This concerns whether business ethics is best taught as a subject in its own right alongside other subjects within the business studies curriculum or treated as an aspect to those other subjects: for example, as ethical issues in human resource management, marketing, and so on.

The argument for the latter path of integration is that it not only reflects the fact that there is an ethical aspect to all areas of business but also elevates that aspect to something of central importance by suffusing it throughout the syllabus.

The argument against is that far from elevating the subject, the integrative approach relegates it to an added extra: something that is covered simply by being acknowledged as an issue, no matter how superficial the treatment in practice. Moreover, it can be further argued, in being taught as a component within other subjects, the treatment is almost certainly going to be superficial because there is not then going to be the specialist teaching the subject demands because of the complexity resulting from its involvement with all aspects of business (see issue 2).

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