In Europe, businesses tend to first see if an action is legal, and then decide if it is socially responsible. In the United States, businesses tend to first ask if their action is legal, and then they stop and assume what is legal is also acceptable. Our future business managers and leaders must ask, “Are my actions ethical? Are my actions socially responsible? Do my actions provide true shareholder value for the long term?”

At the School of Management, ethics are incorporated in all courses for all students in all disciplines. Our professors pose important ethical dilemmas to students, placing them in the shoes of a manager forced to make a difficult decision, in which the short-term bottom line and the long-term financial and social impacts must be considered, and having them discuss what their actions would be.

For many of our students, their first job will pose their first serious challenges in business ethics.  What would you do if you were a young analyst—at Enron? What is your responsibility if your first job is filling out SEC forms—for Bernie Madoff? We want our students to first think about these difficult situations in the classroom.

And think about Wall Street in recent years. In 20/20 hindsight, some argue there was very little that was illegal. Illegal? Perhaps not. Were there poor financial decisions and unreasonable risks? Certainly. But most importantly, were there bad decisions that violated some larger, global ethical responsibility?  You—and history—will be the judge.

Together, business leaders, business schools, and accrediting bodies, need to work to define ethics so that there is one agreed upon standard for all businesses and all business leaders. We cannot define ethics differently in different regions of the world.

And so we count on alumni, and business leaders to help us instill this good behavior in our students and young graduates and to share their professional expertise and experiences with them.

And as a dean of a business school, I will continue to challenge faculty and staff to:

• pose the tough questions to students
• present different points of view objectively, and without bias
• give practical challenges
• challenge our students to navigate their own course in search of answers, knowing that there is sometimes no single “right” solution

It is all of our responsibility to build a community that we are proud to pass on to future generations.

To change the business world, we must all take responsibility and instill responsibility in our students for their actions. So, come join us in this important endeavor!

The theme of this year’s report is Innovation and Business Globalization: The New Business Standard, which came about from the following question I posed:

Is the innovation movement so pervasive that it is the new business standard or are we all just jumping on the bandwagon? How many of us are actually being innovative?

We are fully committed to global business education and innovation as evidenced with this publication by our academic offerings, the quality research of our faculty, and the professional pursuits of our graduates. You may be particularly interested in our new Centers of Excellence on page 4 and the unique faculty research outlined on page 6.

Take a few minutes to explore our 2012 Dean’s Report. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

At the George Mason University School of Management, our vision statement reads:

“We foster a culture of excellence—developing leaders who embrace responsibility and diversity in an increasingly interconnected world.”

We have 85 countries represented by our students and faculty and 63 native languages other than English are spoken. Almost half of our students are women, and 46% of our students are minorities.

Our required global residency programs for graduate students bring to life what textbooks and case studies only talk about. Students no longer just analyze a generic company in a generic location. Our graduate students travel abroad in small groups, experience the global company and its people firsthand, and gain a unique vantage point into the global business world. We make the world our classroom.

In addition to the global residency, our diverse campus community opens our students’ eyes. Our campus environment teaches students to embrace other cultures, to respect others’ viewpoints, and to learn to work within the boundaries of those cultures, both here in the United States and around the globe.

Jimmy Carter once said, “We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”

The School of Management itself is a wonderful reflection of the global workplace. And we are constantly establishing or strengthening our partnerships with academic institutions in countries around the world, including: China, Columbia, Egypt, Germany, South Korea, Peru, Russia, Switzerland, and Turkey. This year, we began discussion or continued discussions on relationships with 74 institutions in 28 countries. These relationships bring us the opportunity to collaborate on research, faculty and student exchanges, and executive education programs, which is vital in today’s global economy.

Together we are a mosaic of knowledge and experiences that form a picture of respect for the cultures of the world.