Student Ethical Perceptions and Ethical Action Propensities: An Analysis of Situation Familiarity

Recently McCuddy and Peery (1996) have suggested that business students may not respond the same way to unfamiliar business ethical dilemmas as they would to more familiar academic ethical dilemmas. The purpose of this study was to present the same students with both unfamiliar business dilemmas as well as possibly more familiar academic dilemmas in order to examine this issue.Findings of the study revealed that students did not exhibit different perceptions of the unethical actions performed in the academic and accounting/business ethical vignettes. However, the students indicated that both they and their peers would be more likely to act unethically to resolve the dilemmas in the accounting/business cases than in the academic cases. This finding is troubling in that it suggests that students either feel less compelled to act ethically in business, or that they perceive that ethical standards in the business world are generally low when compared to their current educational environment. In addition, the students in the study maintained the same halo effect (i.e., the difference between an individual's perception of their likelihood of performing an unethical action compared to their perception of their peers' likelihood to perform the same unethical action) across the two types of ethical dilemma.     

The Methods Used to Implement an Ethical Code of Conduct and Employee Attitudes

In the process of implementing an ethical code of conduct, a business organization uses formal methods. Of these, training, courses and means of enforcement are common and are also suitable for self-regulation. The USA is encouraging business corporations to self regulate with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (FSG). The Guidelines prescribe similar formal methods and specify that, unless such methods are used, the process of implementation will be considered ineffective, and the business will therefore not be considered to have complied with the guidelines. Business organizations invest enormous funds on formal methods. However, recent events indicate that these are not, by themselves, yielding the desired results. Our study, based on a sample of 812 employees and conducted in an Israeli subsidiary of a leading multinational High-Tech corporation headquartered in the US, indicates that, of the methods used in the process of implementation, one of the informal methods (namely, the social norms of the organization) is perceived by employees to have the most influence on their conduct. This result, when examined against employee tenure, remains relatively stable over the years, and stands in contradistinction to the formalistic approach embedded in the FSG. We indirectly measure the effectiveness of the percieved most influential implementation process methods by analyzing their impact on employee attitudes (namely, personal ethical commitment and employees' commitment to organizational values). Our results indicate that the informal methods (manager sets an example or social norms of the organization) are likely to yield greater commitment with respect to both employee attitudes than the formal method (training and courses on the subject of ethics). The personal control method (my own personal values) differs significantly from all the other methods in that it yields the highest degree of personal ethical commitment and the lowest degree of employees' commitment to organizational values.     

Ethics in organizations: A framework for theory and research

In a climate of increasing interest and activity within the field of business ethics, as yet there exists no coherent conceptual framework for organizational theory and research. From a review of current thinking and previous writings a framework of concepts is suggested to help set an agenda for empirical research. The elements of this are, first, a taxonomy of ethical domains: the foci of organizations' and their agents' ethical concerns and conduct. Second, it is considered how ethical functioning might be analysed in terms of causal relationships between expressive forms, voluntary action and instituted forms. Third is discussed ethical process, the means by which ethical awareness is aroused. Fourth and last, the paper examines how normative evaluations might apply to the ethical condition of organizations and their agents, meaning change or stability in reputation and integrity. At each stage of the argument possible objectives for research are developed.Professor Nigel Nicholson is Chairman of the Organisational Behaviour Group and Director of the Centre for Organisational Research at London Business School. Previously, he led investigations into Individual and Organisational Change at Sheffield University's Social & Applied Psychology Unit, and has also held visiting appointments at American, Canadian and German universities. He has published 8 books and over 65 articles on a wide range of topics, and been honoured with an award from the Academy of Management for his contribution to theory.     

What is business ethics? A reply to peter drucker

In his What is Business Ethics? Peter Drucker accuses business ethics of singling out business unfairly for special ethical treatment, of subordinating ethical to political concerns, and of being, not ethics at all, but ethical chic. We contend that Drucker's denunciation of business ethics rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the field. This article is a response to his charges and an effort to clarify the nature, scope and purpose of business ethics.     

Humanitarian versus organizational morality — A survey of attitudes concerning business ethics among managing directors

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of attitudes towards ethical questions in business life among managing directors. They study covers more than 240 Swedish firms of all sizes, from different lines of business, and it is based on a solid theoretical framework. It should be seen as a part of the author's effort to develop a model explaining ethical organizational behaviour. Among the most important conclusions of the study is the concept of corporate moral view. It seems possible to distinguish between the humanitarian morality versus the organizational morality, depending on who's interests the decision maker prefers to take in a moral dilemma.Ulrica Nylén is a Doctoral Candidate in Organizational Theory with a special interest in ethical values and their impact on organizational behavior. She is a member of staff at the Umeå Business School, Sweden, were she is the teaching the subject of Management.     

Ethical aspects of “Japanese leadership style”

This article describes three characteristics of the Japanese Leadership Style (JLS): self-realization, appreciation of diverse abilities, and trust in others, which have both positive and negative ethical implications. In addition to illustrating how JLS allows Japanese corporations to avoid some of the ethical problems plaguing U.S. corporations, the authors will explain how these characteristics engender the loyalty and initiative of Japanese employees which promote incremental innovation and competitive advantages. Implicit in this discussion is the premise that both the American and Japanese business communities, by analyzing their own ethical issues and leadership styles, can learn from each other.Iwao Taka is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Legal Studies at The Wharton School. He is an Assistant Professor in the International School of Economics and Business Administration, Reitaku University in Japan. His publications include Business Ethics: A Japanese View, Intuitive Decision-Making and Creative Destruction, and Japanese Entrepreneurship after World War II.Wanda D. Foglia, Esquire, is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Legal Studies at The Wharton School where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Criminology. A former Assistant District Attorney, her research focuses on approaches for promoting the individual's commitment to ethical and law-abiding behavior. She has recently coordinated a Project to Integrate Ethics Into the Wharton Undergraduate Curriculum.     

Meta-learning about business ethics: Building honorable business school communities

We propose extending business ethics education beyond the formal curriculum to the hidden curriculum where messages about ethics and values are implicitly sent and received. In this meta-learning approach, students learn by becoming active participants in an honorable business school community where real ethical issues are openly discussed and acted upon. When combined with formal ethics instruction, this meta-learning approach provides a framework for a proposed comprehensive program of business ethics education.Linda Klebe Trevino is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Mary Jean and Frank B. Smeal College of Business Administration, The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the management of ethical-unethical behavior in organizations and justice in disciplinary situations.Donald L. McCabe is Associate Professor of Management at the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers — the State University of New Jersey. His research focuses on decision making and interpretive processes under conditions of uncertainty, and the management of ethical behavior in organizations.     

Can Ethical Organizational Character Be Stimulated and Enabled?: “Upbuilding” Dialog As Crisis Management Method

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organizations ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian upbuilding dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organizations tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations of an organizations tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of upbuilding dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a nonprofit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerrys, a business organization.     

Demonstrating the Value of Diversity for Improved Decision Making: The “Wuzzle-Puzzle” Exercise

The wuzzle-puzzle exercisé requires small groups of individuals to initially explore their diversity, explicate this diversity to the class, solve a wuzzle-puzzle series of anagrams on their own, and then solve a similar series in a diversified group. The improvement concomitant with a diverse group of individuals in the second, wuzzle-puzzle condition demonstrates that diversity may indeed improve decision-making. This demonstration may be of special interest to business educators and ethicists as they encourage group work. Further, business practitioners may find the exercise useful for encouraging diversity in the workplace while improving teamwork, communication and cooperation among team members.     

Justice: The root of american business ideology and ethics

Although there are many conceptions of Justice, these different perceptions can provide many interesting insights into a business person's ethical standards as well as that person's decision-making processes. Using the Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the U.S. Economy as the basis for asking questions about justice, twenty-four business executives were interviewed about their conception of justice. An analysis of these interviews reveals that this group of businesspeople operated under very different conceptions of Justice at the Macroenvironmental and Microenvironmental levels. This result has some interesting implications not only for those scholars concerned with business ethics but for everyone who has a stake in business education.Men are called good, chiefly on account of their Justice. Cicero, 56 B.C. Ideology is applied philosophy. Lodge, 1986 Richard McGowan, S. J. is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Strategic Management at Boston College. His research focus involves examining both the rationale behind business and public policy decisions as well as determining the effectiveness of these policy measures. Some of his recent publications include Deciphering the Japanese Import Quota, Policy Studies Journal (1988) and Public Policy Measures and Cigarette Sales: An ARIMA Intervention Analysis Study JAI Social Issues Management Volume (1989).     

Wisdom Paradigms for the Enhancement of Ethical and Profitable Business Practices

Many organizations continually search for new business models and ways to conduct business ethically, yet profitably. Kirk Cheyfitz (2003) proclaims that organizations should not waste time trying to create new business models because the rules of commerce never change. Instead of searching for new business models, organizations can improve business practices by looking at different paradigms or mental models for seeing how to build practices that lead to long-term success. The employment elements of wisdom as paradigms for developing sound structures and practices that will encourage management behaviors that are ethical and lead to profitability. First, a theory of wisdom is developed. Then, the elements of wisdom are applied to the design of a general business structure and to refocusing some basic business practices.     

Teaching Business Ethics: Theory and Practice

Business ethics teaching can be improved when ethicists integrate the ethical theories they apply to business with the organizational design of the course. By utilizing three techniques – implementing a Total Quality Management-style survey and review, nominating and electing class virtues, and telling personal stories of moral action – classes can be organized to operate by the social contract, rights, stakeholder, and virtue theories that dominate business ethics literature. Classes then become laboratories for the practical articulation and application of the theories as well as providing real examples of the theories in action. This methodology produces benefits for the particular class and for the development and refinement of the theories themselves.This paper describes each of the three pedagogical techniques; and then explicitly relates them to these leading business ethics theories to demonstrate how the integration can lead to a community seeking and discovering moral truth in the classroom.     

Egoistic and ethical orientations of university students toward work-related decisions

An onslaught of ethically questionable actions by top government, business, and religious leaders during the 1980s has brought the issue of ethics in decision making to the forefront of public consciousness. This study examines the ethical orientation of university students in four decision-making situations. The dependent variable — ethical orientation toward work-related decisions — is measured through student responses to questions following four work-related vignettes. Possible responses to each vignette are structured to permit categorization of respondents into two broad orientations: egoistic and ethical. Independent variables are academic major, ethics in business orientation, gender, and religiosity. Generally, students tended to choose an ethical orientation over an egoistic orientation in each vignette. Business majors were generally no less likely to choose an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than nonbusiness majors. Respondents characterized by moral unity (belief in the consistency between general ethical principles and work-related ethical standards) were more likely to have an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than those subscribing to the amoral theory of business. Females showed a consistent tendency to be more ethically oriented toward work-related decisions than males. Finally, respondents high on religiosity tended to be more ethically oriented. Jon M. Shepard is Head of the Department of Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His most recent publications include Gender Differences in Proclivity for Unethical Behavior (Journal of Business Ethics). His current research interests include ethics in business, corporate ethical climates, and the accountability of institutions in modern society.Linda Hartenian is a P/HRM doctoral candidate in the Department of Management at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include the performance appraisal process, the impact of decentralized computing systems on organizational communication, and research methodology.This research was supported by a grant from the Graduate School, University of Kentucky. We wish to thank Richard Wokutch for his thoughtful suggestions for this paper.     

Epistemological and ethical considerations in conceptualizing and implementing human resource management

As an example of applied social science, the field of human resource management is used to show that ethical problems are not only those of carrying out research, of professional conduct, and of the distribution fairness of social science knowledge. A largely overlooked ethical issue is also the implicit choices that are made as an integral part of research and implementation. First, an analysis is undertaken of the implicit assumptions, values and goals that derive from the conception of human problems in work organizations as managing human resources. Secondly, it is argued that such a conception is in fact a socially constructed reality with real consequences and not a reflection of objective states of human and social nature with which we have to live. Thirdly, to the extent that our implicit assumptions are in part based upon conceptual choices that are made by individuals or as a collective act of a discipline or work organization, the development of an ethical framework that could guide such choices becomes a crucial challenge for business ethics.H. Peter Dachler currently holds the chair for organizational psychology at the University of St. Gall, Switzerland. He received his graduate training in industrial/organizational psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana and subsequently taught in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was a fellow for two years at the International Institute of Management in the Science Center, Berlin, and is on the editorial boards of various international and American scientific journals. He has published mainly in the areas of motivation, leadership, organization theory, and the theoretical and practical implications of a constructionist epistemology for employee assessment, participation and leadership. Georges Enderle is a senior lecturer for business ethics at the University of St. Gall, Switzerland. Since 1983 he has been Director of the Institute for Business Ethics. He is the author of Sicherung des Existenzminimums im nationalen und internationalen Kontext — eine wirtschaftsethische Studie [Securing the minimal standard of living in the national and international context: A business ethics perspective]. He has written various articles on business ethics.     

An assessment of ethics instruction in accounting education

Business school faculty have begun to increase ethics instruction, but very little has been done to assess the effectiveness of this instruction. Curricula-wide studies present conflicting results of the effect of ethics integration into the business curricula. Several studies suggest that courses like business ethics and business and society might have an effect on the ethical awareness or ethical reasoning of business students. A belief of many individuals interested in business ethics is that students must be exposed to ethical awareness and ethical reasoning in business ethics and business and society-type courses and this should be supplemented by discussions of these topics in various business courses such as Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and others.This study reports the results of integrating a unit of business ethics into eleven accounting classes at two universities. An approach for measuring the effect of ethics integration into accounting and other business courses is suggested, and an assessment is made of the impact of ethics integration on students in accounting classes. Results indicate that the principles on which students rely when making moral decisions were affected by ethics integration. After ethics integration, students relied more heavily on the disclosure rule, the golden rule, and the professional ethic.Kenneth M. Hiltebeitel, Ph.D., CPA is an Associate Professor of Accountancy at Villanova University. He has included a unit on business ethics in his Auditing and Advanced Accounting classes for the past two years.Scott K. Jones, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Delaware. He has included a unit on business ethics in his Cost Accounting classes for the past two years.     

Christ and business: A typology for Christian business ethics

H. Richard Niebuhr's typology of the relation between Christ and culture can function as a heuristic device to identify different approaches to Christian business ethics. Five types are outlined: Christ Against Business, The Christ of Business, Christ Above Business, Christ and Business in Paradox, and Christ the Transformer of Business. This typology may facilitate discussion on the relative adequacy of various theological assumptions about ethical change in business. Louke Siker received her Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1987 (dissertation: Interpreting Corporate Cultures: Philosophical and Theological Reasons for Doing Business Ethics in a Hermeneutical Mode). She has taught Christian ethics and business ethics at Wake Forest University and Loyola Marymount University. Her research interests include methodology in business ethics. She is the author of An Unlikely Dialogue: Barth and Business Ethicists on Human Work, Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1989.     

Ethics and the gender equality dilemma for U.S. multinationals

U.S. multinational enterprises must now follow the policies of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in their overseas operations, at least with respect to U.S. expatriate employees. Doing so in a culture which discourages gender equality in the workplace raises difficult issues, both practically and ethically. Vigorously importing U.S. attitudes toward gender-equality into a social culture such as Japan or Saudi Arabia may seem ethnocentric, a version of ethical imperialism. Yet adapting to host country norms risks a kind of moral relativism. This article supports the view that MNEs which promote workplace equality in a host country such as Japan, which is actively involved in the international economic and political community, is not ethical imperialism in any pejorative sense and is preferable to a moral relativism or social contract approach.We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.U.S. Declaration of Independence, 1776 All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948Don Mayer teaches Legal Environment of Business at Oakland University School of Business Administration. He received his L.L.M. in International and Comparative Law. Professor Mayer's work has appeared in the American Business Law Journal, the Midwest Law Review, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. An article entitled Sovereign Immunities and Moral Community appears in the October 1992 issue of theBusiness Ethics Quarterly.Anita Cava teaches Business Law and Business Ethics at both the graduate and undergraduate level at the University of Miami's School of Business Administration. She received her B.A. with Distinction and her J.D., Professor Cava has published in the area of ethics in law reviews and business journals.     

Ethical climate and the link between success and ethical behavior: An empirical investigation of a non-profit organization

This study examines the ethical climate and ethical practices of successful managers (n=206 managers) of a large non-profit organization. The influence of different dimensions of ethical climate on perceived ethical practices of successful managers were also investigated. Results show that a majority of the respondents perceive successful managers as ethical. Compared to previous research, managers in our sample were less optimistic about the relationship between success and ethical behavior. Those who believed that their organization had a caring climate perceived a strong positive link between success and ethical behavior. Those who believed that their organization had an instrumental climate perceived a strong negative link between success and ethical behavior. Satish Deshpande is an Associate Professor of Management at Haworth College of Business, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. He teaches human resource management courses. His current research interests include business ethics, managerial decision-making, and applied psychology in human resource issues. His publications include articles in the Academy of Management Journal, Compensation and Benefits Review, Human Relations, Journal of Small Business Management, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.     

General causal models in business ethics: An essay on colliding research traditions

The construction of causal models for research in business ethics has become fashionable in recent years. This paper explores four recent proposals, comparing and contrasting their views. The primary purpose of this paper is to expose several confusions inherent in such models and to account for these errors in terms of a failure to distinguish between models as theories and models as representing a research tradition. We conclude with a brief set of recommendations for linking two major research traditions in business ethics: empiricism and ethical theory.F. Neil Brady is Professor of Management at San Diego State University. He is the author ofEthical Managing: Rules and Results (Macmillan, 1990) and numerous articles on business ethics. His research focuses on the application of ethical theory to business decision making.Mary Jo Hatch is an Associate Professor at San Diego State University and visiting Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. Her research interests include the link between business ethics and organizational culture, and humor in management teams. She has published articles on organizational culture and the behavioral and symbolic aspects of organizations as physical structures.     

A Team-Taught Course in Business Ethics & its Synthesizing Capstone Assignment

This article describes a course in Business Ethics, team-taught by a professor of philosophy and a professor of business administration. Written by the philosopher, it focuses on the philosophical materials of the course. It details the use of primary sources, but with a very practical aim: the extraction of a Moral Decision-Procedure, a step-by-step way of applying abstract philosophy to ethical issues in business. Three philosophical assignments are described, leading to the capstone assignment, which is designed to integrate the philosophical material of the course with the practice of business. The capstone assignment has the format of business problem analysis. Ethical issues are raised, and addressed, in language appropriate to business. However, in a series of footnotes keyed to those discussions, the ethical issues are examined more fully, with heavy reliance upon primary sources in philosophy.