Running head: NATIONAL LUIS UNIVERISTY

Crystal McField
International College of the Cayman Islands
Seminar on Business and Society

Reflection Paper National Louis University

BE 425
LECTURER: Dr. David Marshall
Date: May 18, 2016

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On Wednesday, May 18, 2016, the seminar class of ICCI visited National Luis University
in Chicago Illinois. This was the second outing for the day. The university was fully prepared to
meet and greet the students. The Dean and Associate Dean along with the admissions team and a
few professors were all geared up to introduce and talk about Business and society.
National Louis University was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Harrison. The University
has 7,500 students, 2000 being full-time adult students who work in the daytime and study at
night. The University focuses on excellence, innovation and accessibility through blended
classes. Blended classes were defined as a mixture of online and in class sessions. The main
focus highlighted by Mr. Michael Fontaine, professor of business and ethics was interaction. The
interaction between students and professors is vital to development.
The first presenter, James Nowotarski, assistant professor of college management and
business based his presentation on Ethical Considerations of Emerging Technologies. Professor
Nowotarskis presentation was extremely detailed and innovative, highlighting how large
companies use data to capture and target their audience/ customers.
His main example of how Target a retail chain used customers information based on
items bought in the store to identify pregnant women. They, in turn, developed sales coupons and
mailed them out to unsuspecting expectant mothers. It was fascinating to see how we as a society
can fall prey to these large corporations without even realizing that we are targeted by them
indirectly and directly. Another interesting fact from this presentation was when the professor
asked about browsing for weather conditions in your area and surrounding areas.
The group was amazed after being told that just by browsing for weather conditions you
were being tracked and your data saved in order to send push notifications advertising

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restaurants, shops, and other attractions in the vicinity. This type of advancement in technology
not only questions a business ethical practice but also demonstrates unsafe innovation can be.
The text for this course, Business and society stakeholders, ethics, and public policy highlights
the forces that shape relationships within business. One main force is the explosion of new
technology. Technology is one of the most dramatic and powerful forces affecting business and
society. New innovations harness the imagination to create machines, processes, and software to
address needs, problems, and concerns of society. (Lawrence, A. pg.20)
Professor Nowotarski highlighted many disadvantages society faced by the increasing
presence of technology. Some of the disadvantages were security breaches, privacy breaches,
cyber-crime and displacement of jobs because of technology advancements. But to every
disadvantage, there come many advantages. One main advantage of technological innovation is
that by the end of 2017 more than seventy percent of companies will have digital transformation
as their corporate strategy.
The second presenter Professor Michael Fontaine focused his presentation on ethics
through fiction. His philosophy is if you add the framework and fiction the end result will be
ethical moral behavior. He referred to childhood and how many related to fairytale stories and
applied the concept in real life which resulted in the way we thought and deemed mores and
values. He highlighted the ENRON scandal, Martha Stewart, and Bill Clinton as examples of
people or companies who were accused of unethical behaviors.
One major highlight from this visit showed that ethical behavior according to law is
different from what many believe in. Our ethics is questionable in a court of law or a corporation

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when it is viewed by others as wrong. Many peoples ethics are defined by their environments,
beliefs, and cultures.

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References
Lawrence A.T.,& Weber. J.,(2003).Business and Society: Stakeholders, ethics, public
policy(14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill