Our research addressed an increase of unethical practices in professional settings identified in the literature, and this increase coincides with a shift in U.S. culture from principle-based ethics to one trending toward moral relativism. We discovered many programs lack comprehensiveness to deal with the complexities of culture in graduate education. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore and develop a conceptual framework for a comprehensive teaching model targeting graduate-level educators, administrators, and educational boards across disciplines. Data were (...) collected over 13 years from a doctoral professional ethics course at a private, faith-based university in South Texas. Using a Design Based Research process following Reeves’ (2006) guidelines, we developed a multi-disciplinary graduate theoretical teaching model for ethics: Comprehensive Professional Ethics Teaching Model (CPET model), grounded in our data analysis and findings. Recommendations include implementing and testing the efficacy of the CPET model in subsequent studies. (shrink)

A content analysis of 253 Great Ideas for Teachers (GIFTs) found that most of the 18 activities suitable for ethics courses relied on traditional methods of teaching, mainly discussions, teamwork, and case studies. Few used online technology, games, or simulations, compared with activities in other areas of journalism education. While most ethics ideas were designed to stimulate higher order learning, they were less likely than other GIFTs to incorporate varied elements that might improve student engagement. The authors make suggestions, based (...) on the education literature and GIFT analysis, for incorporating dynamic, interactive activities in ethics courses. (shrink)

This paper describes a live ethics case project that can be used to teach ethics in a broad variety of business classes. The live case differs from regular cases in that it involves a current situation. Students select an on-going or current event that involves ethical violations and write a case about it. They then present their case and run a debate about the challenges and issues outlined in the case and the actions that could have or should have been (...) taken. The dynamic project fulfills the key criteria for effective ethics education since it increases awareness of the complexity of ethical challenges, allows application of concepts, creates a personal emotional engagement in the case, is relevant, holds students accountable for their position, and creates a setting that encourages students to think critically about ethics. (shrink)

The research described here contributes to the extant empirical research on business ethics education by examining outcomes drawn from the literature on positive organizational scholarship (POS). The general research question explored is whether a course on ethical decision-making in business could positively influence students’ confidence in their abilities to handle ethical problems at work (i.e., moral efficacy), boost the relative importance of ethics in their work lives (i.e., moral meaningfulness), and encourage them to be more courageous in raising ethical problems (...) at work even if it is unpopular (i.e., moral courage). Specifically, the study used a rigorous quasi-experimental pretest–posttest research design with a treatment (N = 30) and control group (N = 30) to investigate whether a graduate-level course in business ethics could influence students’ levels of moral efficacy, meaningfulness, and courage. Findings revealed that participants in the business ethics treatment course experienced significant positive increases in each of the three outcome variables as compared to the control group. The largest increase was in moral efficacy, followed by moral courage, and finally, moral meaningfulness. These findings are discussed in the context of the current research on business ethics education and POS. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Ethics education matters! Contrary to some common beliefs that ethical behavior is inborn, this study suggests that education does matter. This paper examines ethics education and its relationship with students’ ethical awareness and moral reasoning. Attitudes Towards Business Ethics Questionnaire and 10 vignettes were deployed as the major measurement instruments. It is hypothesized that students with ethics education will have both a greater ethical awareness and ability to make more ethical decisions. Hypotheses were tested in two undergraduate business courses at (...) a major research university where 707 students were sampled. Results suggest that ethics education improved students’ ethical awareness and moral reasoning. Interestingly, results also seem to show that students’ readiness moderated their learning outcomes. (shrink)

I assessed change in students’ moral reasoning following five 75-min classes on business ethics and two assignments utilizing a novel pedagogical approach designed to foster ethical reasoning skills. To minimize threats to validity present in previous studies, an untreated control group design with pre- and post-training measures was used. Training (n = 114) and control (n = 76) groups comprised freshmen business majors who completed the Defining Issues Test before and after the training. Results showed that, controlling for pre-training levels (...) of moral reasoning, students in the training group demonstrated higher levels of post-training principled moral judgment than students in the control group. (shrink)

One of the key learning objectives in any health professional course is to develop ethical and judicious practice. Therefore, it is important to address how medical and pharmacy students respond to, and deal with, ethical dilemmas in their clinical environments. In this paper, we examined how students communicated their resolution of ethical dilemmas and the alignment between these communications and the four principles developed by Beauchamp and Childress. Three hundred and fifty-seven pharmacy and medical students (overall response rate=63%) completed a (...) questionnaire containing four clinical case scenarios with an ethical dilemma. Data were analysed using multiple methods. The findings revealed that 73% of the qualitative responses could be exclusively coded to one of the ‘four principles’ determined by the Beauchamp and Childress' framework. Additionally, 14% of responses overlapped between the four principles (multiple codes) and 13% of responses could not be coded using the framework. The subsequent subgroup analysis revealed different response patterns depending on the case being reviewed. The findings showed that when students are faced with challenging ethical dilemmas their responses can be aligned with the Beauchamp and Childress framework, although more contentious dilemmas involving issues of law are less easily categorised. The differences between year and discipline groups show students are developing ethical frames of reference that may be linked with their teaching environments and their levels of understanding. Analysis of these response patterns provides insight into the way students will likely respond in ‘real’ settings and this information may help educators prepare students for these clinical ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

This article evaluates effectiveness and costs of external regulation, in particular the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) in restricting managerial malfeasance and safeguarding shareholder interests. It discusses the role of managerial ethics as an alternative corporate governance mechanism to protect shareholder value. This article builds a mathematical model to illustrate shareholders' choices of best corporate governance mechanisms, taking into account the influence of managerial ethics, effectiveness and costs of monitoring. We suggest that the best corporate governance design and the optimal (...) monitoring expenses are influenced by managerial types, monitoring efficiency, and effectiveness of ethics education. We conclude that stringent regulation and monitoring may not always enhance shareholder value. When managerial ethics could be improved by ethics education or social norms, ethics education may be a better alternative than stringent regulation. (shrink)

This paper examines whether appealing to learners’ moral identity makes a significant contribution to improving their ethical decision making beyond traditional, rule-based teaching. In response to criticisms leveled at rule-based ethics teaching by alternative approaches, we identify moral identity theory and experiments in moral psychology as useful sources to draw on for the creation of a new, identity-based ethics teaching approach. We develop and apply a set of regular self-reflection focused writing tasks added to the traditional teaching program over a (...) one-semester period, and assess the outcomes of an overall sample of 149 postgraduate business school students, who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: exposure to both identity-based tasks and rule-based teaching, exposure to rule-based teaching only, and the control condition. Our findings show that, while the three groups reported the same level of ethical decision making at the beginning of the semester, at the end of the semester the students who were exposed to both identity-based and rule-based teaching reported higher level of ethical decision making compared to those who were only exposed to rule-based education. In addition, the students who received rule-based teaching reported higher ethical decision making compared to those in the control condition. These results suggest that a teaching approach which appeals to the learner’s moral identity can act as an effective leverage point when complementing rule-based teaching. This simple approach should be widely adopted as common practice in graduate business schools. (shrink)

Business ethics is once again a hot topic as examples of improper business practices that violate commonly accepted ethical norms are brought to our attention. With the increasing number of scandals business schools find themselves on the defensive in explaining what they are doing to help respond to the call to teach ‘‘more’’ business ethics. This paper focuses on two issues germane to business ethics teaching efforts: the ‘‘targeted output’’ goals of teaching business ethics and when in the curriculum business (...) ethics should be taught. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a substantial amount of research on emotional intelligence (EI) across a wide range of disciplines. Also, this term has been receiving increasing attention in the popular business press. This article extends previous research by seeking to determine whether there is a relationship between emotional intelligence and ethical judgment among practicing managers with respect to questions of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. It analyzes the results of a survey of 324 managers (...) enrolled in executive MBA programs from five universities in the southeastern and northeastern United States. This study is based on a model presented by Forsyth showing two dimensions that play an important role in ethical evaluation and behavior. Respondents were classified into one of four groups according to their idealism and relativism levels—situationists, subjectivists, absolutists, and exceptionists. The four ideological group’s scores were compared. The results indicate significant differences between the situationists and absolutists on the one hand, and subjectivists and exceptionists on the other. The former’s emotional intelligence scores were significantly higher thus demonstrating a strong relationship between emotional intelligence and ethical ideology. The results raise important implications for practitioners and educators. (shrink)