Ethics in Entrepreneurship
Imagine a future where every student of innovation & entrepreneurship is equipped to brave ethical complexity.
Where every student is trained in responsible tech innovation.
Where every leader has developed their personal principles.
STVP is committed to elevating applied ethics in entrepreneurship. We produce world-class teaching materials and research that empower students and enterprises to adopt effective values and principles and utilize them as founders and leaders.
Our Approach
STVP’s Ethics in Entrepreneurship project sets a new standard for entrepreneurship education and research by placing applied ethics at the core. Our approach:
- Decision-making: Teach entrepreneurs to navigate real-world scenarios with principles and values.
- Competitive strategy: Make principled entrepreneurship core and authentic in all ventures.
- Purpose: Inspire and empower engineers and technologists to build and scale responsible technologies.
- Impact: Encourage mission-driven enterprises that embrace non-financial as well as financial KPIs.
The Challenge
Entrepreneurs shape every aspect of our lives. The effects of breakthrough technologies and disruptive enterprises cut across industries, institutions and academic disciplines. Traditionally, entrepreneurship education and research has made ethics an afterthought, at best. The next generation requires a robust toolkit for creating and scaling technology solutions.
The Opportunity
Join us in propelling a new era of entrepreneurship education and research! We aim to:
- Help entrepreneurially-minded students develop their own principles and values.
- Research the link between principles and company performance.
- Become a beacon of principled entrepreneurship.
Change is possible. We’ve seen it happen. STVP has advanced entrepreneurship education through collaborations with educators around the globe for more than 25 years. Learn more about this pivotal moment in entrepreneurship education and research.
Team
Xfund Ethics Fellows
Xfund Ethics Fellows, formerly PEAK Fellows, is an opportunity for Stanford undergraduate and co-term students to explore what it means to develop guiding values and principles in the context of entrepreneurial businesses. It will place students who are working in technology ventures into cohorts of eight fellow students. Through readings and bi-weekly meetings, each student will define a set of principles that resonates with them. These principles will be designed to guide fellows in the future as they shape teams and seek to align their career decisions with their values. The Xfund Ethics Fellows will come away with a heightened understanding of their own values, a close-knit community of peers, and the tools necessary to brave ethical dilemmas in the future.
Courses
Principled Entrepreneurial Decisions
This course (ENGR 148/248) examines how leaders tackle significant inflection points that occur in high-growth entrepreneurial companies. Students learn to develop principles as a powerful tool to face tough situations they will encounter in their lives and career. Cases and guest speakers discuss the business rationale for decisions taken and how their principles affected those decisions. A capstone project provides frameworks for students to develop their own set of principles.
Select “Purposeful Entrepreneurship” for ethics-specific courses.
Resources
| Articles | |
|---|---|
| Stanford eCorner | Teaching Principled Entrepreneurship |
| Stanford eCorner | The Student Role in Shaping Entrepreneurial Ethics |
| National Academy of Engineering (NAE) | Empowering Future Engineers with Ethical Thinking (featured in The Bridge: 50th Anniversary Edition) |
| Harvard Business Review | The Era of “Move Fast and Break Things” Is Over |
| Harvard Business Review | Entrepreneurs and the Truth |
| Harvard Business Review | It’s Time to Define Your Company’s Principles |
| Academy of Management Insights | Facing an Ethical Dilemma? Try This Approach |
| Stanford Insights | Are You an Ethical Leader? |
| NYU Entrepreneurial Institute | Ethical Entrepreneurship in Education |
| VentureWell | 4 Strategies to Integrate Ethics into Entrepreneurship Education |
| Videos & Podcasts | |
|---|---|
| Stanford eCorner | Stanford Innovation Lab: The Entrepreneurship & Ethics Podcast |
| Stanford eCorner | Podcast: Infusing Decisions with Principles |
| Stanford Engineering | The Future of Everything Podcast: Riitta Katila: How diversity drives innovation |
| Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship | Making the Ethical Decision (Video & Podcast) |
| Harvard Business Review | Developing Principled Decision Makers |
| Technology and Innovation Management | Panel Discussion: Responsible and Ethical Innovation |
| Applied Ethics Projects |
|---|
| Stanford Ethics, Society and Technology Hub, a presidential initiative at Stanford University |
| Center for Engineering Ethics and Society, a project of the National Academy of Engineering |
| Ethics Unwrapped, a project from McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin |
| Ethics in Entrepreneurship, non-profit founded by the Theranos whistleblowers |
| National Ethics Project, a project from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University |
| Technology Ethics, a key focus area at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University |
Listen to The Podcast Stanford Innovation Lab: Entrepreneurship & Ethics
Watch the Playlist 8 Videos for Educators To Use In Courses
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following individuals for their support of STVP’s ethics initiative.
Puneet Agarwal
Sumir Chadra
Jason Cheng
Chi-Hua Chien
Brandon Farwell
Stephanie Hannon
Mar Hershenson
Laura Holmes
Will Hsu
Emily Ma
Andy Miller
Corey Mulloy
Discover entrepreneurial learning opportunities at Stanford with our monthly newsletter!
