The Role of Universities in the Provision of Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics Teaching in the Agricultural Sector

Previous studies such as Cornelius et al. (2007) have focused on the role of business schools in equipping their students with an understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ethical reasoning skills. This study appears to be the first look at CSR and ethics teaching specifically within the agricultural sector. Given agricultures direct link between economics and the environment (Diebel 2008) and the public’s growing perception that business is harming the environment (Porter and Kramer 2011) this study provides a timely insight into CSR and ethics teaching within agricultural education. By means of a content analysis of syllabuses from the top agricultural institutions in four English speaking countries-Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA this study has highlighted that despite the policy and cultural differences between countries that the level of CSR and ethics teaching in each of the countries does not significantly differ (P>0.05). Furthermore and surprisingly, institutional ranking was also not found to have a significant effect (P>0.05) on CSR and ethics teaching provision. This has important implications for academia, industry and the public alike.