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In Memory

Tom Dunfee

Tom Dunfee


THOMAS W. DUNFEE, suddenly on June 2, 2008, of Cherry Hill, age 66. Devoted husband of 40 years to Dorothy (nee Taylor). Loving father of John and his wife Tara, Jennifer Dunfee and her husband Andrew Sharp and Shannon and her husband Ethan Lindbloom; caring grand-father of Taylor, Connor, Cady and Tommy. Thomas was the Joseph Kolodny Professor of Social Responsibility in Business at the Wharton School of Business at the Univ. of PA where he worked for over 30 years. Following is detailed obituary provided by the Wharton School:

Thomas W. Dunfee, Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics died June 2, 2008 at age 66.

Professor Dunfee, the Joseph Kolodny Professor of Social Responsibility, former Vice Dean and Director of the Wharton Undergraduate Division, three-term Chair of the Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, and founding Director of the Wharton Ethics Program and the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research, held the first endowed professorship in social responsibility at a business school in the United States.

Tom Dunfee received international recognition for his tireless, longstanding, and yet successful efforts to bring the study of ethics into management education. His vision for the place of corporate ethics and social responsibility is now convention at business schools around the world. For nearly thirty-five years, Tom Dunfee was also a principal architect of the study of business ethics at Penn. He championed the creation of an ethics program at Wharton, the first research center at a business school in the United States that funds and disseminates ethics research, the integration of Wharton’s Legal Studies faculty and Business Ethics faculty into a single department, and the first doctoral program in business ethics and legal studies at an Ivy League business school. Professor Dunfee’s pioneering work in business ethics built upon his distinguished reputation as a leader in the more traditional field of Legal Studies, as reflected by his service as president of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business in 1990.

Professor Dunfee was one of the foremost scholars in the field of business ethics. A prolific author of scholarly books and articles, Tom Dunfee is known for his work on corporate social initiatives, international business ethics, and the problem of corporate corruption. He receives the most approbation, however, for his path-breaking work "Ties that Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics." (Harvard Business School Press (1999)), with Professor Thomas Donaldson (Wharton). In commenting on their widely-acclaimed theory of social contracts, Professors Donaldson and Dunfee observe that “…the same logic that sanctifies a handshake between two individuals turns out also to sanctify the implicit understandings of economic communities woven throughout the business world. These are the informal but critical agreements—or "social contracts" —that provide the warp and woof of economic life.“

Professor Dunfee’s leadership inspired faculty members from sister disciplines at Penn and elsewhere to pursue careers in business ethics, and countless undergraduate and graduate students to study the normative implications of business transactions, corporations, and markets. With a towering reputation for integrity, sincerity, and decency, and a dedication to leading by personal example, Tom’s colleagues at Wharton, and in schools of management and finance around the world, heard and rallied to his strong call for raising the ethical standards that guide business life.

Tom Dunfee was President of the Society for Business Ethics, a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society of Business, Economics and Ethics, an Advisory Board member of the Business Ethics Institute, and The Business Roundtable. He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, the University of Florida, the University of Newcastle (Australia) and Indiana University.

After receiving his undergraduate degree in economics from Marshall University in 1963, Professor Dunfee attended New York University School of Law where he obtained the J.D. degree (1966) and L.L.M. (1969). He came to Wharton from Ohio State University in 1975.