Using porridge to teach business ethics: Reflections on a visit to Scotland's most notorious prison and some thoughts on the importance of location in teaching business ethics

For the first time in the history of undergraduate accounting education in Scotland a group of 44 accounting students from the Department of Accounting and Finance at Glasgow University participated in a course specifically devoted to the study of accounting ethics and the development of ethical sensitivity. Film, poetry, role-play and real life cases were used to try and develop students' emotional engagement with accounting and business ethics. Amongst other things, students participated in a role-play of what might have happened if Robert Maxwell had been resuscitated and had to face the pensioners he defrauded; they watched the movie Wall Street; and they participated in a seminar on Thalidomide conducted by Simone Baker from the UK Thalidomide Society, herself severely affected by the drug. However, for the majority of students, a visit to Barlinnie, Scotland's most notorious prison, proved to be one of the most challenging and effective parts of the course. This paper draws on the students' reflections on the visit to argue that this kind of experiential learning may be an effective way of encouraging students to engage with business ethics issues and of developing their ethical sensitivity. The paper develops this argument and suggests that the location where accounting and business ethics education takes place in particular, might be a crucial element in the effectiveness of ethics courses.