Abstract
Much has been written about the ethics and values of today's business student, but this research has generally been characterized by a variety of methodological shortcomings — the use of convenience samples, a failure to establish the relevance of comparison groups employed, attempts to understand behavior in terms of unidimensional values preselected by the researcher, and the lack of well-designed longitudinal studies. The research reported here addresses many of these concerns by comparing the values and ethical decision making behavior of a large cohort of students entering an M. B. A. program to students entering law school. Using the Rokeach value survey and several ethical decision making vignettes, significant differences were found between the two groups which have important implications for both the business and legal professions and the education of their future leaders.
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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.
Janet M. Dukerich is an Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on individual and group decision making and interpretation processes in organizations.
Jane E. Dutton is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the University of Michigan. Her research interests center on organizational adaptation processes, and in particular, organization responses to value-laden issues.
The authors wish to thank Janice Beyer and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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McCabe, D.L., Dukerich, J.M. & Dutton, J.E. Context, values and moral dilemmas: Comparing the choices of business and law school students. J Bus Ethics 10, 951–960 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383799
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383799