The Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN) recently hosted the sixth TransAtlantic Business Ethics Conference (TABEC) “Workshop on Ethics, Corporations and Governance” with the support of the newly formed Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business at the Schulich School of Business, and with financial support from the Schulich School of Business, York University. This was the first time the event will be held in Canada.

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen a parade of moral corporate scandals that have had devastating implications for individuals, organizations, governments and the economy, for example, Enron, Worldcom, and Nortel. Most recently, it is clear that ethical lapses on the part of financial institutions at all levels of the US financial system played a key part in triggering the financial crisis that started in the US and then spread to the financial systems of the industrialized world (Canada being virtually the sole exception).

All these failures have been traced in part at least to failures in corporate governance. How to strengthen corporate governance, and create better transparency and accountability, has as a result become a dominant subject of discussion and debate in government and business.

The goal of the sixth TABEC workshop, October 7-10, 2010 was to bring together a small group of leading North American and European business ethics scholars whose work focuses on corporate governance.

The objectives of this invitational workshop was to:

• Encourage dialogue between North American and European scholars in business ethics on topics of current interest and debate;
• Publish selected papers presented at the conference.

Workshop participants presented a paper on the theme of corporate governance. The proceedings will be published in a book by international publisher Edward Elgar. Wesley Cragg, the workshop organizer, will also guest-edit a special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics on Corporate Governance. Workshop participants will revise their papers to submit to the journal for a peer-review process.

CBERN, lead by Project Director Wesley Cragg, Professor Emeritus, Schulich School of Business, received financial support for this event through the “Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences in Canada” grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

For further details about the workshop please contact Hilary Martin, Research and Outreach Coordinator at hmartin@cbern.ca.