Created in 1990, the goal of the Burkenroad Institute is to increase the understanding of and promote through research and education the ethical decision making of business leaders. More and more, one hears of the moral obligations of business leaders to their customers, employees, communities, and the natural environment being discussed in conjunction with traditional "bottom-line" concerns. Increasingly, ethical leadership is not seen as something separate from business leadership. Thus, the demands made on business leaders continue to grow; and, the Institute, through research and education, continues to help meet the challenges of managing ethically. The Institute also fosters open forums among students, faculty, executives, and community leaders on the moral obligations of business professionals.

Annual Symposium on Business and Society

Through the Annual Symposium on Business and Society, the Institute's objective is to focus attention on the corporate social responsibilities of business leaders, as well as to stimulate thought among students, faculty, executives, and community leaders concerning some of the difficult issues that face today's managers. National experts in business, education, journalism, and policy-making participate in this annual conference. Free and open to all, the Symposium's purpose is to inspire the leadership of New Orleans, in both the public and private sectors, to envision a positive, productive, and prosperous future for the City.

Past Symposium participants include: Dr. Cornel West (Harvard University), Professor Stephen L. Carter (Yale University), Kurt Eichenwald (The New York Times), Ward Connerly (chairman, American Civil Rights Institute), Professor Faye Crosby (University of California at Santa Cruz), William H. Gray (President & CEO, United Negro College Fund), Drs. Michael E. Porter and William Julius Wilson (Harvard University), and Johnathan Kozol (National Book Award winning author).

Topics such as "Lying in Business"; "Managing Diversity: Where Are All the Women?"; "Race Matters in the Workplace"; "Truth in Advertising: Fact or Fiction?"; "Affirmative Action: Who Deserves Opportunity?"; "Urban Poverty: What Can Business Really Do?"; "Building Alliances: Education and Business"; and "Social Entrepreneurship: One Idea Can Change the World" have been addressed in past Symposia.

Director

Adrienne Colella, the James W. McFarland Distinguished Chair in Business, has served as a professor of organizational behavior at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business since July 2005. Prior to joining the Freeman School, she served as associate professor of organizational behavior at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School and as assistant professor of organizational behavior in the Department of Management at Rutgers University. She received her PhD in industrial/organizational psychology from The Ohio State University. Professor Colella is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and the American Psychological Association. She is currently the President-elect of SIOP.

Professor Colella's research focuses on treatment issues regarding persons with disabilities in the workplace, workplace accommodation, and employment discrimination. Professor Colella has also published on the topics of pay secrecy, organizational entry, newcomer socialization, goal setting, utility analysis, and biographical data testing. Her research appears in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Review, Journal of Applied Social Psychology and the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation among other places. She is the editor of a SIOP Frontiers Series book on the psychology of workplace discrimination. She is also the co-author of an organizational behavior textbook.

Her research on disability in the workplace was funded for four years by the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council. She has also received grants and contracts from a variety of sources including the Army Research Institute, the Navy Personnel R&D Center, Rutgers University and Texas A&M University.