Curriculum

Giving Voice to Values is a cross-disciplinary business curriculum and an action-oriented approach to developing the skills, knowledge and commitment required for values-based leadership.

The Giving Voice to Values Curriculum is available from the University of Virginia Darden Business Publishing, much of it for free. Teaching notes and B-cases are available to registered and approved faculty members. For access, faculty can contact Mary Gentile.

The Giving Voice to Values Annotated Table of Contents lists the current exercises, short cases, readings, teaching notes, annotated bibliographies in the curriculum and suggests possible course placement. Sign up for our newsletter to find out about new materials.

Ethical Leadership through Giving Voice to Values offers an introduction to GVV for corporate users, educators, students and individual learners. It’s a 4-week online MOOC developed by University of Virginia Darden School of Business in partnership with Coursera and launches monthly.

Voicing Values introduces GVV’s core concepts and methods in a series of five interactive online course modules from Nomadic Learning. The complete series also includes brief cases, as well as opportunities to practice applying GVV methodologies and engage in peer exchange. These modules are short, customizable and illustrated with engaging animations and powerful video segments. For more information, contact Mary Gentile.

Specialized Curriculums

  • Giving Voice to Values for Engineering Ethics is a four-part course, made available for free to Engineering faculty and students by the Science and Technology Online Ethics Center. The UVA Engineering School has officially made this course a requirement for all undergraduates. It features GVV as a core element, and was successfully piloted at the University of Virginia School of Engineering in the Fall of 2021 by Professor Rosalyn Berne with Mary Gentile.
  • A GVV online program for finance students and faculty based on the Nomadic.fm course modules is available from the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute Ethics Learning Lab. The five modules last 30 minutes each, include videos, quizzes and discussion prompts, and allow students to share comments and track progress on a leaderboard, with an option to set up private cohorts. If you’re interested in adding this program to your Finance curriculum, please email ethicstraining@cfainstitute.com.
  • A GVV onine program for human resources professionals based on the Nomadic.fm course modules is available from the Josh Bersin Academy and Nomadic Academy.

GVV is also featured in these curricular programs and materials:

  • GVV is now a part of the leadership curriculum (LEAD@Lahey) at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell Chan Medical School in collaboration with Beth Israel Lahey Healthcare (2024).
  • GVV has been incorporated into Training for Police in Victoria Police, Melbourne, Australia (2024).
  • University of Ghana Business School has joined the GVV-Africa Program to strengthen ethics-based curriculum (February 2024).
  • Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), an initiative supported by the United Nations, and Giving Voice to Values are forming a systemic collaboration to transform responsible management education and maximize impact. The collaboration adds value to PRME through synergies in pedagogy and praxis with GVV and the Impactful Five (i5) program. The collaboration adds value to Giving Voice to Values by enabling GVV to align itself with the i5 pedagogy and provide access to the PRME network. (Launched in 2024)
  • An Ethical Leadership Network Collaborative Course based on Giving Voice to Values will be taught across four universities around the world in 2024: Bard College, BRAC University, Ashesi University and Universidad de los Andes. Please click here to learn more. (Launched in 2024)
  • Select GVV Tech Ethics cases are available with the GVV curriculum at http://store.darden.virginia.edu/giving-voice-to-values or under the “Curriculum” tab at www.GivingVoicetoValues.org. Teaching notes and B cases are available to registered and approved faculty members. Register at https://store.darden.virginia.edu/login. Thanks to The Deloitte Foundation for their support. (2024)
  • The Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI) is convening a working group of ECI members from the ethics and compliance community of practice to produce a ground-breaking white paper on the principles of successfully implementing, embedding, and sustaining GVV programs in organizations. The white paper will be published in conjunction with a webinar to be held in Fall 2024, and made available to both ECI members and, on a complimentary basis, to individuals from the broader GVV community who indicate interest and are in attendance. To learn more about ECI membership or to receive updates on the final work product and the webinar, send an email to membership@ethics.org.
  • GVV Africa is a self-paced, interactive online course that brings together the concepts and pedagogy of Giving Voice to Values with content and cases involving value conflicts faced by private, public, and education sector professionals across Africa. Participants learn from leaders and professionals who have found creative and effective ways to speak up and act on their values in the African context. GVV Africa was developed by The Education Collaborative at Ashesi University in Ghana. Dr Mary Gentile was an advisor on the project. To join the course as an individual or a team, contact gvvafricaadmin@ashesi.edu.gh. (Launched in 2023)
  • Monark’s Leadership App includes the Ethics and Integrity learning path, which features Mary Gentile and GVV. This learning path equips leaders to navigate a dangerous new era of ethical and reputational risk – one that is magnified by the increased demand for transparency, fast transfer of information and the pervasiveness of social media. (Launched in 2022)
  • The Ethical Newsroom Leadership curriculum is available from the Center for Ethical Leadership in Media at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media, and UT at Austin’s Communication and Leadership program. It’s an open-source curriculum for sustaining healthy, equitable newsrooms, and was designed by educators, researchers, journalists and students to train the next generation of communication leaders. (Launched in 2022)
  • Giving Voice to Values is an Executive Education program at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. (Launched in 2022)
  • Aspen Ethical Leadership Program in Healthcare is offered each fall. (Launched in 2021)
  • The GVV Curriculum Project for Engineering, Nursing and Social Care is offered by Ireland’s Munster Technological University. For more information, contact Mary Gentile. (Launched in 2021)
  • GVV for Health and Safety Professionals is a customized version of the GVV MOOC offered by the Australian Institute of Health and Safety. (Launched in 2021)
  • The Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics offers pedagogy and curriculum featuring GVV.
  • “Leading and Flourishing in Difficult Times“ is a free course from the Oxford Character Project. (Launched in 2020)
  • “The Integrity Digital Learning Module” is a free course developed by Dr. Abiola Makinwa, Senior Comenius Fellow, with support from the Dutch Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijsonderzoek (NRO) and The Hague University of Applied Sciences. (Launched in 2020)
  • “Integrity and Ethics University Module Series“ is a series of 14 course modules developed by the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). (Launched in 2018)
  • The GFOA (Government Financial Officers Association) is using GVV in professional development programming in the US and Canada.
  • KPMG LLC (U.S) has integrated GVV into its Ethics and Integrity curriculum for KPMG partners and employees. The company also offers an introduction to GVV for KPMG Business School facilitators.
  • Professional Ethics at MTU: Giving Voice to Values in an Irish Context was a year-long faculty and curriculum development program at Munster Technological University in Ireland in 2022.

Faculty Testimonials

Mary Gentile documents a fascinating tool to help us to be as ethical as we strive to be. She highlights that rehearsing for ethically challenging situations may allow us to develop a response more in line with our ethical preferences than the knee jerk responses that have led so many to make the wrong choice in important situations. The ideas in the book are clever, original, thoughtful and important.

Max H. Bazerman, Straus Professor, Harvard Business School

Mary Gentile has responded to the cries of business and business school critics by shifting our attention from debating right vs wrong and right vs right to acting on the questions these dilemmas raise. The most significant contribution to business ethics I have experienced in my professional career, Giving Voice to Values is destined to shape the behavior of future generations.

Leonard A. Schlesinger, President, Babson College

I can think of no better way to take ‘ethics’ out of the realm of pure philosophical discussion. Giving Voice to Values identifies what’s stopping us from acting on the values we feel strongly about. It gives us the tools, the courage and the understanding to be our better self in even the stickiest business situation.

Ira Millstein, Senior Partner, Weil Gotshal, Manges, Senior Associate Dean for Corporate Governance and the Eugene F. Williams, Jr. Visiting Professor for Competitive Enterprise and Strategy, Yale School of Management

Giving Voice to Values promises to be a major step forward in enabling people to deal effectively with the inevitable challenges to their integrity and ethical values – challenges they will face in both their working and personal lives.

Michael C. Jensen, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Giving Voice to Values is exactly what we need to help us all to take action…We know that “knowing” does not lead to “doing.”  This initiative empowers us to speak through our actions.

Carolyn Woo, Martin J. Gillen Dean, Ray and Milann Siegfried Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies, Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business

Nobody can dictate or preach to a successful entrepreneur; their best teacher is their heart, full of wisdom from street-fight experience. All they need is to crystallize their internal values through a process of external expression. Giving Voice to Values is doing just that and that is exactly what China needs. Launching GVV in China will be a striking success and it will be critical to China’s continued success.

Dr. Morley C. Su, President of Millennium Capital Services, a leading Climate Change solutions provider in China, Ph. D in Business Ethics Education

Giving Voice to Values? Certainly a breakthrough in the teaching of business ethics, possibly a landmark in educating to responsibility and certainly a powerful (and attractive) learning vehicle at a time when leading business schools are, at last, rethinking their curriculum. We all know how challenging is the teaching of ethics, particularly in business schools (and in China possibly more than anywhere!). Mary C. Gentile’s work proposes an original way to illustrate that beyond our teaching of the value of values we need to find ways to engage into the critical step to make them explicit. Then, we, organizations and the world might be on the path to become better.

Henri-Claude de Bettignies, Distinguished Professor of Globally Responsible Leadership, China-Europe International School of Business (CEIBS), The Aviva Chair Emeritus Professor of Leadership & Responsibility, INSEAD