Examining the impact of ethics training on business student values

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Recent misconduct and highly questionable behavior has fostered considerable distrust, cynicism, and antagonism among the populace toward the leadership of virtually all social institutions. This paper aims to examine the impact of ethics training on business students values. Design/methodology/approach -Focuses on the central question whether exposure to ethical dilemmas and discussions in the classroom setting will lead to new paradigms of leadership incorporating instrumental values. Findings -The results support the contention that senior level students were influenced in their perceptions of the importance of instrumental values in comparison to freshmen. As hypothesized no difference was found between men and women in both the importance and reinforcement of the instrumental values examined. The results do not support the contention that increased emphasis on ethics in textbooks and courses has had a significant impact. Practical implications -Directions for future training are considered in light of the findings. Originality/value -Points to the conclusion that current models of business education are not helping to reinforce instrumental values.

“Don't try to teach me, I got nothing to learn”: Management students' perceptions of business ethics teaching

“…Some studies, however, also found lower ethical perceptions among older students (Kaynama, King, & Smith, ; Tse & Au, ). This fact may be explained by perceptions among mature students a business ethics education as being unnecessary, as it does not deliver practical, instrumental values that help reinforce their career path (Allen, Bacdayan, Kowalski, & Roy, ). In turn, work experience is not correlated to any of the (GE and OE) items that build the dependent variable—a result consistent with the recent review conducted by Lehnert et al ().…”

“…However, the lack of significance of relationships with other items generates doubts on the impact of business ethics courses on more specific or practical attitudes and abilities. For the majority of aspects that are not connected to exposure intensiveness and time , the rather discouraging results may be connected to the influence of student maturity, implying perceptions of business ethics education as unnecessary, non‐practical, and not delivering career‐boosting instrumental values (Allen et al, ; Kaynama et al, ; Tse & Au, ). Sleeper, Schneider, Weber, and Weber () propose, however, that education may change personal principles over time.…”

Perceptions of Accountants’ Ethics: Evidence from Their Portrayal in Cinema

“…Thus, for example, ''self-respect'' is a terminal value that is personal, while ''a world at peace'' is more social in nature. However, researchers sometimes disagree as to whether certain values relate to ethics, and no consensus has yet been reached on how values map into ethical behavior (Allen et al, 2005). For example, Eaton and Giacomino (2000) classify selfrespect as a personal value because its focus is on self rather than other, whereas Fritzsche (1995) argues that self-respect relates to ethics, since one must have self-respect in order to act ethically.…”

Influence of Gender and Ethical Training on University Teachers Sensitivity Towards the Integration of Ethics in Business Studies

“…However, the results obtained from the different studies are not unanimous. Despite the fact that not all studies show a positive effect in terms of the inclusion of ethics in education on the ethical reasoning of individuals (Geiger and O'Connell 1999;Allen et al 2005), most authors come to the widespread conclusion that ethical training does have positive effects on moral reasoning and the ethics-taking process. Thus, a review of the studies carried out on 55 works by Schlaefli et al (1985) leads to the conclusion that ethical intervention influences the moral judgement of students.…”