1. THE EFFECT OF ETHICS EDUCATION ON STUDENTS' ETHICAL DECISIONS: AN EXPLORATORY LAB EXPERIMENT.
- Author
-
Chaoping LI
- Subjects
ETHICAL decision making ,BUSINESS ethics education ,STUDENT attitudes ,MONETARY incentives ,SELF-interest ,BUSINESS students - Abstract
The study aims to examine students' actual ethical decision-making in response to business ethics education. In the post-Enron era, ethics frauds are continually a big concern for organizations. Both practitioners and scholars demand an ethics emphasis in business education. The literature heavily relies on the self-reported survey method to examine the quality of business ethics education. Such a research method can examine the education effect on students' perceptions about ethics issues. However, it does not provide strong evidence on how students act to respond the ethics education. It is important to study the behavior effect of business education because society is affected by actual behaviors rather than understanding any issues. The present study aims to answer the research question of how business ethics education affects students' ethical decision-making when monetary incentives for unethical behavior exist. I used a one-by-two controlled lab experiment to study the research question where students request production funds. Students can request an amount greater than actual need and keep the excessive amount as personal benefit. The higher excessive difference suggests a high level of unethical behavior. The result shows that students who have ethics education experience requested a greater amount than students who have no ethics education experience. The result suggests that students with ethics education are less ethical than students without such an education. The result suggests that the current business ethics education in school is not effective as it is supposed to be. Given the self-interest culture of modern society, the current ethics education helps students understand the theory and systems of business ethics, making it easier for students to identify the systems' loopholes. They can take advantage of such loopholes for gaining self-interests. The current ethics education system should not only focus on improving students' understanding about the ethics issues but influencing students' behaviors in ethical decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021