Abstract
This paper compares the ethical decisions and attitudes of business students and practitioners. Recent unpublished data from a national study of over 1600 students are contrasted with information reported previously. Students are found consistently to make less ethical choices than practitioners, and there is some indication that students are making less ethical choices in the 1980s than in the 1960s. In addition, both students and practitioners agree that buyers should beware, view the role of business more narrowly, and find fewer incentives to behave ethically over time. Codes of ethics appear to be less influential than the individual's strong personal value system and one's superiors behaving ethically; support for codes is declining. The paper concludes with observations about the limitations and possibilities for survey research in this area drawing on other studies that used the same instrument utilized for this paper. Some implications for future research are suggested.
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James R. Glenn, Jr. is Professor of Management in the School of Business at San Francisco State University. His research focus is on the ethical dimensions of decisions made in business, professional and medical organizations. His writing on decision making, research and teaching business ethics has appeared in several periodicals and books. He is currently revisingEthics in Decision Making (John Wiley, 1986) for a second edition.
M. Frances Van Loo is Associate Professor of Economic Analysis and Policy, and Business and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley where she is Director of the Public and Nonprofit Management Program. Her research uses a variety of social science disciplines to study business, public, and nonprofit policy issues.
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Glenn, J.R., Van Loo, M.F. Business students' and practitioners' ethical decisions over time. J Bus Ethics 12, 835–847 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00871665
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00871665