Creativity and morality are key attributes that stakeholders demand of organizations. Accordingly, higher education institutions and professional training programs also seek to cultivate these attributes in future leaders. However, research has hitherto shown that, under certain conditions, creativity may conflict with morality. This complicates the development of creative individuals who are also moral. We examined the complex relationship between creativity and moral reasoning with data collected from a group of undergraduate students. By considering the cognitive processes behind creativity and moral (...) reasoning, we propose perspective taking as a moderating factor. Specifically, we found that while creative individuals might not necessarily adopt a lower level of moral reasoning, there was a more nuanced moderating relationship among creativity, perspective taking, and moral reasoning. That is, individuals who were weak in perspective taking tended to adopt a lower level of moral reasoning if they were also creative. Perspective taking was also directly and positively associated with moral reasoning. We explore the implications of our findings for future research and curriculum/program design. (shrink)

In the midst of recent ethical decision-making failures in business in the past ten or more years, businesses are beginning to prioritize the moral fiber of their new-hire business graduates. In addition to academic performance, intellectual drive, and personality match, perhaps there are other key characteristics that employers seek which speak to the importance of ethical decision makers in practice. The question remains, how can academic institutions help instill such values into their students so that ethical decision making transcends their (...) lives? This article suggests that experiential learning through an institutional-sponsored business forum can help enhance an individual’s self-efficacy and awareness of the school’s value-based education, which ultimately will lead students towards ethical decision making in practice. Five years of survey data collected at business forum events suggests that business forums are making a difference in the students’ self-assessed abilities to show greater self-efficacy, better ethical decision making, and an increased awareness of their institution’s value-based education. Specifically, data collected illustrate a mediating effect of self-efficacy and awareness of a value-based education en route to ethical decision making. Further, support is found for the primary hypothesis that attendance at business forums does result in a higher propensity to make ethical decisions. Because of these positive findings, higher education institutions looking to place a greater emphasis on the ethical leadership of their business students may want to explore adding such experiential learning programs. (shrink)

We examine the impact of an ethics education program on reporting behavior using two groups of students: fourth year Masters of Accounting students who just completed a newly instituted ethics education program, and fifth year students in the same program who did not receive the ethics program. In an experiment providing both the opportunity and motivation to misreport for more money, we design two social condition treatments – anonymity and public disclosure – to examine whether or to what extent ethical (...) values are internalized by students. We find that when participants are anonymous, misreporting rates are nearly the same regardless of ethics program participation. However, when their reporting behavior is made public to the cohort, participants who completed the ethics program misreported at significantly lower rates than those who did not receive the ethics program. The results suggest that ethics education does not necessarily result in internalized ethical values, but it can impact ethical behavior. (shrink)

This study investigates the impact of Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions on individuals holding Certified Public Accountant accreditation. While prior research has investigated both the characteristics of companies that have been investigated by the SEC and litigation against audit firms, it has not addressed the ways in which SEC investigations impact CPAs. Using a sample of 262 CPAs, we find that the most common CPA breach was associated with overstating revenues/income or earnings. The study finds serious consequences for CPAs (...) in terms of employment restrictions and SEC actions, incorporating suspension, which is often permanent. We find that the primary factors relating to the severity of actions by the SEC is whether the CPA intentionally breached the professional code of conduct, the age of the CPA, whether the CPA is still a member of the AICPA with CPA status and whether the CPA was operating as an external auditor or in a corporate accounting role. Our findings have implications for accounting practitioners, the AICPA and boards of directors. (shrink)

This paper examines undergraduate business students' perception of corporate social responsibility in cases in which they have not attended any specific course either dealing with CSR or providing training in ethics. A survey was conducted of 535 Spanish business students as future managers. The results show that the stakeholders' perspective deserves a huge attention for those students considering what the keys of business success are. Significant differences in perception were nevertheless identified when a multifactorial analysis was undertaken. Female students are (...) more concerned about CSR issues. The maximization of value for shareholders is less valued by second- and third-year students than by first-year ones. The findings point to a number of important orientations for the future development of university curriculum. (shrink)

Increasing university students’ engagement with ethics is becoming a prominent call to action for higher education institutions, particularly professional schools like business and engineering. This paper provides an examination of student attitudes regarding ethics and their perceptions of ethics coverage in the curriculum at one institution. A particular focus is the comparison between results in the business college, which has incorporated ethics in the curriculum and has been involved in ethics education for a longer period, with the engineering college, which (...) is in the nascent stages of developing ethics education in its courses. Results show that student attitudes and perceptions are related to the curriculum. In addition, results indicate that it might be useful for engineering faculty to use business faculty as resources in the development of their ethics curricula. (shrink)

Ethics is increasingly viewed to be an important component of business education. However, assessment of the ethics component of business education has not received the same degree of examination as has assessment of the functional areas. Instead, ethics education is often simply assumed to be effective. Is it? The objective of this study is to begin to explore this question by examining the effects of the integration of ethics into a functional area of business education, specifically a management principles course. (...) The results raise questions about the effectiveness of integrating ethics across the business curriculum. (shrink)

At the centre of responsible management (RM) learning is the development of managerial competence for ethics, responsibility, and sustainability (ERS). Important contributions have been made from each: the ethics, responsibility, and sustainability disciplines. However, we are yet to integrate these disciplinary contributions into a comprehensive interdisciplinary RM competence framework that corresponds to the interdisciplinary nature of RM challenges. We address this priority in this paper and report on the findings of an integrative structured literature review of 224 management competence articles (...) across the ERS disciplines. Our thematic template analysis has produced an interdisciplinary RM competence framework of three layers of personal, behavioural, and intellectual competences and independent and interdependent competence dimensions. The resulting 3 × 2 competence matrix framework accommodates 33 interdisciplinary ERS competence themes and 90 subthemes in the six competence domains of _being_ and _becoming_, _acting_ and _interacting_, _knowing_ and _thinking_. To the RM discussion, we contribute an interdisciplinary competence framework that enables the development of responsible managers who tackle the inherently interdisciplinary issues of RM. To the competence discussion, we contribute the interdependent competence dimension and future research directions through the lens of response-ability. _JBE Section:_ Business Ethics Learning and Education. (shrink)

This study involved using a mixed method research design to examine the moral philosophy difference between the ethical decision-making process of CEOs in U.S.-led and non-U.S.-led within the luxury goods industry. The study employed a MANOVA to compare the ethical profiles between the two leader types and a phenomenological qualitative process to locate themes that give indication as to the compatibility of the luxury strategy values and practices with the principles and concepts of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism. As the (...) luxury goods industry is facing the first slowdown since 2000, pressure to achieve sales targets in the U.S. to make up for losses in other markets will place these CEOs under extreme pressure from their headquarters. These leaders must possess the ethical decision-making capability to balance legal and moral dilemmas unique to multinational luxury goods organizations while delivering business results in a challenging environment. Results of the study show no evidence of difference in the ethical decision-making profiles between the two groups of leaders. The themes and emergent findings resulting from the qualitative analysis indicate a profound incompatibility between the values informing decision-makers using the luxury strategy and those employed by leaders operating within the principles and parameters of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism. Recommendations for future research include replicating the study with a larger sample, within a different geographic region or comparing leaders using the luxury strategy to those using conscious capitalism. (shrink)

This study investigates the effectiveness of pedagogical practices used to teach business ethics. The business community has greatly increased its demands for better ethics education in business programs. Educators have generally agreed that the ethical principles of business people have declined. It is important, then, to examine how common methods of instruction used in business ethics could contribute to the development of higher levels of moral judgment competence for students. To determine the effectiveness of these methods, moral judgment competence levels (...) for undergraduate and graduate students from three institutions were measured and compared based upon the pedagogical method used in a business class. Significant differences were found for moral reasoning and moral competence scores depending on the method used for ethics instruction. Students in classes with more highly integrated ethics coverage scored higher in moral reasoning and moral competence. (shrink)

Studies have shown ethics education has not systematically improved the moral reasoning of business students and professionals and, therefore, its effectiveness should be seen as deeply questionable. Business ethics education has limited effect, in part, because it rests on rationalistic traditions within normative ethics, business theory, and cognitive psychology. Emphasis is usually placed on student’s rationally thinking about issues as a way of improving their critical analysis and reasoning skills. Yet by focusing primarily on its cognitive dimension, ethics education has (...) tended to underdetermine the importance of social interaction in moral development. As an alternative to traditional business ethics education, using the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, I argue, that peer influence through a dialogical process is a better way to enhance and improve the moral reasoning and judgement of individuals. More specifically, small-group dialogue with peers encourages deep reflection about business dilemmas and has a direct influence on how one thinks about ethics. (shrink)

The proposed adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the United States has ignited a debate as to whether the principles‐based nature of these standards better serves the interests of investors. While it is argued that these principled‐based standards will encourage more transparent financial reporting than the current rules‐based U.S. standards, critics argue that IFRS will invite more aggressive financial reporting through the liberal exercising of professional judgment. This empirical study aims to understand what individual and organizational factors may (...) affect aggressiveness when making accounting judgments. In particular, we examine the influence that prior ethics training, codes of ethics and an individual's predominant moral reasoning schema have on adherence to company policy in an accounting‐related (depreciation) judgment. Results of the study show that respondents with prior ethics training are more likely to adhere to company accounting policy than those who have not had formal ethics education. Respondents presented with a company ethics code also were less aggressive in their accounting judgments than those who were not presented with a code prior to reading the scenario. Finally, decision aggressiveness was moderated by individuals who used conventional moral reasoning schemas. (shrink)

Ethical maturity is a great concern to all educators, firms, and investors across the globe. This research surveyed 448 citizens, managers and employees in Iran to measure their Personal Business Ethics Scores (PBES) to see if age, education, management experience, and government work experience make a difference in making more ethical decisions. This study contributes to the theory of moral development across the Iranian culture as it is the first known study using this method. The results suggest that education and (...) more years of government work experience make a difference in the moral maturity of respondents. This study confirms that the ethical maturity of respondents is enhanced either through the authoritarian regime or socialization with Islamic values. Kohlberg’s moral development theory regarding ethical maturity is partially supported since those with more years of experience in government and more formal education have higher business ethics scores. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

I assessed change in students’ moral reasoning following five 75-min classes on business ethics and two assignments utilizing a novel pedagogical approach designed to foster ethical reasoning skills. To minimize threats to validity present in previous studies, an untreated control group design with pre- and post-training measures was used. Training (n = 114) and control (n = 76) groups comprised freshmen business majors who completed the Defining Issues Test before and after the training. Results showed that, controlling for pre-training levels (...) of moral reasoning, students in the training group demonstrated higher levels of post-training principled moral judgment than students in the control group. (shrink)

We investigated associations between moral reasoning and epistemological beliefs in an accounting context using the sample of 140 senior accounting students from a public university in Midwestern U. S. We found no significant correlations between accounting students' principled reasoning about Thome's ethical dilemmas and their beliefs about knowledge measured by administering Schommer epistemological questionnaire. We conducted post-hoc power analysis and present the evidence that the lack of associations should not be attributed to the lack of power. Overall, our results suggest (...) that reflective thinking and moral reasoning represent separate dimensions of cognitive process which develop at a different pace. Thus, a stand-alone course of ethics in accounting education is warranted since higher moral reasoning does not automatically follow from extended technical education and improved critical thinking skills. (shrink)

The research described here contributes to the extant empirical research on business ethics education by examining outcomes drawn from the literature on positive organizational scholarship (POS). The general research question explored is whether a course on ethical decision-making in business could positively influence students’ confidence in their abilities to handle ethical problems at work (i.e., moral efficacy), boost the relative importance of ethics in their work lives (i.e., moral meaningfulness), and encourage them to be more courageous in raising ethical problems (...) at work even if it is unpopular (i.e., moral courage). Specifically, the study used a rigorous quasi-experimental pretest–posttest research design with a treatment (N = 30) and control group (N = 30) to investigate whether a graduate-level course in business ethics could influence students’ levels of moral efficacy, meaningfulness, and courage. Findings revealed that participants in the business ethics treatment course experienced significant positive increases in each of the three outcome variables as compared to the control group. The largest increase was in moral efficacy, followed by moral courage, and finally, moral meaningfulness. These findings are discussed in the context of the current research on business ethics education and POS. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

The discussion of moral dilemmas is often proposed as one way to teach ethics. But can ethics be taught to everyone? Do participants’ value orientations predict the acquisition of moral competence in an educational context? This study presents data from an evaluation of a course on the social consequences of information technology. IT-related dilemma discussions were used extensively in the course. The participants answered questionnaires at the beginning of the course and before their final exam at the end of term. (...) Moral competence was measured with the Moral Judgment Test. A questionnaire on individual reflexive values was used for the assessment of value orientations. Although the participants’ average level of moral competence did not change significantly, there was evidence that participants with a high degree of materialistic values were less likely to acquire moral competence during the course. (shrink)

This study examines a sample of three editions of 19 financial accounting and auditing textbooks (n = 57) to explore the state of accounting educational content through the coverage of five key topics (ethics, professional judgment, governance, corporate social responsibility, and fraud) and 16 accounting scandals/troubled corporations. The study method is descriptive and uses independent sample t tests to identify significant differences over time and between countries. The major findings are fourfold. First, some topics' coverage and/or scandals exist in most (...) of the sample's books based on their indexes. However, the page coverage for these topics/scandals is not overwhelming when compared to the number of pages in these texts. Second, the scandals/troubled corporations' page coverage increased between the earliest and the later editions as did a depth of coverage trend measure. Third, U.S. texts in the sample contained significantly more pages devoted to these topics and scandals than the non-adapted Canadian sample texts. Finally, and as expected, the sampled auditing texts contain significantly more pages devoted to these topics and scandals compared to the other financial accounting texts in the sample. Educators and textbook authors interested in the future of business and accounting education will find this study of interest. If reminding accounting students of the ethical dilemmas they will face in their future careers is important, then this study indicates places where coverage in this sample of texts may be enhanced either through the use of standalone supplementary ethics texts or instructor introduced sources. (shrink)

This study chooses to describe social entrepreneurship as a social mission that enables business students to identify opportunities to launch start-ups and social enterprises by understanding the nature of social responsibility and fostering a reciprocal attitude to solve social issues. We collected data on students from different business schools in mainland China through a structured questionnaire and analyzed them through structural equation modeling. The results show that moral efficacy and meaningfulness are positively related to positive reciprocity, which leads to students’ (...) social entrepreneurial intentions. The study concluded that potential social entrepreneurs should take ethical courses as part of their training to help them develop a responsible mentality and social entrepreneurial aspirations. On this basis, the practical and theoretical significance of this study is proposed, and its limitations and future development directions are pointed out. (shrink)

Moral reasoning typically relates unexpectedly weakly with both Machiavellianism and authoritarianism. Although researchers often explain this by pointing to apparent shortcomings in both the construct and the measure of moral reasoning, such explanations are questionable given the many instances of support for hypotheses involving moral reasoning using the same construct and measure. As these latter cannot only sometimes be flawed, we explored the possible influence of moral reasoning index choice on observed results by using multiple indices available in the Defining (...) Issues Test. In a sample of 201 employed persons surveyed in 1998, with results reported for the first time, advanced moral reasoners tended to be neither Machiavellian nor authoritarian. However, the specific moral reasoning index employed was critical to detecting these hypothesized inverse relationships. Specifically, we proposed that currently unavailable D scores would be the relevant index for examining inverse relationships with Machiavellianism and that P scores would be most appropriate in the context of inverse relationships with authoritarianism, particularly among persons inclined to utilize their characteristic moral reasoning. We extrapolate the conceptual logic underpinning such relationships, and suggest that appropriate index choice flows from this logic and is essential to hypothesis testing across a broad array of constructs. Future research could adopt this logic to examine relationships involving constructs with implications similar to those found in Machiavellianism and authoritarianism. (shrink)

Although ethics education within the business curriculum has been receiving attention, much is unknown about the effectiveness of such education, particularly when it is integrated into the curriculum. This study looks at selected short-term effects produced by one form of integrated ethics instruction in an introductory marketing course in a graduate business MBA program in the United States. Specifically, students were introduced to an examination of consumer culture as a unifying framework to explore the ethics of decision making. As a (...) consequence of taking the course, students are hypothesized to hold less favorable attitudes toward consumer culture (love of money, materialism, possession satisfaction index, prestige sensitivity) relative to the attitudes held at the start of the course. Interestingly, few attitudinal changes are observed. Where changes in attitudes are observed, the relationships are in the opposite direction to that hypothesized. (shrink)

Although ethics education within the business curriculum has been receiving attention, much is unknown about the effectiveness of such education, particularly when it is integrated into the curriculum. This study looks at selected short‐term effects produced by one form of integrated ethics instruction in an introductory marketing course in a graduate business MBA program in the United States. Specifically, students were introduced to an examination of consumer culture as a unifying framework to explore the ethics of decision making. As a (...) consequence of taking the course, students are hypothesized to hold less favorable attitudes toward consumer culture (love of money, materialism, possession satisfaction index, prestige sensitivity) relative to the attitudes held at the start of the course. Interestingly, few attitudinal changes are observed. Where changes in attitudes are observed, the relationships are in the opposite direction to that hypothesized. (shrink)