Ethics as usual?

Abstract

This research focuses on female work ethics in Iceland, one of the most gender equal countries in the world. The Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile (MWEP) was used for measuring the work ethic of 238 students of both genders. Based on a convenience sample obtained from the School of Business, University of Iceland we tested two hypotheses. The first concerned whether women have a higher work ethic than men; the second whether female students have higher grades than their male counterparts. We found women to have both a higher work ethic and grades than men. Overall outcomes based on the MWEP revealed statistically significant differences between the averages of women and men, with the mean for women higher by 7.07 points. In addition, women’s average university grades were found to be statistically higher than those of men by a margin of 0.36 points. These results provide interesting insights into the potential contribution of women and men to the workplace, suggesting that women, on average, will be more productive and deliver superior performance. Furthermore, work-based research and evaluations are necessary to test this inference, including the research across different sectors of the Icelandic economy.

Incidence of Gender in the Digital Competence of Higher Education Teachers in Research Work: Analysis with Descriptive and Comparative Methods

“…The effect sizes in these two dimensions were small, so the differences regarding the perception of the quality of digital resources in research, as well as the real integration of ICT in research work between both genders were very small, although you have to keep them in mind as they were significant. On the other hand, in Dimension 2 (digital ethics) and Dimension 6 (intention to use) no significant differences were found according to gender in any of the two age ranges analysed, results contrary to those obtained by Smith and Pino [46], Chee et al [47], Alleyne and Persaud [48], and Harðardóttir et al [49] where women were found to have a greater ethical awareness than men. These results also differ to those obtained by Baydas and Goktas [53], Teo and Milutinovic [54] and Sánchez-Mena et al [55], whose studies identified no significant differences in the intention to use.…”

“…Chee et al [47] obtained similar results in their study analysing the ethical behaviour of 721 students, also from the University of Georgia, where the female gender showed higher ethical values compared to the male gender. Other studies have produced similar results [48,49].…”

“…In relation to digital ethics, the results showed high competency in both genders, although male teachers, under 40 years of age, obtained slightly higher scores than female teachers, these results are contrary to those obtained by Smith and Pino [46], Chee et al [47]; Alleyne and Persaud [48] and Harðardóttir et al [49]. Regarding the age range of more than 40 years, hardly any differences were observed.…”