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University Lecturers’ Intention to Teach an Ethics Course: A Test of Competing Models

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Abstract

Business ethics are the moral principles that apply to all aspects of the business environment at an individual and organizational level. This study addresses the basic perceptions regarding the teaching of business ethics and examines university lecturers’ intentions to teach an ethics course. For the present research, the authors conducted a cross study to evaluate whether three variations of the theory of planned behavior, namely, TPB, decomposed TPB (DTPB), and the revised theory of planned behavior (RTPB), could adequately predict teaching of ethics course (TEC) behaviors. The participants were from southern, middle, and northern Taiwan. A structural equation model applied to a final sample of 200 usable questionnaires demonstrated that individual attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and teacher self-efficacy (TSE) influence intentions, but do not influence report behavior of those involved in teaching an ethics course. Among the three variations of TPB-based models, RTPB provided better explanation of variance in intentions to TEC. The present research highlights the importance of TSE, especially because TSE plays a key role in RTPB. The theoretical implications of this study relate to the application of TPB to TEC.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the National Science Council of Republic of China for financially supporting this research (NSC 100-2511-S-165-002), and Prof. Chin-Sheng Wan and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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  1. Department of Finance, Tainan University of Technology, 529, Zhongzheng Rd., Yongkang District, Tainan, Taiwan

    Pi-Yueh Cheng

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Correspondence to Pi-Yueh Cheng.

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Table 5 List of questionnaire items by construct
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Cheng, PY. University Lecturers’ Intention to Teach an Ethics Course: A Test of Competing Models. J Bus Ethics 126, 247–258 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1949-y

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