Ethics is concerned with individual character; it relates to morals and the treating of moral questions. Teaching ethics involves the study and evaluation of the moral consequences of reflective choices of actions among alternatives that are not clear, or that are in conflict with one another. Although it can be debated whether we should teach ethics, the question arises as to wheather accounting educators should take up the challenge and sensitize their students to the ethical issues they will face throughout their professional careers. As an integral part of the first undergraduate programme in accountancy in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic developed a compulsory full-year subject, ethics in accountancy, for its final-year accountancy students. The Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Accountancy course, which was implemented in 1988, was accredited to replace the traditional professional diplomas under the UK model. In 1990 the subject ethics in accountancy was first taught to about 230 final-year students in Hong Kong. This paper reviews the process of developing the subject from its initial from to its present structure. Based on practical experience, the paper addresses the issue 'Can ethics be taught?' and the questions of why, what and how.
[Copyright of Accounting Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639289400000003]

Hong Kong's 150 years of colonisation by the British is a classic example of how globalisation comes into direct contact with a local Chinese culture and creates cultural hybridities. The paper presents a framework for developing a hybrid guidance curriculum, drawing together western traditions of developmental contextualism in guidance and Chinese traditions of Confucian humanism in moral education. The core of the framework is a hybrid self, integrating the individualist and the embedded self. The paper highlights the importance of culture and context in considering school guidance and the 'fluid' and dynamic nature of 'glocalisation' working towards integration.
[Copyright of Globalisation, Societies & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767720500046344]

This paper is a report on an innovative program for teaching business ethics, developed for undergraduate students, at the School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). The paper is an anecdotal account to make the point that in non-Western cultural contexts, figurative rather than scientific language often captures the essence of qualitative phenomena. Besides outlining the challenges that a credible and appropriate curriculum in business ethics must address in post colonial Hong Kong, and the steps that have been taken by the School of Business at HKBU to meet these challenges, the paper will underscore the importance of understanding and making explicit the cultural context(s) that have shaped local business environments and customary business practices, as a basis for effective teaching in business ethics. Hong Kong's unique strategic position in the development of a global economy rests upon the historic interplay of Western and Chinese cultures. The moral and religious values that have shaped Hong Kong's cross-cultural social environment must be regarded as a primary resource for business ethics development. As is documented in this report, HKBU's program, with its distinctive focus on the cultural context, may be of benchmark significance for the development of pedagogically effective curricula in international business ethics.
[Copyright of Journal of Teaching in International Business is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J066v12n02_03 ]

A brief review of the social and educational context of Hong Kong shows that the publication of the General guidelines on moral education in schools in 1981, by the Hong Kong Education Department, marked a milestone in the development of moral education. The Guidelines explicitly asserted moral education as one function of schooling, whilst also formally recognizing the home and the community as two main influences. This paper narrates how three moral sources of influence - namely Confucian-parental, Christian-religious and liberal-civic - have shaped the development of moral education in Hong Kong from 1973 to 2003. It then examines in more detail: parental influence at home - the Confucian moral source in Chinese family; schooling influenced by religious sources - taking Christian schools as an example; and the Independent Commission Against Corruption as an official agency for moral education - a liberal source calling for civic morality. In conclusion, the post-colonial emergence of nationalistic influence in the recently constituted Chinese Special Administrative Region, advocating national identity as the new core value, is traced and the implications for future moral education in Hong Kong are considered.
[Copyright of Journal of Moral Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305724042000315626]

Personal and social education has become an important area of development in education in Hong Kong. Given that much of the literature on personal and social education is Anglo-American or European, what is the influence on the largely Chinese settings in Hong Kong? This paper will examine some of the debates of what constitutes personal and social education. The significance of competing contexts in the development of personal and social education will be analysed in detail. Comparisons will be made between Western and Chinese (especially Confucian) views on personal and social education. Attempts will be made to come up with a notion of personal and social education which is suitable for the Hong Kong context
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050060020020435]