in the top one percent while
publishing less than one article a year. Certainly,
it would not be possible to rank this high in
disciplines such as economics, where many
authors publish three or more articles a year. But
360 Murray Sabrin

TABLE I
Individual author rankings by number of articles five years (1995–99)
(4 articles minimum)

Rank Author name Affiliation No. of No. of

pages articles

001 Robert W. McGee International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. 652 61.50
002 Daryl Koehn University of St. Thomas – Houston 146 10.00
003 Timothy L. Fort University of Michigan 149 09.25
004 George G. Brenkert Georgetown University 129 09.00
005 Denis Collins University of. Wisconsin – Madison 124 08.50
006 Andrew C. Wicks University of Washington 126 07.83
007 Georges Enderle University of Notre Dame 081 07.00
008 Milton R. Moskowitz Editor, Business & Society Review 063 07.00
009 Harry J. Van Buren, III University of Pittsburgh – student 056 07.00
010 Moses L. Pava Yeshiva University 126 06.83
011 Walter Block Loyola University, New Orleans 090 06.83
012 Bill Shaw University of Texas – Austin 088 06.33
013 William C. Frederick University of Pittsburgh 086 06.25
014 Deborah Vidaver-Cohen Florida International University 107 06.00
015 Antonio Argandoña University of Navarra 087 06.00
016 Al Gini Loyola University – Chicago 073 06.00
017 Tracey Longo Journalist 026 06.00
018 Nancy B. Kurland University of Southern California 075 05.50
019 John Dobson California State Polytechnic University 071 05.50
020 Archie B. Carroll University of Georgia 061 05.50
021 Thomas W. Dunfee University of Pennsylvania 075 05.33
022 Satish P. Deshpande Western Michigan University 038 05.17
023 Thomas M. Jones University of Washington 089 05.00
024 Jeffrey Nesteruk Franklin & Marshall College 059 05.00
025 Susan Key University of Alabama at Birmingham 055 04.75
026 LaRue Tone Hosmer University of Michigan 077 04.50
027 Dennis J. Moberg Santa Clara University 098 04.33
028 Dann G. Fisher Kansas State University 090 04.00
029 Sherwin Klein Fairleigh Dickinson University 089 04.00
030 Jeffe F. Dillard University of New Mexico 054 04.00
031 Gillian Brock University of Auckland 049 04.00
031 Rogene A. Buchholz Loyola University – New Orleans 049 04.00
033 John R. Boatright Loyola University – Chicago 037 04.00
034 Stephen Cohen University of New South Wales 032 04.00
034 Michelle Rabouin Washburn University 032 04.00
036 Michael Silverstein Writer 017 04.00

business ethics is different, in the sense that it is
not a specific discipline like economics, market-
ing or accounting. Professors usually are
members of a specific department and are
expected and encouraged to publish within their
teaching field. The AACSB, the agency that
accredits business schools in the United States
and elsewhere, emphasizes publishing within the
teaching field, so there are fewer rewards for
professors who publish business ethics articles
unless they also teach business ethics. That could
partially account for the reason why the per
capita number of business ethics articles published
is lower than is the case for other disciplines.
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars
However, that is probably not the only
explanation, since many of the 2371 authors
whose articles were included in this study are
from schools that are not AACSB accredited.
Furthermore, even if their institution’s business
school is AACSB accredited, many of the authors
included in this study do not teach in the
business school. Many authors teach in philos-
ophy departments, other arts and sciences
disciplines or law schools. So pressure from the
AACSB to publish within the discipline taught
cannot be the sole explanation for such relatively
low publication statistics. Perhaps another reason
for the relatively low productivity in business
ethics is because it is not a separate discipline,
and the authors who publish business ethics
articles do so only occasionally, as part of their
overall research agenda, which includes other
areas as well.
Table II ranks individual authors based on the
number of pages they published between
1995–99. Again, a cutoff had to be made, lest
all authors who published three pages would
need to be included in the list. A cutoff of 40
pages was determined to be the minimum
number of pages needed for inclusion in the list.
Thus, an author would have to publish an average
of eight pages a year to be included. Nearly 100
authors were able to achieve this level of
publication.
Robert W. McGee of International Business
& Technical Consultants, Inc. ranked #1 with
652 pages, which is more than the next four
authors combined. The top 5 authors published
more pages than the next 12 authors on the list
combined. One university, the University of
Pennsylvania, is represented four times on the list,
at 23, 45, 48 and 54. Three universities are
represented three times – Boston College at 79,
90 and 91; Loyola University of Chicago at 25,
43 and 82; and the University of Pittsburgh at
18, 29 and 45 (student). Ten universities are
represented twice – Fordham University at 66
and 71 (student), Indiana University at
Bloomington at 53 and 71; Loyola University in
New Orleans at 12 and 54; Santa Clara
University at 10 and 33; the University of
Auckland at 52 and 54; the University of
Michigan at 2 and 22; the University of Texas at
361
Austin at 16 and 35; the University of
Washington at 5 and 14; Virginia Polytechnic at
71 and 82; and York University in Toronto at
71 and 79.
None of the Harvard faculty made the list but
a Harvard student ranked 91. Lest one think that
Harvard is being singled out for relatively poor
performance, it might also be mentioned that
Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Cornell, Dartmouth,
the University of Chicago, Oxford, the
University of London and a number of other top
schools did not make this list, either. The
University of California at Hastings made the list
at 91 because a student published a long article.
Willamette University made the list at 66 because
a visiting professor wrote a long article. A few
individuals without any university affiliation
made the list.
Table III provides a breakdown based on the
number of articles published by the various
authors. Two thousand three hundred and
seventy-one (2371) authors wrote or contributed
to at least one article during the period under
study. The total author distribution was skewed
heavily in terms of the quantity of contributions.
The largest category of contributors, nearly 53
percent, consisted of authors who contributed
less than one article during the five-year period
under study. Another thirty-eight percent
contributed 1–1.99 articles. Even fewer, 5.4%,
contributed 2–2.99 articles. As the number of
articles contributed increased, the number of
authors making the contributions dropped off
considerably. Only one author published more
than 11 articles over the five-year period. Table
III reveals that a very small percentage of the total
author pool was able to achieve the level of
publication needed to be included in the Table
I list that is based on the number of articles
published.
Table IV summarizes author publication fre-
quencies on the basis of pages published. More
than 60 percent of the authors who published on
business ethics published less than 10 equivalent
pages. Many of these authors were listed as co-
authors on one paper that had two or more
authors. Another twenty-four percent published
between 10 and 19 pages. Many of these authors
were also co-authors on one or more papers. It
362 Murray Sabrin

TABLE II
Individual author rankings by number of pages five years (1995–99)
(40 pages minimum)

Rank Author name Affiliation No. of No. of

pages articles

001 Robert W. McGee International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. 652 61.50
002 Timothy L. Fort University of Michigan 149 09.25
003 Daryl Koehn University of St. Thomas – Houston 146 10.00
004 George G. Brenkert Georgetown University 129 09.00
005 Andrew C. Wicks University of Washington 126 07.83
005 Moses L. Pava Yeshiva University 126 06.83
007 Denis Collins University of. Wisconsin – Madison 124 08.50
008 Kathleen A. Getz The American University 114 03.50
009 Deborah Vidaver-Cohen Florida International University 107 06.00
010 Dennis J. Moberg Santa Clara University 098 04.33
011 Jeffrey W. Stempel University of Nevada – Las Vegas 097 01.00
012 Walter Block Loyola University, New Orleans 090 06.83
012 Dann G. Fisher Kansas State University 090 04.00
014 Thomas M. Jones University of Washington 089 05.00
014 Sherwin Klein Fairleigh Dickinson University 089 04.00
016 Bill Shaw University of Texas – Austin 088 06.33
017 Antonio Argandoña University of Navarra 087 06.00
018 William C. Frederick University of Pittsburgh 086 06.25
019 Georges Enderle University of Notre Dame 081 07.00
020 Robin S. Snell City University of Hong Kong 080 03.58
021 William E. Nelson New York University 078 01.00
022 LaRue Tone Hosmer University of Michigan 077 04.50
023 Nancy B. Kurland University of Southern California 075 05.50
023 Thomas W. Dunfee University of Pennsylvania 075 05.33
025 Al Gini Loyola University – Chicago 073 06.00
025 Chanda R. Coblentz Washington & Lee University 073 01.00
027 John Dobson California State Polytechnic University 071 05.50
027 Kristi Yuthas Portland State University 071 03.50
029 Bradley R. Agle University of Pittsburgh 070 03.33
030 Richard A. Bernardi SUNY Plattsburgh 068 03.50
030 Gregory M.A. Gronbacher Acton Institute 068 03.00
032 Edward F. Koren University of Florida – adjunct 066 01.00
033 Milton R. Moskowitz Editor, Business & Society Review 063 07.00
033 Manuel Velasquez Santa Clara University 063 03.33
035 Robert C. Solomon University of Texas – Austin 062 03.50
036 Archie B. Carroll University of Georgia 061 05.50
036 Jonathan B. King Oregon State University 061 02.50
038 Michael Davis Illinois Institute of Technology 060 03.00
038 John T. Sweeney Washington State University 060 03.00
038 Roger W. Bartlett California State University – Sacramento 060 02.50
041 Jeffrey Nesteruk Franklin & Marshall College 059 05.00
042 Charles M. Horvath – adj U, Massachusetts – Amherst 058 02.00
043 Andrew Brien Massey University 057 03.00
043 Michael Keeley Loyola University – Chicago 057 03.00
045 Harry J. Van Buren, III
– student University of Pittsburgh 056 07.00
045 Diana C. Robertson University of Pennsylvania 056 02.50
047 Susan Key University Alabama at Birmingham 055 04.75
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 363

TABLE II (Continued)

Rank Author name Affiliation No. of No. of

pages articles

048 Jeffe F. Dillard University of New Mexico 054 4.00

048 Gary R. Weaver University of Delaware 054 3.33
048 Alan Strudler University of Pennsylvania 054 3.00
048 Marianne M. Jennings Arizona State University 054 1.50
052 Marc T. Jones University of Auckland 052 2.00
053 Dan R. Dalton Indiana University – Bloomington 051 1.17
054 Gillian Brock University of Auckland 049 4.00
054 Rogene A. Buchholz Loyola University – New Orleans 049 4.00
054 Gael M. McDonald UNITEC Institute of Technology, New Zealand 049 3.00
054 Jane Collier University of Cambridge 049 2.50
054 William S. Laufer University of Pennsylvania 049 2.50
054 James C. Lampe Texas Tech University 049 2.33
054 Bruce S. Ross Attorney 049 1.00
061 S. Prakash Sethi CUNY – Baruch College 048 3.50
061 Donald P. Robins University of Southern Mississippi 048 2.75
061 Edwin M. Epstein Saint Mary’s College of California 048 2.00
061 Robert J. Liubicic Law clerk 048 1.00
065 Cheryl Nakata University of Illinois at Chicago 047 1.00
066 Steven M. Mintz California State University – San Bernardino 046 3.33
066 Norman E. Bowie London Business School 046 3.50
066 Kevin T. Jackson Fordham University 046 3.00
066 Nancy J. King Willamette University – visiting 046 1.00
070 Peter Smith Ring Loyola Marymount University 045 2.00
071 Bryan W. Husted Instituto de Empresa (University Navarra) 044 3.58
071 Richard E. Wokutch Virginia Tech 044 2.50
071 Darryl Reed York University, Toronto 044 2.00
071 Linda Klebe Trevino Penn State University 044 1.92
071 Marie L. Coppolino Fordham University – student 044 1.00
071 Henry M. Ordover Saint Louis University 044 1.00
071 John Entine Writer 044 0.50
071 Michael B. Metzger Indiana University 044 0.50
079 Linda Thorne York University, Canada 043 3.00
079 Fernando L. Flores Business Design Associates 043 1.50
079 Richard P. Nielsen Boston College 043 1.50
082 Thomas F. McMahon Loyola University – Chicago 042 3.00
082 Sara A. Morris Old Dominion University 042 2.75
082 M. Joseph Sirgy Virginia Tech 042 2.50
085 Michael W. Small Curtin Business School 041 3.83
085 Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr. Bucknell University 041 3.00
085 Harry Hummels Nijenrode University 041 3.00
085 Scott J. Vitell, Jr. University of Mississippi 041 2.83
085 Patricia H. Werhane University of Virginia 041 2.50
090 Sandra A. Waddock Boston College 040 3.33
091 Craig Mackenzie Friends Provident 040 3.00
091 John F. Mahon Boston University 040 3.00
091 Richard A. Spinello Boston College 040 3.00
091 Lynn Turner Chief Accountant, SEC 040 3.00
091 Kelly C. Strong Michigan Technological University 040 2.33
091 Jason D. Kaune University California – Hastings (student)
and Harvard (student) 040 1.00
364 Murray Sabrin

TABLE III
Summary by quantity of articles published

Articles published Number of authors Percentage of total authors Cumulative percentage

Less than 1 1248 052.64 052.64

1.00–1.99 0905 038.17 090.81
2.00–2.99 0128 005.40 096.21
3.00–3.99 0054 002.28 098.49
4.00–4.99 0012 000.51 099.00
5.00–5.99 0007 000.29 099.29
6.00–6.99 0008 000.34 099.63
7.00–7.99 0004 000.17 099.80
8.00–8.99 0001 000.04 099.84
9.00–9.99 0002 000.08 099.92
10.00–10.99 0001 000.04 099.96
11 or more 0001 000.04 100.00
Totals 2371 100.00

TABLE IV
Summary by quantity of pages published

Pages published Number of authors Percentage of total authors Cumulative percentage

Less than 10 1430 060.31 060.31

10–19 0569 024.00 084.31
20–29 0206 008.69 093.00
30–39 0070 002.96 095.96
40–49 0043 001.81 097.77
50–59 0013 000.55 098.32
60–69 0011 000.46 098.78
70–79 0009 000.38 099.16
80–89 0007 000.30 099.46
90–99 0004 000.17 099.63
100–109 0001 000.04 099.67
110–119 0001 000.04 099.71
120–129 0004 000.17 099.88
130–139 0000 000.00 099.88
140–149 0002 000.08 099.96
More than 149 0001 000.04 100.00
Totals 2371 100.00

is not until the 70–79-page category that the
number of authors drops to single digits. Only 9
of the 2371 authors published 100 or more pages
over the five-year period. Only one author
published more than 149 pages.
In most cases, the affiliations of the authors
who published articles in the thirteen journals
consulted in this study were given. As the list of
articles was being compiled, the same university
affiliations kept popping up in some cases. Some
universities were represented by multiple authors.
Thus, it was thought that a listing of the uni-
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 365

versities that had the most authors publishing
business ethics articles or the most pages pub-
lished might be of interest.
Table V ranks institutions based on the number
of pages published. It also lists the number of
articles published and the number of individuals
who authored or co-authored at least one article
from the 13 journals examined. Authors were
included if they authored or co-authored at least
one article from one of the thirteen journals
examined and only if the journal listed their
affiliation. Thus, authors who published only in
other journals are not included in these statis-
tics. However, an exception was made for authors
who published nothing in the top thirteen
journals, yet published at least four articles or 40
pages in other journals. In these cases, research
was done to determine their affiliation and their
statistics were included with their institution’s
figures. This approach is biased in favor of uni-
versities that have large faculties, since the larger
the faculty, the more professors (and students)

TABLE V
Institutions ranked by number of pages
(40 page minimum)

Rank Institution Total pages Total articles Number

of authors

001 International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. 652 61.50 01

002 University of Pittsburgh 348 25.25 11
003 Loyola University, Chicago 310 25.00 11
003 Boston College 310 18.67 15
005 University of Pennsylvania 307 19.33 09
006 University of Washington 290 17.00 11
007 University of Texas – Austin 277 18.00 13
008 University of Michigan 274 16.75 05
009 Indiana University – Bloomington 261 11.58 11
010 Georgetown University 236 18.00 09
011 Florida International University 228 14.26 11
012 Saint John’s University 186 17.91 20
013 London Business School 185 23.50 20
014 DePaul University 181 12.66 13
014 Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University 181 11.00 12
016 University of Wisconsin 174 11.00 03
017 Loyola University, New Orleans 173 12.83 03
018 Santa Clara University 171 09.17 04
019 University of Notre Dame 170 12.20 06
020 University of Navarra 168 12.24 06
021 Yeshiva University 167 08.67 03
022 American University 163 05.83 04
023 Curtin University of Technology 160 14.82 14
024 University of Auckland 157 09.50 05
025 Massey University 153 11.00 10
026 University of Saint Thomas – Houston 152 11.00 02
027 Arizona State University 148 08.00 08
028 York University – Toronto 142 10.83 07
029 Texas Tech University 141 07.42 06
029 Bowling Green State University 141 07.25 11
031 City University of Hong Kong 132 07.00 08
032 University of Georgia 131 11.00 13
366 Murray Sabrin

TABLE V (Continued)

Rank Institution Total pages Total articles Number

of authors

033 Harvard University 130 07.20 08

034 City University of New York 129 10.00 08
035 Bentley College 119 11.16 13
036 University of Nevada Las Vegas 117 02.50 05
037 Illinois Institute of Technology 116 07.00 04
038 University of Mississippi 112 07.33 11
039 University of Southern California 110 08.50 04
040 California State Polytechnic University 108 07.50 04
041 University of Virginia 106 08.50 06
042 University of New Mexico 104 06.67 04
043 University of New South Wales 103 08.00 04
044 Kansas State University 101 04.50 02
045 Fordham University 100 05.50 04
045 Washington & Lee University 100 02.25 03
047 University of Southern Mississippi – Hattiesburg 099 06.25 05
047 New York University 099 03.45 05
049 Marquette University 097 06.50 06
049 University of Delaware 097 06.00 06
049 Penn State University 097 05.34 06
052 Portland State University 096 04.67 04
053 Gonzaga University 093 05.50 03
053 University of North Texas 093 05.00 10
055 Fairleigh Dickinson University 092 04.33 02
055 Oregon State University 092 04.00 03
057 Old Dominion University 091 07.41 05
058 California State University – Sacramento 086 04.00 04
059 University of Memphis 082 07.00 12
060 Charles Sturt University 079 05.00 05
060 Western Washington University 079 04.00 04
062 Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles 078 04.33 03
063 Bryant College 077 05.83 11
063 University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth 077 05.37 06
065 Florida State University 076 07.33 12
065 Texas A&M University 076 04.50 08
065 Acton Institute 076 04.00 02
068 University of Cambridge 074 04.50 03
068 Baylor University 074 03.95 09
070 University of Southwest Louisiana 073 06.66 09
070 University of Alabama at Birmingham 073 05.75 03
072 Fairfield University 072 06.00 05
073 University of London 071 06.33 10
073 University of Oklahoma 071 06.00 08
073 University of South Florida 071 05.50 04
073 Carnegie Mellon University 071 04.00 03
077 Suffolk University 070 06.00 07
077 Iona College 070 05.00 09
077 Washington State University 070 04.00 03
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 367

TABLE V (Continued)

Rank Institution Total pages Total articles Number

of authors

077 Australian National University 070 3.00 04

081 Brock University 069 5.42 03
081 Duquesne University 069 5.00 06
081 University of Toronto 069 4.50 06
084 SUNY Plattsburgh 068 3.50 01
085 Creighton University 067 5.25 05
085 University of Colorado – Boulder 067 3.00 07
087 Auburn University 066 5.17 08
087 Rice University 066 2.50 03
089 Twente University 065 5.00 05
089 Nova Southeastern University 065 4.50 04
089 Sheffield Hallam University 065 4.00 05
089 Saint Louis University 065 2.50 03
093 University of New Orleans 64 5.00 10
093 University of Alabama 64 4.83 07
093 University of Kansas 64 3.33 03
096 University of Jyväskyla 63 4.00 05
096 University of Louisville 63 4.00 07
098 University of Richmond 60 4.17 05
098 University of Illinois at Chicago 60 1.50 02
100 Rutgers University – Newark 62 4.33 03
100 Florida Atlantic University 62 1.84 04
102 Western Michigan University 61 7.00 05
102 LaSalle University 61 5.50 04
102 University of Canterbury – New Zealand 61 5.00 04
105 Utah State University 60 4.50 04
105 Saint Mary’s College of California 60 2.70 02
107 Franklin & Marshall College 59 5.00 01
107 UNITEC Institute of Technology, New Zealand 59 3.50 02
109 University of Saskatchewan 58 5.00 06
109 SUNY Binghamton 58 4.00 04
109 University of Massachusetts – Amherst 58 2.00 01
112 Valdosta State University 57 5.33 10
112 University of Copenhagen 57 5.00 07
112 George Washington University 57 4.25 05
112 California State University – San Bernardino 57 3.83 02
112 Rutgers University – Camden 57 3.08 03
117 Hong Kong Polytechnic University 56 4.50 07
118 Appalachian State University 55 5.25 05
118 Grand Valley State University 55 5.00 04
118 University of Calgary 55 4.00 05
121 University of Maryland 54 5.58 08
121 Erasmus University 54 5.00 07
121 Mississippi State University 54 4.17 08
124 University of Central Arkansas 53 5.00 08
124 University of Houston 53 3.92 06
124 Northern Illinois University 53 3.00 07
368 Murray Sabrin

TABLE V (Continued)

Rank Institution Total pages Total articles Number

of authors

124 University of Missouri – Columbia 53 2.67 05

128 Boston University 52 3.33 02
128 Simon Fraser University 52 3.00 04
130 PriceWaterhouse Coopers 51 4.25 04
130 University of Tennessee – Knoxville 51 4.24 07
130 Villanova University 51 3.67 05
130 Louisiana Technological University 51 3.58 05
130 University of Saint Thomas – Minnesota 51 3.50 03
130 Eastern Michigan University 51 1.33 03
136 Washington University – Saint Louis 50 6.00 05
137 University of Detroit Mercy 49 3.00 04
138 Catholic University of Leuven 47 4.00 05
138 National Chengchi University 47 3.00 03
138 University of Missouri – Saint Louis 47 2.00 2
141 Ball State University 46 4.00 3
141 Willamette University 46 1.00 1
143 Chinese University of Hong Kong 45 4.50 4
143 University of North Carolina – Charlotte 45 4.20 6
143 Tel-Aviv University 45 4.17 4
143 Drake University 45 3.50 3
143 Southern Illinois University – Carbondale 45 3.10 6
148 University of the Pacific 44 3.67 8
148 Temple University 44 3.33 3
148 Indiana University Southeast 44 3.00 5
148 University of Newcastle – Australia 44 2.70 6
148 University of Rhode Island 44 2.33 2
148 Lincoln University, New Zealand 44 2.00 4
148 University of Colorado – Denver 44 2.00 3
155 University of Northern British Columbia 43 5.00 3
155 Rollins College 43 2.67 4
157 Niagara University 42 6.00 6
157 New Mexico State University 42 5.25 8
157 University of British Columbia 42 4.00 4
157 Loyola College, Baltimore 42 3.75 6
157 SUNY Albany 42 3.50 4
162 Reitaku University 41 3.50 2
162 Nijenrode University 41 3.00 1
162 McMaster University 41 2.00 2
165 Dartmouth College 40 5.00 4
165 Friends Provident 40 3.00 1
165 Helsinki School of Economics and Business Admin. 40 3.00 2
165 University of Dayton 40 3.00 5
165 Saint Bonaventure University 40 2.50 2
165 Michigan Technological University 40 2.33 1
165 Northwestern University 40 2.33 3
165 Saint Cloud State University 40 1.50 2
165 University of California – Hastings 40 1.00 1
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars
will be likely to publish business ethics articles.
This bias could be overcome by dividing the total
number of pages or articles by the number of
faculty. However, this was not done because it
would be overly burdensome and also would not
be very meaningful.
Statistics for institutions included in Table V
are for all business ethics articles published by an
included author, not just those published in the
thirteen journals examined. For example, if an
author from a particular university published one
article in one of the top thirteen business ethics
journals and four articles in other journals, all
five articles were included in the article and page
counts. But if a faculty member published just
three articles and none of them were published
in any of the top thirteen journals, then none of
them were counted in the institutional ranking.
That is because there is no way of knowing the
affiliation of an author by looking at the various
indexes that listed the articles. It would be
necessary to look at the journal in question to
gather this information and the present study
examined only thirteen journals for purposes of
determining institutional affiliation.
Where various articles listed different affilia-
tions for the same author, an attempt was made
to determine the most recent affiliation. Authors
were classified based on their most recent affili-
ation. In some cases, the author was a student.
These articles were included in the university’s
statistics, since it was thought that universities
should be given credit for encouraging their
students to publish. In some cases, an author was
listed as being a student at one institution and a
faculty member at another institution. In these
cases, the statistics for that individual were
included in the statistics for both universities. In
some cases, an author was an adjunct at more
than one university. Where this was the case, that
person’s statistics were included in the figures for
all universities listed. An institution had to have
a page count of at least 40 to be included in this
list. It was thought that an institution whose
authors published less than 40 pages over the
five-year period is not engaged in serious business
ethics research.
One hundred and seventy-three institutions
made the list. Only one institution (a consulting
369
firm) published more than 350 pages. Only 11
institutions published more than 200 pages
and only 46 published 100 or more pages.
International Business & Technical Consultants,
Inc. ranked #1 with 652 pages. One individual
was responsible for the total page and article
count. The top-ranked institution published
about twice as much as the next two institutions
on the list combined. The top five institutions
on the list published about the same number of
total pages as the next 8 institutions on the list
combined. Three of the top ten schools – Loyola
University of Chicago (3), Boston College (3)
and Georgetown University (10) – are Catholic.
Six more Catholic institutions appear in the next
ten – Saint John’s University (12), DePaul
University (14), Loyola University – New
Orleans (17), Santa Clara University (18), the
University of Notre Dame (19) and the
University of Navarra (20). A Jewish institution
— Yeshiva University – is ranked # 21.
Saint John’s University (12) and the London
Business School (13) each had 20 authors, the
most of any school. If one divides the number
of total pages by the number of authors who are
included in the page count for these institutions,
the result is less than 10 pages per author. If a
similar computation is made for articles per
author for these schools, the figure for Saint
John’s University is slightly less than one article
per author; for the London Business School it is
slightly more than one article per author. None
of the authors at either the London Business
School or Saint John’s University published at
least 4 articles and so did not make the list for
individual author rankings (Table I). Saint John’s
University also did not make the individual
author rankings based on page count (Table II).
A London Business School professor did make
this list at number 66. If one were to make an
analogy to these facts using sports jargon, one
might say that neither of these schools have a star
but they have depth.
Table VI ranks universities based on the
number of articles published, using the same
criteria that were used in Table V. Only those
institutions where their authors published a total
of at least five articles during the five-year period
were included in this list. Again, it was thought
370 Murray Sabrin

TABLE VI
Institutions ranked based on total articles
(5 articles minimum)

Rank Institution Total pages Total articles Number

of authors

001 International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. 61.50 652 01

002 University of Pittsburgh 25.25 348 11
003 Loyola University – Chicago 25.00 310 11
004 London Business School 23.50 185 20
005 University of Pennsylvania 19.33 307 09
006 Boston College 18.67 310 15
007 University of Texas – Austin 18.00 277 13
008 Georgetown University 18.00 236 09
009 Saint John’s University 17.91 186 20
010 University of Washington 17.00 290 11
011 University of Michigan 16.75 274 05
012 Curtin University of Technology 14.82 160 14
013 Florida International University 14.26 228 11
014 Loyola University – New Orleans 12.83 173 03
015 DePaul University 12.66 181 13
016 University of Navarra 12.24 168 06
017 University of Notre Dame 12.20 170 06
018 Indiana University – Bloomington 11.58 261 11
019 Bentley College 11.16 119 13
020 Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University 11.00 181 12
021 University of Wisconsin 11.00 174 03
022 Massey University 11.00 153 10
023 University of Saint Thomas – Houston 11.00 152 02
024 University of Georgia 11.00 131 13
025 York University – Toronto 10.83 142 07
026 City University of New York 10.00 129 08
027 University of Auckland 09.50 157 05
028 Santa Clara University 09.17 171 04
029 Yeshiva University 08.67 167 03
030 University of Southern California 08.50 110 04
031 University of Virginia 08.50 106 06
032 Arizona State University 08.00 148 08
033 University of New South Wales 08.00 103 04
034 California State Polytechnic University 07.50 108 04
035 Texas Tech University 07.42 141 06
036 Old Dominion University 07.41 091 05
037 University of Mississippi 07.33 112 11
038 Florida State University 07.33 076 12
039 Bowling Green State University 07.25 141 11
040 Harvard University 07.20 130 08
041 City University of Hong Kong 07.00 132 08
042 Illinois Institute of Technology 07.00 116 04
043 University of Memphis 07.00 082 12
044 Western Michigan University 07.00 061 05
045 University of New Mexico 06.67 104 04
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 371

TABLE VI (Continued)

Rank Institution Total pages Total articles Number

of authors

046 University of Southwest Louisiana 6.66 073 09

047 Marquette University 6.50 097 06
048 University of London 6.33 071 10
049 University of Southern Mississippi – Hattiesburg 6.25 099 05
050 University of Delaware 6.00 097 06
051 Fairfield University 6.00 072 05
052 University of Oklahoma 6.00 071 08
053 Suffolk University 6.00 070 07
054 Washington University – Saint Louis 6.00 050 05
055 Niagara University 6.00 042 06
056 American University 5.83 163 04
057 Bryant College 5.83 077 11
058 University of Alabama at Birmingham 5.75 073 03
059 University of Maryland 5.58 054 08
060 Fordham University 5.50 100 04
061 Gonzaga University 5.50 093 03
062 University of South Florida 5.50 071 04
063 LaSalle University 5.50 061 04
064 Brock University 5.42 069 03
065 University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth 5.37 077 06
066 Penn State University 5.34 097 06
067 Valdosta State University 5.33 057 10
068 Creighton University 5.25 067 05
069 Appalachian State University 5.25 055 05
070 New Mexico State University 5.25 042 08
071 Auburn University 5.17 066 08
072 University of North Texas 5.00 093 10
073 Charles Sturt University 5.00 079 05
074 Iona College 5.00 070 09
075 Duquesne University 5.00 069 06
076 Twente University 5.00 065 05
077 University of New Orleans 5.00 064 10
078 University of Canterbury – New Zealand 5.00 061 04
079 Franklin & Marshall College 5.00 059 01
080 University of Saskatchewan 5.00 058 06
081 University of Copenhagen 5.00 057 07
082 Grand Valley State University 5.00 055 04
083 Erasmus University 5.00 054 07
084 University of Central Arkansas 5.00 053 08
085 University of Northern British Columbia 5.00 043 03
086 Dartmouth College 5.00 040 04

that any institution whose members did not International Business & Technical Consultants.
publish an average of an article a year is not Inc. ranked #1 with 61.50 articles, which is
engaged in serious business ethics research. slightly more than one per month for the five-
Eighty-six institutions made the list. year period. Four Catholic institutions made the
372 Murray Sabrin
top ten – Loyola University of Chicago (3),
Boston College (6), Georgetown University (8)
and Saint John’s University (9). Four additional
Catholic universities made the second ten –
Loyola University – New Orleans (14), DePaul
University (15), the University of Navarra (16)
and the University of Notre Dame (17).
Table VII compares the U.S. News & World
Report and Business Week business school
rankings to the rankings from Tables V and VI.
The comparison reveals that there are some
striking differences between the institutions that
are engaged in serious business ethics research
and the institutions that received high rankings
for their MBA programs. It should also be
pointed out that the statistics compiled for Tables
V and VI included faculty from throughout the
various universities, not just the university’s
business school, so the numbers in Table VII are
not necessarily indicative of the business ethics
research that is going on in the university’s
business school.
U.S. News & World Report lists the top 50
MBA programs in the United States. Business
Week only ranks the top 30 schools numerically.
The next 20 schools are listed as second tier and
are listed alphabetically. Because there were no
numerical rankings for these schools, the rank
listed in Table VII for second-tier schools was
arbitrarily listed as 31. Business Week also listed
the top 7 foreign schools. These schools are listed
below the top 50 U.S. schools in the table.
There are a number of weaknesses inherent in
any comparison and this study is no exception.
The U.S. News & World Report rankings
excluded foreign (non-U.S.) MBA programs. The
Business Week list included only seven non-U.S.
schools. The statistics compiled for the present
study included many non-U.S. schools, the vast
majority of which are not ranked because non-
U.S. schools were totally ignored in the U.S.
News rankings and were almost totally ignored
in the Business Week rankings. Furthermore, not
all universities conducting business ethics research
have an MBA program. Princeton University, for
example, has a center devoted to ethics research,
but does not have an MBA program or a business
school. However, in spite of these weaknesses,
some insights can be made by looking at the
quantity of business ethics research that is done
at the various “top” and second-tier schools.
Both the U.S. News and the Business Week
rankings place Harvard University’s MBA
program in the top 3. Yet the ranking by pages
(33) and by number of articles published (40)
rank Harvard University as a whole much lower.
Harvard’s ranking would have been even lower
were it not for the fact that a Harvard student
wrote a 40-page law review article on business
ethics. Thus, the Harvard faculty is even less
productive than the statistics would indicate.
Stanford University scored even lower. Not a
single Stanford professor or student was included
in the pool of 2371 authors who authored or
co-authored a business ethics article between
1995 and 1999. Several of the other top MBA
schools also fared poorly in the page and article
count. Some of the top MBA schools that failed
to rank at all in either the page or article category
included the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Columbia University, the University
of Chicago, Duke University, the University of
California at Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, Yale, the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or
Carnegie Mellon University. Northwestern
University, which was ranked in the top 5 by
both U.S. News and Business Week, did not
produce enough articles to be ranked in that
category and ranked a poor 165 in terms of pages
published. Dartmouth ranked a poor 86 in terms
of articles published and a poorer 165 in the
number of pages published. New York University
was unranked in the article category and ranked
47 in page count with 99 pages. However, 78 of
these pages were written by an NYU law school
professor who published one long law review
article on business ethics. NYU’s business school
faculty was not very productive and NYU would
not have been ranked had it not been for its law
professor.
The University of Pennsylvania did much
better than most of the other top MBA schools.
Its Wharton School MBA was ranked in the top
three by both U.S. News and Business Week.
The university’s ranking for both pages and
articles was 5. The University of Michigan was
ranked 9 by U.S. News and 6 by Business Week.
It ranked 8 in terms of pages and 11 in articles.
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 373

TABLE VII
Comparison of MBA program rankings with business ethics research productivity

Institution U.S. News Business week Table V Table VI

(2001 (2000 rankings rankings
ranking) ranking) by number by number
of pages of articles

Harvard University 01 03 033 40

Stanford University 01 11 00– 0–
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 03 01 005 05
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) 04 04 00– 0–
Northwestern University (Kellogg) 05 02 165 0–
Columbia University 06 07 00– 0–
University of Chicago 06 10 00– 0–
Duke University (Fuqua) 08 05 00– 0–
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor 09 06 008 11
University of California – Berkeley (Haas) 10 18 00– 0–
Dartmouth College (Tuck) 11 16 165 86
University of California – Los Angeles (Anderson) 11 12 00– 0–
University of Virginia (Darden) 11 09 041 31
New York University (Stern) 14 13 047 0–
Cornell University (Johnson) 15 08 00– 0–
University of Texas – Austin (McCombs) 16 17 007 07
Yale University 16 19 00– 0–
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill 18 15 00– 0–
Carnegie Mellon University 19 14 073 0–
Indiana University – Bloomington (Kelley) 20 20 009 18
Emory University (Goizueta) 21 28 00– 0–
University of Southern California (Marshall) 22 24 039 30
Purdue University – West Lafayette (Krannert) 23 25 00– 0–
Vanderbilt University (Owen) 24 22 00– 0–
Ohio State University (Fisher) 25 31 00– 0–
University of Rochester (Simon) 25 21 00– 0–
Washington University – St. Louis (Olin) 25 23 136 54
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities (Carlson) 28 31 00– 0–
Georgetown University (McDonough) 29 26 010 08
Michigan State University (Broad) 30 29 00– 0–
University of Arizona (Eller) 31 0– 00– 0–
Arizona State University – Main Campus 32 31 027 32
Tulane University (Freeman) 32 0– 00– 0–
Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) 34 0– 00– 0–
Penn State University – University Park (Smeal) 34 31 049 66
Rice University ( Jones) 34 31 087 0–
Thunderbird Graduate School 34 31 00– 0–
University of Maryland – College Park (Smith) 34 27 121 59
University of Wisconsin–Madison 34 31 016 21
Boston College (Carroll) 40 0– 003 06
University of California – Irvine 40 0– 00– 0–
Brigham Young University (Marriott) 42 0– 00– 0–
Georgia Institute of Technology (DuPree) 42 30 00– 0–
Southern Methodist University (Cox) 42 31 00– 0–
374 Murray Sabrin

TABLE VII (Continued)

Institution U.S. News Business week Table V Table VI

(2001 (2000 rankings rankings
ranking) ranking) by number by number
of pages of articles

Texas A&M University – College Station (Mays) 42 0– 065 0–

University of California – Davis 42 31 00– 0–
Wake Forest University (Babcock) 42 31 00– 0–
University of Georgia (Terry) 48 31 032 24
University of Illinois – Urbana–Champaign 48 31 00– 0–
University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) 48 31 019 17
Babson College (Olin) 0– 31 00– 0–
Boston University 0– 31 128 0–
University of Florida (Warrington) 0– 31 00– 0–
University of Iowa (Tippie) 0– 31 00– 0–
University of Pittsburgh (Katz) 0– 31 002 02
College of William & Mary 0– 31 00– 0–
Foreign Schools
INSEAD (France and Singapore) 0– 01 00– 0–
London Business School 0– 02 013 04
Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE)
[U Navarra] 0– 03 020 16
IMD (Switzerland) 0– 04 0– 0–
University of Western Ontario (Ivey) 0– 05 0– 0–
Erasmus University (Rotterdam) 0– 06 121 83
University of Toronto (Rotman) 0– 07 081 0–
Schools with unranked MBA programs
Loyola University – Chicago 0– 0– 003 03
University of Washington 0– 0– 006 10
Florida International University 0– 0– 011 13
Saint John’s University 0– 0– 012 09
DePaul University 0– 0– 014 15
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University 0– 0– 014 20
Loyola University – New Orleans 0– 0– 017 14
Santa Clara University 0– 0– 018 28
Yeshiva University 0– 0– 021 29
American University 0– 0– 022 56
Curtin University of Technology 0– 0– 023 12
University of Auckland 0– 0– 024 27
Massey University 0– 0– 025 22
University of Saint Thomas – Houston 0– 0– 026 23
York University – Toronto 0– 0– 028 25
Texas Tech University 0– 0– 029 35
Bowling Green State University 0– 0– 029 39
City University of Hong Kong 0– 0– 031 41
City University of New York 0– 0– 034 26
Bentley College 0– 0– 035 19
University of Nevada Las Vegas 0– 0– 036 0–
Illinois Institute of Technology 0– 0– 037 42
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 375

TABLE VII (Continued)

Institution U.S. News Business week Table V Table VI

(2001 (2000 rankings rankings
ranking) ranking) by number by number
of pages of articles

University of Mississippi – – 38 37
California State Polytechnic University – – 40 34
University of New Mexico – – 42 45
University of New South Wales – – 43 33
Kansas State University – – 44 0–
Fordham University – – 45 60
Washington & Lee University – – 45 0–
University of Southern Mississippi – Hattiesburg – – 47 49
Marquette University – – 49 47
University of Delaware – – 49 50
Portland State University – – 52 0–
Gonzaga University – – 53 61
University of North Texas – – 53 72
Fairleigh Dickinson University – – 55 0–
Oregon State University – – 55 0–
Old Dominion University – – 57 36
California State University – Sacramento – – 58 0–
University of Memphis – – 59 43
Charles Sturt University – – 60 73
Western Washington University – – 60 0–
Loyola Marymount University – Los Angeles – – 62 0–
Bryant College – – 63 57
University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth – – 63 65
Florida State University – – 65 38
University of Cambridge – – 68 0–
Baylor University – – 68 0–
University of Southwest Louisiana – – 70 46
University of Alabama at Birmingham – – 70 58
Fairfield University – – 72 51
University of London – – 73 48
University of Oklahoma – – 73 52
University of South Florida – – 73 62
Suffolk University – – 77 53
Iona College – – 77 74
Washington State University – – 77 0–
Australian National University – – 77 0–
Brock University – – 81 64
Duquesne University – – 81 75
SUNY Plattsburgh – – 84 0–
Creighton University – – 85 68
University of Colorado – Boulder – – 85 0–
Auburn University – – 87 71
Twente University – – 89 76
Nova Southeastern University – – 89 0–
Sheffield Hallam University – – 89 0–
376 Murray Sabrin

TABLE VII (Continued)

Institution U.S. News Business week Table V Table VI

(2001 (2000 rankings rankings
ranking) ranking) by number by number
of pages of articles

Saint Louis University – – 089 0–

University of New Orleans – – 093 77
University of Alabama – main campus – – 093 0–
University of Kansas – – 093 0–
University of Jyväskyla – – 096 0–
University of Louisville – – 096 0–
University of Richmond – – 098 0–
University of Illinois at Chicago – – 098 0–
Rutgers University – Newark – – 100 0–
Florida Atlantic University – – 100 0–
Western Michigan University – – 102 44
LaSalle University – – 102 63
University of Canterbury – New Zealand – – 102 78
Utah State University – – 105 0–
Saint Mary’s College of California – – 105 0–
Franklin & Marshall College – – 107 79
UNITEC Institute of Technology – New Zealand – – 107 0–
University of Saskatchewan – – 109 80
SUNY Binghamton – – 109 0–
University of Massachusetts – Amherst – – 109 0–
Valdosta State University – – 112 67
University of Copenhagen – – 112 81
George Washington University – – 112 0–
California State University – San Bernardino – – 112 0–
Rutgers University – Camden – – 112 0–
Hong Kong Polytechnic University – – 117 0–
Appalachian State University – – 118 69
Grand Valley State University – – 118 82
University of Calgary – – 118 0–
Mississippi State University – – 121 0–
University of Central Arkansas – – 124 84
University of Houston – – 124 0–
Northern Illinois University – – 124 0–
Simon Fraser University – – 128 0–
University of Tennessee – Knoxville – – 130 0–
Villanova University – – 130 0–
Louisiana Technological University – – 130 0–
University of Saint Thomas – Minnesota – – 130 0–
Eastern Michigan University – – 130 0–
University of Detroit Mercy – – 137 0–
Catholic University of Leuven – – 138 0–
National Chengchi University – – 138 0–
University of Missouri – Saint Louis – – 138 0–
Ball State University – – 141 0–
Willamette University – – 141 0–
 Ranking the Productivity of Business Ethics Scholars 377

TABLE VII (Continued)

Institution U.S. News Business week Table V Table VI

(2001 (2000 rankings rankings
ranking) ranking) by number by number
of pages of articles

Chinese University of Hong Kong – – 143 0–

University of North Carolina – Charlotte – – 143 0–
Tel-Aviv University – – 143 0–
Drake University – – 143 0–
Southern Illinois University – Carbondale – – 143 0–
University of the Pacific – – 148 0–
Temple University – – 148 0–
Indiana University Southeast – – 148 0–
University of Newcastle – Australia – – 148 0–
University of Rhode Island – – 148 0–
Lincoln University – New Zealand – – 148 0–
University of Colorado – Denver – – 148 0–
University of Northern British Columbia – – 155 85
Rollins College – – 155 0–
Niagara University – – 157 55
New Mexico State University – – 157 70
University of British Columbia – – 157 0–
Loyola College – Baltimore – – 157 0–
SUNY Albany – – 157 0–
Reitaku University – – 162 0–
Nijenrode University – – 162 0–
McMaster University – – 162 0–
Helsinki School of Economics and Business Admin. – – 165 0–
University of Dayton – – 165 0–
Saint Bonaventure University – – 165 0–
Michigan Technological University – – 165 0–
Saint Cloud State University – – 165 0–
University of California – Hastings – – 165 0–

The University of Virginia’s Darden School was
ranked 11 and 9 by U.S. News and Business
Week, respectively, and ranked 41 in terms of
page count and 31 in article count. The
University of Texas at Austin actually ranked
higher in page count (7) and article count (7)
than in the U.S. News (16) and Business Week
(17) rankings. Indiana University at Bloomington
also ranked higher in page count (9) and article
count (18) than in the U.S. News (20) and
Business Week (20) rankings.
Many of the second-tier schools also fared
poorly in terms of page and article count. Many
of them did not even qualify for ranking in either
the page or article category. For those who did
qualify, their page or article ranking was often
much lower than their U.S. News or Business
Week ranking. One notable exception was
Georgetown, which ranked 10 in page count and
8 in articles, compared to 29 by U.S. News and
26 by Business Week.
Many of the schools that had a high page or
article ranking had a low or nonexistent U.S.
News or Business Week ranking. Boston College
was not ranked by Business Week and was ranked
40 by U.S. News, but ranked 3 in terms of page
count and 6 in terms of articles. The University
of Pittsburgh ranked 2 in terms of both articles
378 Murray Sabrin
and pages, but was not ranked by U.S. News and
was classified as a second-tier school by Business
Week. Chicago’s Loyola University has an
unranked MBA program but ranked 3 in both
pages and articles. The University of
Washington’s MBA program is also unranked, yet
the school scored in the top ten in both pages
(6) and articles (10). The MBA programs of
Florida International University, Saint John’s
University and DePaul University are also
unranked, yet these schools all scored in the top
15 in terms of both page count and articles.
Loyola University of New Orleans had an
unranked MBA program but ranked 17 in page
count and 14 in article count
Concluding comments
This study is the first to examine the productivity
of scholars in the field of business ethics. Several
interesting findings were made. For one, the
scholarship in this subfield of business is rather
thin when compared to the scholarship in other
business disciplines. Whereas it is not unusual to
find numerous economics, finance, accounting,
marketing or management professors who publish
three or more articles a year, it is extremely rare
to find a business ethics scholar who publishes
this frequently. Of the 2371 business ethics
scholars who were included in this study, only
one had published an average of three articles a
year, or 15 articles over the five-year period
included in the study. More than half of the
authors published less than a single article during
the entire five-year period.
Another interesting finding is that the “top”
MBA schools were not the ones whose faculties
were doing business ethics research. Most of the
top producing schools had MBA programs that
were either unranked or were ranked relatively
low. It is unclear why this is so. Perhaps it is
because the top schools train their students to
find practical solutions to problems in
accounting, finance, marketing, etc. and ethics
tends to get in the way. Or perhaps ethics, like
religion, is left to the individual to decide for
himself or herself.
It is interesting to speculate as to the effect that
this study will have on business school cur-
riculum and business ethics research in the future.
Perhaps some of the top schools that received
embarrassingly low ratings will encourage their
professors to engage in more business ethics
research. Or perhaps they will recruit professors
from other institutions who ranked high in the
present study. Or perhaps the second-tier and
unranked schools will discourage their professors
from conducting research in business ethics so
that they can be more like the top-tier schools,
which do not expend much in the way of
resources on such research. Time will tell. The
author plans to conduct a follow-up study
annually for the next few years to see whether
the productivity in business ethics scholarship
changes in the years to come.
Note
1
This study ranked European economics institutions
and countries on the basis of publications in 10 core
economics journals between 1991 and 1996. The
London School of Economics, Tel-Aviv University
and Oxford University ranked in the top three. The
top countries were the U.K., France and Israel.
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