Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 2, 1991

Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting

Can a Business and Society Course Affect the Ethical Judgement of Future Managers?

This paper reports the results of a four year study that neasures the effect of a Business and Society course on the ethical judgement of its students. This research is a matched pre/post survey with control design, with the Business and Society course functioning as the treatment variable. The subjects were undergraduate and graduate (M.B.A.) business students (N = 460). The answer to the question posed by the title of this paper is yes, in a more ethical direction. I enjoy teaching Business and Society. Most of my students report that they enjoy the course. But are they getting their money's worth? Does the course have any positive impact on: the way that they think? the ethical attitudes and beliefs they hold? the way they behave? This study was designed to see if it is possible to measure any effect a Business and Society course might have on the ethical judgement of the students that took it. The hypothesis: Students' judgement will become more ethical as a result of taking a Business and Society course.