A value-added education

Business schools are forever fine-tuning their brands. Some emphasize strategy, others technology, still others global commerce.

But the new dean of Boston College's Carroll School of Management, long known for finance and accounting, wants to build Carroll's business school program around themes that could prove less lucrative though more enduring: ethics and values.

In a vision document and get-to-know-you meetings with faculty members, Andrew Boynton, who arrived in January, has trumpeted the ''Jesuit values" of developing mind, body, and spirit. His ambition is to instill students with the motivation and compassion to serve others.

''I don't want this Carroll School to be the Carroll School of Money," he said in an interview. ''I don't want it to be just about a trajectory of job titles. It has to be more about your vocation for life."

Boynton, 49, who attended Carroll as an undergraduate, returned to take the helm of a school that had been without a permanent dean for the past year and a half. His challenge is to lead Carroll in a more competitive business school environment, in a local market where it is overshadowed by Harvard Business School and MIT's Sloan School of Management, and in a world where mistrust of corporations is rampant.

Boynton was hired from the prestigious Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he launched and ran the executive MBA program; his résumé leans toward strategy and information technology. But when discussing his priorities for Carroll, he focuses not on improving high-tech or global business studies, but on the importance of research and scholarship, on the centrality of the undergraduate program, and above all on values.

''Our graduates must exemplify the character and values which distinguish Boston College and its Jesuit mission," he wrote in a vision document circulated among Carroll faculty. ''When we are successful, our graduates will make a difference by earning leadership roles in organizations that add value to society far beyond 'shareholder value.' "

Some at Carroll have been surprised that Boynton, a Presbyterian, has emphasized BC's Jesuit philosophy more explicitly than previous Carroll School deans. Boynton said the Jesuit values he cites flow from the intellectual and spiritual traditions of that Catholic order, though he interprets them in a nondenominational way.

Management professor Sandra Waddock, senior research fellow at Carroll's Center for Corporate Citizenship, said faculty members have applauded Boynton's emphasis on ethics at a time when corporate America has been tarnished by high-profile financial abuses.

''There is a distinct orientation toward building responsible leadership, and that's something the school could really tap," she said.

Whether the embracing of values can be a selling point to prospective business school students is less clear. Other business schools have introduced ethics courses and studies of accounting fraud cases in recent years, but have stopped short of weaving ethics into their brands. Of the two business schools that cast the longest shadows in the Boston area, Harvard stresses leadership while MIT's Sloan School emphasizes engineering and technology management.

''Marketing ethics is idealistic and interesting, but it should be secondary to a core competency like finance or accounting," said longtime marketer Larry Weber, chairman of W2 Group in Waltham and a trustee of Wellesley's Babson College, which specializes in entrepreneurship. ''You go to a university to learn. At the end of the day, students deciding between Carroll School and University of Virginia's Darden School will want to know where they can get the best skill sets."

Boynton, who grew up in Basking Ridge, N.J., insisted he won't neglect academic skills. He said new directions in Carroll's curricula will be developed over time with the involvement of faculty. But in putting ethics front and center, he contrasted BC's approach to that of the secular schools he said had added ethics offerings as a fad.

''It's a lot deeper than simply doing a couple of case studies around Enron," he said. ''Our students are going to be captains and lieutenants of their organizations in the very near future. And if they're sitting around the table and they see something wrong, we want them to be able to have the values and the influence to change those things."

Carroll School wasn't among the victims of last week's computer hacking spree by business school applicants seeking early peeks at their admissions files, but Boynton said the incident is disturbing. ''It's easy to do the right thing when everybody's watching," he said of the hacker applicants. ''We want to instill that people need to do the right thing when no one is looking."

Boynton's style is highly enthusiastic. Inviting corporate recruiters to an ''employer appreciation day" this week, he led a teaching session on using teamwork to solve problems and generate ideas. He paced the room, lectured on leadership, showed films on NASA and the IDEO design house, and broke the class into ''buzz" groups.

''What's the effect of this can-do attitude on the team?" he asked rhetorically. ''It motivates, it inspires. . . . Leadership is a contact sport. It's not something that can be done from the 26th floor."

Suzanne Murphy, who graduated from the Carroll School in 1998 and is now director of recruiting for the Strategic Pricing Group consulting firm in Waltham, said the Jesuit philosophy was stressed more at the undergraduate level during her years at BC. ''Carroll School kids are adaptable, and that's critical if you want to put them before clients," she said. ''But I'd like to see more training in negotiating skills."

Boynton has been shuttling this winter between Boston and Lausanne, where his wife and children are remaining for the school year. His international experience was clearly a plus to the Carroll search committee, but its members also endorse his focus on values.

''Andy's approach is that it's not just about learning finance and accounting," said BC trustee and search committee member Peter W. Bell, managing director of the Stowe Capital venture firm in Newton. ''It's about helping you build a moral compass for life."

The reputation of the Carroll School has been rising over the past decade. It placed 42nd on the most recent US News and World Report ranking of business schools. But Boynton professes no interest in worrying about rival schools or in the various rankings of US business schools.

''We're playing golf," he said. ''In golf, we don't worry about what other people are doing. We just try to hit our ball every day. If we were going to play the rankings game, which we're not, it would be a tough road because of great schools like Harvard and MIT Sloan. We're going to do our job, and the rankings will take care of themselves."

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.