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Presentation
Teaching Ethics and Honesty in Business Classrooms: A Study of Changes in Student Perceptions
Conference By Faculty, Center for the Study of Ethics (2007)
  • Susan R. Madsen, Utah Valley University
  • Ovilla Turnbull
  • Troy Nielson, Brigham Young University
  • Larry Hartman, Utah Valley University
Abstract
With recent highly publicized breaches of ethics among members of the business community (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Global Crossing, and Tyco), there is a need to re-examine specific strategies employed in colleges and universities to influence business students toward increased ethics and honesty. The purpose of this study was to examine whether perceptions and attitudes toward ethics and honesty could be influenced during a semester-long college business course. A survey was administered to students in six human resource management classes taught by four different faculty members at Utah Valley State College. The Likert scale questionnaire utilized the 20-item Ethics Position Questionnaire (Forsyth, 1980) as well as eight original honesty items created by Madsen (2006). In addition, it included two short cases written by Denisi and Griffin (2001) which asked for qualitative student responses. The questionnaire examined four aspects of ethics in two categories: 1) honesty (i.e., plagiarism and cheating) and 2) ethics (e.g. idealism and relativism.) To measure student changes in perceptions and attitudes, the survey was administered both at the beginning and end of the semester. During the semester instructors placed particular emphasis on integrating the study of ethics into the teaching of human resource management. Unfortunately, at the end of the semester surveys were not collected from a few of the classes. This resulted in a small sample size for the study as a whole; hence, significantly statistic results were not found with the exception of one facet—plagiarism. Students in the two classes taught by one of the instructors showed a marked increase in awareness of and aversion to plagiarism. There were also very interesting differences in means in several categories that will be discussed. We will also discuss the reasons for the differences among and between classes as well as the possible reasons for them. We also examine the change in scores and the implications for future integration of an ethics focus in business classrooms.
Keywords
  • Business Classrooms,
  • Business Ethics,
  • Teaching,
  • Honesty,
  • Academic Integrity
Publication Date
January 25, 2007
Citation Information
Susan R. Madsen, Ovilla Turnbull, Troy Nielson and Larry Hartman. "Teaching Ethics and Honesty in Business Classrooms: A Study of Changes in Student Perceptions" Conference By Faculty, Center for the Study of Ethics (2007)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/susan_madsen/28/