Kenneth Goodpaster Papers

Kenneth E. Goodpaster received a BA in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan.  He taught undergraduate and graduate philosophy at the University of Notre Dame from 1973 - 1980.  In 1980, he joined the Harvard Business School faculty where he taught both M.B.A. candidates and executives and developed the second-year elective course, Ethical Aspects of Corporate Policy, as well as the first-year required module, Managerial Decision Making and Ethical Values (1989).

In September 1989, he was named the first David and Barbara Koch Chair in Business Ethics at the University of St. Thomas.  At St. Thomas, he taught in the undergraduate, M.B.A. and executive educational programs and worked to further the integrate ethics into the curricula of the business programs. He retired and stepped down from the Koch chair in 2014 and was named professor emeritus.

Goodpaster’s research spanned a wide range of topics, from conceptual studies of ethical reasoning to empirical studies of the social implications of management decision making. He was the author and editor of numerous books, textbooks, case studies and journal articles during his career including Conscience and Corporate Culture(Wiley Blackwell, 2006), Business Ethics: Policies and Persons (McGraw-Hill, 2006) and Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience (Cambridge University Press, 2012).