This comparative field study evaluated the choices made by U.S., Portuguese, and Hong Kong Chinese evening MBA and graduating university business students when resolving business-related moral dilemmas. The authors developed hypotheses at the country level based on Hofstede’s ratings of each country’s national culture dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. The more individualistic U.S. respondents resolved the dilemmas with choices indicating less self-interest and more concern for unidentified others than did their Portuguese and Hong Kong Chinese counterparts, (...) who are from more collectivist societies. The authors discuss implications for future cross-cultural research on business dilemmas and for cooperative interactions among managers from these and other countries. (shrink)

The aim of this empirical study is to understand how bachelor students at universities of applied sciences (UAS) use their ethical compasses during internships. Semi-structured interviews were held with 36 fourth-year bachelor students across four UAS and three different programs in the Netherlands: Initial Teacher Education, Business Services, and Information and Communication Technology. To our knowledge, no studies appear to have investigated and compared students from multiple professional fields, nor identified the dynamics and the sequence of the strategies in the (...) decision-making process that students use when faced with ethical dilemmas during internships. We found that students’ ethical dilemmas stemmed from: mentors’ or managers’ behaviours/requests, colleagues’ behaviours, organisations’ morally questionable incentives, pupils’ home situations, and pupils’ behaviours/personal stories. The majority of students used multiple strategies and first investigated the ethical dilemmas they encountered and then avoided, intervened, delegated responsibilities, or adjusted to their environments. Students’ values played an important role in experiencing an ethical dilemma, however, these values were not always acted upon. We identified that rather students’ beliefs about having influence and/or ownership (or not), personal interest(s) and power relations influenced the way how they used their ethical compasses. Thus, instead of navigating on moral standards (of their profession), students reacted on beliefs which reflected the ways in which they constructed their internship contexts, social relationships and their own (and others) needs. As a result, half of the mentioned dilemmas were resolved in a prudent-strategic manner (e.g., by prioritising personal interests), instead of morally. This indicates that students did not always convert (moral) values into moral action and did not use their ethical compasses in the way UAS aspires. Finally, this study found that the ways in which students used their ethical compasses were strongly influenced by their environments. (shrink)

The aim of three studies was to examine the differences between business majors and non-business majors, in their level of implicit and explicit power motivation.It was predicted that there are no differences between these two groups in the general level of power motivation, but that differences exist in the way it is explicitly expressed: through desire for leadership and prominence vs. desire for helping. Results of Study 1 indicated that business majors declared a higher leadership motive and a lower helping (...) motive than non-business majors.Study 2 addressed question whether the above differences in power motivation stem from socialization at the university level or from pre-selection. The relationship between high school students’ academic major preferences and their power motivation was tested. It was found that the more they were business-oriented, the higher their scores were on leadership, and lower on helping scales. In Study 3, business majors and non-business majors completed the same questionnaire as participants in previous studies, as well as performed the IAT. Non-business majors declared stronger explicit helping motive, while business majors expressed stronger prominence and leadership motives. Furthermore, for non-business majors, IAT results could be predicted by their helping score. Implications and possible limitations of the presented results are discussed. (shrink)

The growing trend of required ethics instruction in the business school curriculum has created a need for relevant teaching materials. In response to this need the Journal of Business Ethics is introducing a new case section. This section provides a forum for publishing and accessing a range of materials that can be used in teaching business ethics. This article discusses how business ethics cases can facilitate the development of deductive, inductive and critical reasoning skills.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's death, during 2006 quite a number of cultural events were launched (cf. http://www.ibsen.net/). The article suggests celebrating Ibsen as a potentially useful resource for business ethics teaching. Departing from a short presentation of Ibsen's plays An enemy of the people and A doll's house the main focus of this paper is on two selected scenes from the latter piece -both as raw material for developing scenarios for moral maturity assessment (one (...) of them is strikingly similar to and different from Heinz' dilemma), and for teaching business students moral reflection and imagination. As an open end of the article a few wider questions are asked about the use of literature in addition to or instead of ethics when it comes to triggering moral reflection and imagination. (shrink)

In 1991, Jones developed an issue-contingent model of ethical decision making in which moral intensity is posited to affect the four stages of Rest's 1986 model. Jones claimed that moral intensity, which is "the extent of issue-related moral imperative in a situation", consists of six characteristics: magnitude of consequences, social consensus, probability of effect, temporal immediacy, proximity, and concentration of effect. This article reports the findings of two studies that analyzed the factor structure of moral intensity, operationalized by a 12-item (...) Perceived Moral Intensity Scale adapted from the work of Sing-hapakdi et al. [1996, Journal of Business Research, 36, 245-255] and Frey [2000, Journal of Business Ethics, 26, 181-195]. The two items that were purported to measure CE were dropped due to their inability to effectively tap into the characteristic proposed by Jones. Factor analyses of the remaining 10 items supported a 3-factor structure, with the MC, PE, and TI items loading on the first factor, the PX items loading on the second factor, and the SC items loading on the third factor. These factors were labeled: Probable Magnitude of Consequences, Proximity, and Social Consensus. The authors conclude that moral intensity consists of three characteristics, rather than the six posited by Jones. (shrink)

When a member of an organization has to make a decision or act in a way that may benefit some stakeholders at the expense of others, ethical dilemmas may arise. This paper examines ethical sensitivity regarding the duties to clients and owners (principals), employees (agents), and responsibilities to society (third parties). Within this framework, ethical perceptions of male and female managers are compared between the U.S. and Turkey – two countries that differ on power distance as well as the individualism/collectivism (...) dimensions. Our results show that ethical sensitivity varies depending upon whether the interests of principals, agents, or third parties are affected by a given ethical dilemma. We also find that, contingent upon the principal-agent–society relationships, the nationality and gender of the decision-maker influences ethical sensitivity. (shrink)

Internet plagiarism continues unabated and may even be increasing. Questions pertaining to the ethical-moral construct employed by students to justify Internet plagiarism among high school students have remained relatively untouched. Understanding not simply the prevalence of Internet plagiarism but also the variety of explanations used by students to justify their plagiarism seems crucial to curtailing its practice. In this study, I surveyed 160 high school students and endeavored to understand and describe the practices of students who use the Internet for (...) schoolwork and who engage in copy-paste plagiarism or paper-buying practices. The results indicate that students are more easily able to justify copy-paste plagiarism for a variety of reasons that mirror justifications of other forms of conventional plagiarism. Most students indicated they would never purchase a paper for reasons ranging from fear of getting caught to more principled and nuanced ethical claims. Based on these results I also offer educators suggestions for refining assignments and evaluation methods. (shrink)

Corporations and investors are responding to recent major ethical scandals with increased attention to the social impacts of business operations. In turn, business colleges and their international accrediting body are increasing their efforts to make students more aware of the social context of corporate activity. Business education literature lacks data on student attitudes toward such education. This study found that postscandal business students, particularly women, are indeed interested in it. Their interest is positively related to their past donation, volunteerism, and (...) non-profit organization membership activities, whether limited or extensive. Some evidence supports the proposition that education can modify internal principles over time. We offer suggestions for classroom and program uses of these findings in hopes of enriching the vision of future business managers. (shrink)

Corporations and investors are responding to recent major ethical scandals with increased attention to the social impacts of business operations. In turn, business colleges and their international accrediting body are increasing their efforts to make students more aware of the social context of corporate activity. Business education literature lacks data on student attitudes toward such education. This study found that postscandal business students, particularly women, are indeed interested in it. Their interest is positively related to their past donation, volunteerism, and (...) non-profit organization membership activities, whether limited or extensive. Some evidence supports the proposition that education can modify internal principles over time. We offer suggestions for classroom and program uses of these findings in hopes of enriching the vision of future business managers. (shrink)

Given the proliferation of research regarding the ethical development of students in general, and business students in particular, it is difficult to draw conclusions from the contradictory results of many studies. In this meta-analysis of empirical studies from 1985 through 1994, the relationships of gender, age and undergraduate major to the ethical attitudes and behavior of business students are analyzed. The results indicate that female students exhibit stronger ethical attitudes than males. The same is also true for older versus younger (...) students. However, the relationship with undergraduate major is still difficult to interpret. (shrink)

Ethics instructors often use cases to help students understand ethics within a corporate context, but we need to know more about the impact a case-based pedagogy has on students’ ability to make ethical decisions. We used a pre- and post-test methodology to assess the effect of using cases to teach ethics in a finance course. We also wanted to determine whether recent corporate ethics scandals might have impacted students’ perceptions of the importance and prevalence of ethics in business, so we (...) used in-depth case studies of several of the major scandals (e.g., Enron, Tyco, Adelphia). Our results are somewhat surprising since studying ethics scandals positively impacts students’ ethical decision making and their perceptions of the ethics of businesspeople. (shrink)

Researchers in all management specialties have discussed and investigated the important role values play in personal and organizational phenomena. However, because research on values has been performed in a wide range of social science disciplines and at different levels of analysis, much of thiswork has been uninformed by other work and is neither well integrated nor systematized, resulting in a great deal of confusion concerning the topic. This article attempts to add order and clarity to this area of research by (...) proposing a framework of values research based on level of analysis and by cataloguing and reviewing the vast theoretical and empirical research in light of this framework. It concludes with a critique of the extant literature and recommendations for further research. (shrink)

This article develops a sociological theory of ambivalence to explain several puzzling and contradictory ethical attitudes of business people: (1) a simultaneous disposition to comparatively more self-interested and more charitable behavior than many other occupational groups and (2) a moderate level of receptiveness to inculcation of moral principles through social channels such as higher education. We test the theory by comparing the way that business students rate the ethical acceptability of various ethically challenging scenarios with the way that criminal justice (...) students rate these same scenarios. We also explore the malleability of ethical views by measuring differences between the responses of sophomores and seniors. The data generally support hypotheses based on a theory of ambivalence. At the same time, however, we also report on findings that suggest alternative explanations to ambivalence. (shrink)

This study investigated the attitudinal responses of 403 undergraduate students with respect to nine hypothetical marketing moral dilemmas. Participants varied by gender, major, and age.It was found that undergraduate women responded more ethically on the hypothetical marketing moral dilemmas, as hypothesized. Secondly, chosen major did not make a difference on cognitive, affective, or behavioral responses. Further, the overall means for each scenario were in the morally correct direction in every case. Also, all intercorrelations for each story were significant. Finally, whenever (...) there was a nonchance finding for age, the oldest participants answered more morally than the youngest subjects. (shrink)

Business majors were tested for their attitudes toward the teaching of business ethics in university business education. Respondents indicated that they considered ethics an important part of a business curriculum and that they preferred integrating ethics into a number of different courses rather than taking a separate compulsory or elective ethics course. Ethical business practices were seen by respondents as increasing profit and return on investment and creating a positive work environment and public perception of the organization.

This comparative field study evaluated the moral reasoning used by U.S. and Belizean business students in resolving business-related moral dilemmas. The Belizeans, citizens of a less-developed country with Western heritage and a values-based education system, revolved the dilemmas using higher stages of moral judgment than did the U.S. business students.

Mixed results regarding the role of gender in moral reasoning prompted an investigation of an alternative characteristic that may be more influential in the process: sex role orientation. We present an empirical assessment of the relationship between an individual’s moral reasoning level and his/her sex role orientation, gender, and several academic factors. Our results indicate that sex role orientation is not related to moral reasoning level. Gender is related to moral reasoning in our study, women reasoning at higher levels than (...) men. We found a positive relationship between education and moral reasoning level, and moral reasoning levels differed across academic institutions. Our results also show business students have lower moral reasoning levels than students in other fields, although this result did not reach statistical significance. (shrink)

This study uses the Schwartz Values Questionnaire and version 2 of the Defining Issues Test to investigate the values, value types (clusters of related values) and level of moral reasoning of a sample of 108 MBA students in a Canadian university. There are no statistically significant differences in the levels of moral reasoning attributed to gender. Male and female MBA students rank 'family security' and 'healthy' as their two most important values. For males, hedonism, achievement and self-direction are the three (...) most important value types, while for females they are benevolence, hedonism and security, respectively. There are statistically significant gender differences for the value types hedonism, achievement, stimulation and power. Overall, however, there are more similarities than differences between the male and the female students. Regression analysis indicates a statistically significant positive association between the postconventional level of moral reasoning as measured by P-scores and the value-type universalism. The findings provide further evidence that value types affect the postconventional level of moral reasoning. (shrink)

While differences do exist, there are many ethical issues which transcend national barriers. In order to contribute to the development of understanding of global ethics, this study documents the existing ethical perspectives of collegiate business students from two countries and identifies the determinants of their ethical orientations.A survey instrument was administered to USA and New Zealand (NZ) students enrolled in undergraduate business programs. The research instrument measured students' ethical perspectives across multilayered ethical domains and their self-professed decision method used in (...) evaluating ethical scenarios. (shrink)

Prior research on the impact of ethics education within the business curriculum has yielded mixed results. Although the impact is often found to be positive, it appears to be both small and short-lived. Interpretation of these results, however, is subject to important methodological limitations. The present research employed a longitudinal methodology to evaluate the impact of an M.B.A. program versus a law program on the values and ethical decision making behavior of a cohort of students at two major universities in (...) the northeast. The results suggest that the M.B.A. curriculum remains a value-neutral experience for most students. In contrast, the law school program had a significant impact on both values and ethical decision making. (shrink)

Unfortunately, business is often associated with unethical behavior. While research has offered a number of explanations for why business might encourage unethical behavior, we argue that how a person frames a situation may provide important insight. Drawing on the decision frame literature, the goal of the current research is to identify the differences in cognitive processing associated with two decision frames dominant in the business ethics literature—business and ethical—and, with that knowledge, examine ways to mitigate the detrimental influence of frame (...) on unethical behavior. We first demonstrate the causal link between frame and misrepresentation, and then identify several differences in cognitive processing—cost–benefit analyses, concern for others, and construal level—that distinguish business and ethical frames, and investigate their effects on misrepresentation. In our final set of studies, we demonstrate that the influence of these frames on misrepresentation can be altered by manipulating these cognitive processes, both mitigating and exacerbating a decision maker’s engagement in misrepresentation. We conclude by summarizing our findings and their potential impact on unethical behavior more broadly. (shrink)

Managers often face situations that challenge their ability to reason morally. Avariety of factors, including the issue itself and personal and organizational influences, may affect their responses. Using Kohlberg’s moral development theory and the Adapted Moral Judgment Interviewtechnique, we examine the influences of context, age, gender, type of work, and industry membership on 308 managers’ moral reasoning. No significant differences are found when considering age or gender. Differences are discovered when assessing the context of the dilemmas, managers’ type of work (...) (managerial vs. technical), and industry membership (manufacturing vs. service). Implications from our findings are discussed. (shrink)

Historically, students have held negative perceptions about the ethics of salespeople. Using an experiment, this study explores which factors affect students' perceptions of how frequently salespeople behave unethically. Additionally, the study investigates whether the same factors influence the degree to which certain behaviors are considered serious ethical violations.

Despite a wealth of prior research, little consensus has arisen about the goals and effectiveness of business ethics education. Additionally, accounting academics have recently been questioned as to their commitment to accounting ethics education. The current study examines whether accounting students' perceptions of business ethics and the goals of accounting ethics education are fundamentally different from the perceptions of accounting faculty members. The study uses a survey instrument to elicit student and faculty responses to various questions concerning the importance of (...) business ethics and accounting ethics education. Statistical analyses indicate that students consider both business ethics and the goals of accounting ethics education to be more important than faculty members. Implications of these results for accounting faculty members interested in accounting ethics education are discussed. (shrink)

M.B.A. programs in the United States continue to admit foreign students in record numbers, yet we know little about how this cultural diversity may impact the values and ethical decision making behavior of either American or foreign students. The research discussed here examined this issue within the context of a large M.B.A. program where non-U.S. citizens comprise over twenty percent of the student population. Comparisons of U.S. and Asian students supported existing notions about the independent vs. interdependent conceptions of the (...) role of the individual within each culture. However, these differences were not a major factor in explaining the significantly different choices made by U.S. and Asian students in selected decision making vignettes. The impIication of these findings for both the M.B.A. program and the profession is discussed. It is concluded that academicians and practitioners in both cultures must work together to develop some consensus on the core principles that should govern global competition. A failure to do so may lead to increasing distrust among practitioners from different cultural backgrounds. It is suggested that graduate business education has a role to play in this process. (shrink)

This study uses the Schwartz Values Questionnaire and version 2 of the Defining Issues Test to investigate the values, value types (clusters of related values) and level of moral reasoning of a sample of 108 MBA students in a Canadian university. There are no statistically significant differences in the levels of moral reasoning attributed to gender. Male and female MBA students rank ‘family security’ and ‘healthy’ as their two most important values. For males, hedonism, achievement and self‐direction are the three (...) most important value types, while for females they are benevolence, hedonism and security, respectively. There are statistically significant gender differences for the value types hedonism, achievement, stimulation and power. Overall, however, there are more similarities than differences between the male and the female students. Regression analysis indicates a statistically significant positive association between the postconventional level of moral reasoning as measured by P‐scores and the value‐type universalism. The findings provide further evidence that value types affect the postconventional level of moral reasoning. (shrink)

The present study investigates how business ethics are related to vocational interest. Special attention has been paid to the relationship between business ethics and the interest in ‘enterprising’ and ‘social’ oriented professions. The results show that business ethics is only significantly correlated in a negative way, to enterprising vocational preferences. Moreover, the negative contribution of business ethics to the preference for entrepreneurial and managerial professions remains after controlling for personality and work values. Some work values also predict the entrepreneurial interest: (...) Earnings, Influence, Competition, Innovation and Creativity. The personality traits Extraversion (positive) and Agreeableness (negative) have predictive validity, but this effect disappears after controlling for work values. In the ‘Discussion’ section, we pay attention to possible consequences of the negative relationship between business ethics and Entrepreneurial interest for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We argue that efforts concerning realistic job previews will only be meaningful if they are completed with efforts to make people more sensitive for ethics in two other domains, namely education and business. (shrink)