“Don't try to teach me, I got nothing to learn”: Management students' perceptions of business ethics teaching

• Author: Katarzyna Klimkiewicz,Elies Seguí‐Mas,Guillermina Tormo‐Carbó,Victor Oltra
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12236
• Published date: 01 October 2019
• Date: 01 October 2019

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  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2019;28:506–528.

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

Business ethics education is receiving substantial attention in the

current context of an increasing interest in business ethics by both

academic and p ractitioner com munities (Harris , 2008; Lehner t, Park,

& Singh, 2015; Loeb, 1988; Ma clagan & Campbell, 2011; Marnb urg,

2003; Tormo‐Ca rbó, Seguí‐Mas, & Oltra , 2016). Although standards

and regulator y norms can contribute to r educe the risks of unethi cal

business prac tice, such as in marketing, finan ce, or accounting , the

most effec tive way to achieve this go al would be to develo p busi‐

ness practi tioners' ability to think an d behave ethically (Bampton &

Cowton, 2013). Unive rsities and business school s play a key role in

improving civic b ehaviour and prof essional respo nsibility of fut ure

graduates (Bon i & Lozano, 2007).

Future behaviour of b usiness professionals may be g reatly influ‐

enced by previous business ethics teaching at university (Bampton

& Cowton, 2013; Dell aportas, Cooper, & Leung , 2006; Uysal, 2010).

For instance, t hose financial sector compa nies that wish to prevent

financial malp ractice may logically pr efer to hire job applicants wi th

high ethical awa reness, resul ting in a reduct ion of the risk of such

potential finan cial malprac tice (Graham, 2 012). Considering t hat

the main goal of busin ess ethics education is to im prove ethical be‐

haviour of future m anagement profes sionals, and havi ng in mind

that research o utcomes are so far r ather inconclu sive, it is worth‐

while to examine how individuals react to business ethics education

(Marnburg, 200 3).

Having in mind past inquiry on the influence of ethics teaching

on management st udents' ethical awarenes s (e.g., Adkins & Radtke,

2004; Tormo‐C arbó et al., 2016), we put for ward three ma in re‐

search goals: (a) to asce rtain to what ex tent and how business eth‐

ics courses influence management students' understanding of the

importan ce of business ethi cs and its educ ational goals, ( b) to find

Received: 1 June 2 018 

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  Revised: 26 April 20 19 

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  Accepted: 2 July 2019

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12236

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

“Don't try to teach me, I got nothing to learn”: Management

students' perceptions of business ethics teaching

Guillermina Tormo‐Carbó1 | Victor Oltra2 | Katarzyna Klimkiewicz3 |

Elies Seguí‐Mas1

1CEGEA, Cent re for Research in Bu siness

Management, Universitat Politècnica de

València, Valencia, Spain

2Faculty of Econo mics, Depart ment of

Business Management, University of

Valencia, Valencia, Spain

3Faculty of Mana gement, AGH Univer sity of

Science and Techn ology, Cracow, Poland

Correspondence

Victor Oltra, Faculty of Economics,

Department of Business Management,

Universit y of Valencia, Av. Tarongers, s/n,

46022 Valenci a, Spain.

Email: victor.oltra@uv.es

Abstract

Interest is growing towards including business ethics in university curricula, aiming at

improving ethical behaviour of future managers. Extant literature has investigated the

impact of ethics education on different ethics‐related students' cognitive and/or behav‐

ioural outcomes, considering variables related to training programmes and students' de‐

mographic aspects. Accordingly, we aim at assessing students' understanding of business

ethics issues, by focusing on the differences in students' perceptions depending on gen‐

der, age, work experience, and ethics courses taken. Testing our hypotheses on a sample

of 307 management students at a Polish university, and controlling for social desirability

bias, we obtained mixed and partially surprising results. We found significant differences

in students' understanding of business ethics depending on their gender and age (fe‐

male and older students showed more ethical inclinations), but not depending on having

taken ethics courses—actually perceptions of such courses worsened after taking them.

Besides, work experience was not a significant variable. Moreover, course exposure in‐

tensiveness (i.e., number of ethics courses completed), and time passed since completion

of the latest course, did not confirm hypothesized effects on most of the dependent (sub)

variables. These findings stimulate further questions and challenges for future research

(e.g., around course design and methodology, and social/cultural/contextual issues).

    

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TORMO‐CAR BÓ eT Al.

out whether there are significant differences in management stu‐

dents' under standing of th e importan ce of business ethic s and its

educational goals, depending on their gender, age, work experience,

and prior enrol ment in business ethics co urses, and (c) to determine ,

among those man agement students who have t aken at least a busi‐

ness ethics course, whether there are significant differences in their

understa nding of the impor tance of business ethics and it s educa‐

tional goals, depending on course exposure intensiveness and time

passed since comp letion of the latest cours e.

This article contributes to the extant literature by offering a novel

study of business ethics perceptions among management students

in an underexplored context (Poland), also using previously vali‐

dated research designs. Empirical data were collected with a survey

completed by 307 students of the Bachelor's and Master's degrees

in Management at the AGH University of Science and Technology

(AGH‐UST) in Cracow (Poland). Our dependent variable is construed

as students' perceptions of business ethics and its educational goals.

The term “perceptions” refers to the students' personal opinion on the

importance of ethics in business education, measured as a continuum

between negative and positive extremes. Our independent variables

are gender, age, work experience, the fact of having (or not) taken

a course on business ethics, and (for those who have taken such a

course) course exposure intensiveness, and time passed since comple‐

tion of the latest course. Hence, in addition to already studied variables

such as gender, age, ethics course enrolment, and work experience, we

have added the new variables of intensity of course exposure and time

passed since course completion. The introduction of a new context

and variables, together with the novel results obtained—often differ‐

ent and rather unexpected compared to prior research—disclose rele‐

vant further inquiry opportunities. Furthermore, in order to scrutinize

data truthfulness, and following recent calls for paying attention to

the impact of social desirability (SD) bias on subject responses in eth‐

ics research (Lehnert et al., 2015), we include SD as a control variable

(Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Strahan & Gerbasi, 1972).

Specifica lly, the Polish context provides an a ppropriate research

setting, as a relatively unfriendly environment for business ethics

and a relevant playg round for gainin g insight into the rat her mixed

and complex ty pe of evidence found (Van Liede kerke & Demuijnck,

2011). With our study, we emph asize the impor tance of consid‐

ering the spec ificities of the ge ographical , historical, p olitical, an d

business–economic contexts where ethics courses are introduced

(Crane & Matten , 2004). In this r egard, our stu dy sheds new light

on the situation i n Poland, which is a re latively under‐rese arched

environment regarding business ethics education. Since signing the

Bologna Act an d getting EU membership in 20 04, Poland has been

trying to enr ich its educa tion up to Western Euro pean standa rds.

The Polish higher e ducation sec tor is under cons tant change, wit h

universities trying to adapt new curricula to adjust the teaching pro‐

cess to the expectations of different stakeholder groups—students,

employers, educators, government, European Commission, etc

(Bates & Godoń, 2017; Popows ka, 2016). Besides, the Polish soc iety

is strongly infl uenced by culturally embedd ed traditional moral and

ethical value s (e.g., Catholi c Church, Commu nist past) that m ay to

some extent imp act student s' basic assumpt ions and prior kn owl‐

edge (Sojkin, Ba rtkowiak, & Skuza, 2015). Th ese two contrasting re‐

alities (Weste rnization of edu cation and tra ditional cultu ral values)

offer a novel and s timulating inves tigation set ting. Thought‐pro‐

voking contribu tions are expected, towards a b etter understanding

of, for example, the ro le of prior students' knowled ge and basic as‐

sumptions in asse ssing the effectivenes s of business ethics courses

in unfriendly env ironments. For ins tance, our intric ate results lead us

to wonder to what ex tent introducin g business ethic s education in

Poland through Wes tern teaching patter ns may negatively influe nce

students' perceptions of business ethics education.

This article i s organized as foll ows. After this in troduction , the

next secti on includes an overview of p rior research on busine ss eth‐

ics in higher edu cation. The third sect ion is devoted to outlining the

Polish context re garding social p erceptions and at titudes towar ds

business (ethics), and the current situation of business ethics in

higher education. The fourth section presents the research model

and hypothese s. The fifth section is d evoted to explaining data col‐

lection and m easures. The sixth se ction explains the st udy results. A

discussion section follows, and a final conclusion and recommenda‐

tions section closes the paper.

2 | TEACHING BUSINESS ETHICS IN

HIGHER EDUCATION

Business ethic s education is a timely rese arch topic (Gaa & Thorne,

2004; Mayhew & M urphy, 2009; Tormo‐C arbó et al., 2016). The

development of individual ethical understanding and judgements

has been widely i nvestigated. Trevino (1986) sugge sted that the

personal stage of cognitive moral development will influence de‐

cision making aim ed at dealing with e thical dilemm as (Kohlberg,

1969). Accordingly, under the influ ence of many (interna l and ex‐

ternal) contextual circumstances, personal behaviour is eventually

the result of individual processes of decision making, which progress

throughout different stages, from moral awareness, judgement, and

intention, towar ds actual behav iour (Rest, 1986; Tho rne, 1999). In

the educational context, Perry’s (1998) scheme of intellectual de‐

velopment considers the changes in students' understanding as an

evolutionary process, whereby students increase their understand‐

ing through tim e, by recognizing and reflec ting on the multiplicit y of

possible world 's views, and increasing the ab ilities that enable them

to properly und erstand and interpret d ifferent ways of reasoning in

diverse contex ts. All in all, thes e models emphasize simil ar dynamics,

whereby the moral judgment, intention, and eventually actual be‐

haviour comprise a dynamic cause‐effect chain, according to which

current behavio ural consequences a re the starting po int for future—

contextually c onstricted—ethic al decision making pr ocesses (Hunt &

Vitell, 1986; Jones , 1991).

The importance of business ethics education in university curric‐

ula is growing (Blant horne, Kovar, & Fisher, 2007; Ghaffa ri, Kyriacou,

& Brennan, 20 08; Macfarlane & O ttewill, 2004; Ma dison & Schmidt,

2006; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). Regarding business ethics learning,