An experimental assessment of alternative teaching approaches for introducing business ethics to undergraduate business students

This study employs a pretest-posttest experimental design to extend recent research pertaining to the effects of teaching business ethics material. Results on a variety of perceptual and attitudinal measures are compared across three groups of students — one which discussed the ethicality of brief business situations (the business scenario discussion approach), one which was given a more philosophically oriented lecture (the philosophical lecture approach), and a third group which received no specific lecture or discussion pertaining to business ethics. Results showed some significant differences across the three groups and demonstrated that for a single lecture, the method used to teach ethics can differentially impact ethical attitudes and perceptions. Various demographic and background variables did not moderate the relationship between the teaching method and the dependent variables, but the sex of the student was strongly associated with the ethical attitude and perception measures.Scot Burton is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Louisiana State University. His research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Marketing, among others.Mark. W. Johnston is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Louisianna State University. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Journal of Business Research.Elizabeth J. Wilson is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Louisiana State University. Her research has been published in the Journal of Advertising Research and Industrial Marketing Management.