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Student Ethical Perceptions and Ethical Action Propensities: An Analysis of Situation Familiarity

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Teaching Business Ethics

Abstract

Recently McCuddy and Peery (1996) have suggested that business students may not respond the same way to “unfamiliar” business ethical dilemmas as they would to more “familiar” academic ethical dilemmas. The purpose of this study was to present the same students with both “unfamiliar” business dilemmas as well as possibly more “familiar” academic dilemmas in order to examine this issue.

Findings of the study revealed that students did not exhibit different perceptions of the unethical actions performed in the academic and accounting/business ethical vignettes. However, the students indicated that both they and their peers would be more likely to act unethically to resolve the dilemmas in the accounting/business cases than in the academic cases. This finding is troubling in that it suggests that students either feel less compelled to act ethically in business, or that they perceive that ethical standards in the business world are generally low when compared to their current educational environment. In addition, the students in the study maintained the same “halo effect” (i.e., the difference between an individual's perception of their likelihood of performing an unethical action compared to their perception of their peers' likelihood to perform the same unethical action) across the two types of ethical dilemma.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Rhode Island, 7 Lippitt Road, Kingston, RI, 02881, U.S.A. E-mail

    Marshall A. Geiger & Brendan T. O'Connell

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  1. Marshall A. Geiger
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  2. Brendan T. O'Connell
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Geiger, M.A., O'Connell, B.T. Student Ethical Perceptions and Ethical Action Propensities: An Analysis of Situation Familiarity. Teaching Business Ethics 2, 305–325 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009765604591

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