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Decision rules used by male and female business students in making ethical value judgments: Another look

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Abstract

This study was conducted to corroborate findings that females invoke a decision rule that is significantly different from that of their male counterparts when making ethical value judgements. In addition, the study examines whether the same decision rule is used by men and women for all types of ethical situations. The results show that males and females use different decision rules when making ethical evaluations, although there are types of situations where there are no significant differences in decision rules used by men and women. The results do not suggest that any one particular decision rule is used by the majority of either males or females in different types of ethical judgements. There is a greater diversity in decision rules used by females than by males.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University, 98122, Washington, USA

    Sharon Galbraith & Harriet Buckman Stephenson

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  1. Sharon Galbraith
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  2. Harriet Buckman Stephenson
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Sharon Galbraith, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University, Seattle, Washington. She teaches Marketing and does research in the areas of consumer information processing, pedagogy, and business ethics.

Harriet Stephenson, Ph.D., Professor of Management in the Albers School of Business and Economics, is Director of The Entrepreneurship Center at Seattle University. She teaches Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management and Business Policy and Organization and does research in areas of business ethics and entrepreneurship, and marketing for small business.

This study deals only with the decision processes used in evaluating acceptability or unacceptability of certain actions. This is a sample question from the questionnaire.

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Galbraith, S., Stephenson, H.B. Decision rules used by male and female business students in making ethical value judgments: Another look. J Bus Ethics 12, 227–233 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01686450

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