The Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center is Business Ethics at Wharton

The Center was established in 1997 to study and support private sector responsibility and public accountability; promote thinking and scholarship on business and normative ethics; and provide research assistance to the Center’s many stakeholders.

Research Pillars

Normative Business Ethics

This pillar actively supports Wharton faculty and graduate students, as well as other scholarly partners on research projects that explore ethical issues in business from critical and evaluative perspectives.

Business Ethics & Neuroscience

This program area is composed of three distinct and interrelated streams of business ethics inquiry: i) research on individual differences in the cognitive processes underlying ethical decision-making.

Corporate Governance & Accountability

This third program area of the Zicklin Center explores a host of issues relating to the enforcement of regulations from corporate accountability for political spending to standards of corporate liability and culpability.

Cryptoregulation

This program area focuses on the regulation, self-regulation, and co-regulation of token offerings from a multi-jurisdictional perspective.

Business Development & Innovation

This pillar supports Wharton faculty, graduate students and other scholarly partners undertaking research projects that focus on the new role business can play in development innovation.

Moral Psychology & Business Ethics

This pillar focuses on empirical questions in business ethics, such as: How do individuals and firms make moral decisions that impact the business world? What strategies and reforms can be adopted to increase ethical behavior in organizations? In addition to providing research support to psychologists studying business ethics, the Center also hosts workshops and other speaker events.