Undergraduates’ attitude toward business ethics.

Abstract

Much attention has been dedicated to business ethics as news of corporate scandals made its frequent occurrence in the last decades. This study aimed to investigate the extent these scandals affect individuals’ ethical decision-making and examined whether corporate scandals could potentially affect organisational attractiveness. Business undergraduates who are the future job seekers were studied as samples to increase the relevance of this study to organisational settings. The possible impact of ethics education on ethical decision-making was studied in hope to supplement findings in an Asian context. Unlike prior research which focused on individual-situational model to explain ethical decision making process, our study was conducted based on Jones’ issue-contingent model. Therefore, the emphasis was placed on the characteristics of the ethical issue itself, rather than the parties involved.

Findings from the study showed partial support for the relationship between moral intensity and recognition of ethical issue as well as between moral intensity and the ethical judgement. No significant relationship was observed between length of ethics education and students’ ethical reasoning while ethical judgement was observed to be negatively related to organisational attractiveness.

For educators, these results can be helpful to determine the effectiveness of ethics education in improving individuals’ ethical decision-making. This study also provides useful insights for organisations by examining the relative importance of organisations’ ethics commitment (amongst others) in influencing organisational attractiveness.