Michelle Rene Darnell
Clinical Professor in Management
Director of Center for Ethical Leadership
Director of Honor and Integrity
Dr. Michelle R. Darnell is Tarriff Family Director of the Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, where she also serves as the college’s Honor and Integrity Director and teaches courses in her role as a Clinical Professor in Management. Dr. Darnell’s primary focus is on creating and sustaining practical initiatives that actively engage and bring together University stakeholders with the intent of supporting responsible business activity. With more than 20 years of experience working in higher education, Dr. Darnell has extensive experience teaching courses on Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Organizational Behavior, as well as creating and implementing co-curricular experiential learning activities for students to develop ethical leadership skills. In addition to her work at various universities, Dr. Darnell also has worked as an independent consultant for business and government entities that are looking to resolve ethical issues or provide employee centered workshops on ethical decision making and building ethical organizational cultures.
Education
PDBP in Management, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 2008-01-01 Ph D in Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 2004-01-01 MA in Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 2001-01-01 BA in Biology and Philosophy, The University of San Diego, San Diego, CA, 1998-01-01
Courses Taught
MGMT 451 – Bus Eth and Soc
Advanced examination of social, ethical, legal, economic, equity, environmental, public policy, and political influences on managerial DECISIONS AND STRATEGIES. MGMT 451W Business, Ethics, and Society (3) Focuses on the knowledge, skills, and perspectives that a manager must have in order to deal with the social, legal, ethical, and political demands in society. Ecological, ethical, and public policy dimensions of various managerial decisions are examined.
MGMT 451 – Business, Ethics, and Society
Advanced examination of social, ethical, legal, and economic responsibilities of those who must make and execute challenging business decisions and manage others who do. The course focuses on the knowledge, skills, and perspectives that a leader in business must have in order to navigate the intersection of business, ethics and society. This includes prescriptive frameworks for ethical decision making, an understanding of how people actually make ethical and unethical decisions, strategies for creating and sustaining ethical cultures, and practice addressing real and hypothetical challenges to responsible leadership in business.
MGMT 451W – Bus Eth and Soc (W)
Advanced examination of social, ethical, legal, economic, equity, environmental, public policy, and political influences on managerial DECISIONS AND STRATEGIES. MGMT 451W Business, Ethics, and Society (3) Focuses on the knowledge, skills, and perspectives that a manager must have in order to deal with the social, legal, ethical, and political demands in society. Ecological, ethical, and public policy dimensions of various managerial decisions are examined.
MGMT 451W – Business, Ethics, and Society (W)
MGMT 496 – Indep Studies
MGMT 497 – Special Topics
MGMT 596 – Individual Studies
Selected Publications
Darnell M. R. "Axon Enterprises, Ethics and Exposure to Risk" Sage Business Cases, 2026-01-01
Darnell M. R. "Responsibly Using AI" Smeal Magazine, 2024-12-01
Darnell M. R. "Giving Voice to Values in Higher Education" 2024-10-01
Darnell M. R., Parish N. "Respect, Dialogue, and Innovation: Creating New Ideas and Solutions by Committing to an Ethical Culture" New Leadership Communication - Inspire Your Horizon, 2023-10-01
Darnell M. R., Means T. "Integrity in Business Education" AACSB Insights, 2021-08-01
Darnell J., Darnell M. R., Gopalkrishnan S. "Drivers of National Differences on Corporate Social Responsibility: the role of dominant ethical thought" International Journal of Business and Social Science, vol. 11, 2020-11-01
Darnell J. A., Darnell M. R., Means T. "Resistance is futile: using Team Based Learning (TBL) to teach change and create an Idea Champion collective" American Journal of Management, vol. 17, 2017-01-01
Darnell M. R. "The Pursuit of Happiness" Comparing Kant and Sartre, 2015-01-01
Darnell M. R. "Being-Lost-in-Translation" Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Sartrean Perspective, 2011-01-01
Ricci G., Edison, Darnell M. R. "A New Age of Reason" Religion & Public Life: Volume 36, Morality and Literary Imagination, 2008-01-01
Darnell M. R. "Ethics in the Age of Reason" Sartre Studies International, 2008-01-01
Darnell M. R. "Self in the Theoretical Writings of Sartre and Kant: A Revisionist Study" 2006-01-01
Izzo D., Darnell M. R. "The Dialectics of Spiritual Development in Time Must Have a Stop" Aldous Huxley's Time Must Have a Stop, 2006-01-01
Darnell M. R. "Being-Looked-At: Ontological Grounding for an Ethics in Being and Nothingness" Sartre Studies International, 2004-10-01