Gender, family background, cynicism and ethical sensitivity of future procurement professionals in a developing country context: evidence from Ugandan universities

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOES-10-2020-0167
• Published date: 29 April 2022
• Date: 29 April 2022
• Pages: 81-106
• Subject Matter: Economics,Social economics
• Author: Benjamin R. Tukamuhabwa,Musa Mbago,Henry Mutebi,Mercy Kyoshabire

Gender, family background,

cynicism and ethical sensitivity of

future procurement professionals in

a developing country context:

evidence from Ugandan universities

Benjamin R. Tukamuhabwa,Musa Mbago,Henry Mutebi and

Mercy Kyoshabire

Department of Procurement and Logistics Management,

Makerere University Business School, Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

Purpose –Some scholarsargue that ethical awareness increases alongsidework experience,whereas others

agree that ethicseducation shapes ethical awareness andthat cheating in college predicts unethical behaviour

in subsequent professional environment.The purpose of this paper is therefore to investigate the level and

antecedentsof ethical sensitivity of future procurementprofessionals.

Design/methodology/approach –An exploratory descriptive survey of a sample of 303 final year

procurement students from the two largest public Universities in Uganda was conducted. Using Statistical

Package for (SPSS) and Amos Version 27, data were analysed by using means, standard deviations,

exploratoryand confirmatory factor analyses and correlationanalysis.

Findings –The study revealed that future procurement professionals exhibit low levels of ethical

sensitivity. However, contrary to the general observations from the extant literature, gender and family

background of students do not determine both ethical sensitivity and cynicism. Moreover, this study

establishesthat cynicism is positively associatedwith instances that depict low ethical sensitivity.

Research limitations/implications –This paper contributes to providing an empirical

understanding of the derivation of unethical behaviour in procurement practice. Grounded in

Aristotle’s organic theory of state and moral habituation, this argues that future procurement

professionals posses natural proclivities that trigger their social instincts and membership to multiple

associations in actualising their innate potential for ethical behaviour. This supports the notion that

humans are potentially virtuous, whereby moralityis learned, imitated, emerges and perfects through

repetitive actions and is therefore incremental.

Practical implications –The findings mirror what prevails in practicein Uganda, where procurement

practitioners have been implicated in unethical practices regardless of their gender and family background.

This signals that managers should not recruit or deploy procurement personnel based on gender or family

background.

Originality/value –While research on ethical sensitivity of students has been focussed on other

disciplines such as accounting, nursing and other business studies, this paper focusses on ethical

sensitivity of procur ement students aspiri ng to join a professional environment that is sev erely marred

with unethical practices. Further, Aristotle’s moral habituation and organic theory of state invoked in this

study underline the synergies of both nature and nurturing in inculcating ethicality in procurement

professionals.

Keywords Ethical sensitivity, Procurement, Gender, Family background, Cynicism,

Developing country, Universities

Paper type Research paper

Cynicism and

ethical

sensitivity

81

Received23 October 2020

Revised21 January 2021

3 May2021

27January 2022

8March 2022

Accepted8 March 2022

InternationalJournal of Ethics and

Systems

Vol.39 No. 1, 2023

pp. 81-106

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2514-9369

DOI 10.1108/IJOES-10-2020-0167

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-9369.htm

1. Introduction

In the recent past, escalating business scandalshave aggravated interest in the antecedents

of ethical behaviour of individuals(Eweje and Brunton, 2010;Cremer et al.,2011;Chatterjee

et al.,2021). But, most extant studies that assess ethical sensitivity have largely ignored

procurement, besides the general acknowledgement that ethical sensitivity is a key

determinant of moral judgement (Chenet al., 2021). Ethical sensitivity enables an individual

to recognise that a situation has a moral or ethical dimension. Hence, people with high

ethical sensitivity tend to display ethical conduct in their operations than those whose

ethical sensitivity is low (Rest, 1986 Muramatsu et al.2019). Ethical sensitivity and

subsequent unethical behaviour are also linked to cynicism –the belief that others are

engaging in unethical acts or that unethical behaviour is common or normal (Sierles et al.,

1980;James, 2005;Nair and Kamalanabhan, 2010;Stavrova et al., 2020;

_

Inandıand Gılıç,

2021;Chatterjee et al.,2021). There is also a growing concern regarding the influence of

gender and family background on ethical sensitivity. On the one hand, the positive role of

gender and family background is acknowledged (Steinberg et al., 1994;Baumrind, 1985;

Galambos et al.,2003;German et al., 2009;Schutte et al., 2014;Cheah and Shimul, 2020;

Valente et al., 2021). On the other hand,it is disputed (Zopiatis and Krambia-Kapardis,2007;

Kirilmaz, et al., 2015;Boateng and Agyapong, 2017;Krienert et al., 2021). Further, some

researchers argue that ethical awareness increases alongside work experience (Eweje and

Brunton, 2010), whereas others emphasise that ethics education shapes ethical awareness,

and that cheating in college is a precursor to unethical behaviour in the subsequent

professional environment (Sierles et al., 1980;Shaub et al.,1993;Zopiatis and Krambia-

Kapardis, 2007;Cheah and Shimul, 2020;Valente et al.,2021;Okougbo et al.,2021;Krienert

et al.,2021;Chen et al., 2021). It is also noticeable that the extant studies on procurement

ethics have concentrated on the ethical behaviour of procurement professionals already in

the working environment, leaving a gap in our knowledge of the origin of unethical

behaviour in practice –whether procurement officers enter the working environment with

ethical or unethicalbehaviour.

In the context of this study, there is considerable literature on procurement ethics in

Uganda, but this hassimilarly concentrated on the procurement workingclass. Studies have

for example, focussed on their ethical attitudes (Mutebi et al.,2015), moral schemas (Ntayi,

et al.,2013), moral identities (Ntayi, 2013), social cohesion and group think(Ntayi et al.,2010).

Given the fact that ethical sensitivity is an antecedent to ethical decision-making and the

necessary first step towards moral behaviour (Rest, 1979;Cannon, 2010;Muramatsu et al.,

2019), it becomes plausible to investigate the ethical sensitivity of potential workers. And

borrowing from Ntayi et al.’s (2010) conclusion that social cohesion and group think

influence ethical behaviour of Uganda’s procurement officers, it can be argued here that

social cohesion and group think at the university may as well culminate in or aggravate

unethical behaviour among future procurement officials. This argument is further

reinforced by previous scholars who concluded that group work and social connectedness

may influence cynical behaviour (Alanoglu and Karabatak, 2021) and ethical decision-

making (Conor and Pangemanan, 2007;Cheah and Shimul, 2020), and such nurtured

behaviour can subsequentlybe migrated to the workplace like any other skills that students

learn and transfer.

Generally, the moral behaviour of public procurement employees in Uganda has been

found deficient. Further, besides the fact that the global corruption perception index has

underlined Uganda as one of the mostcorrupt countries in the world, it is acknowledged that

many of the ethical-related scandals have been committed throughpublic procurement. For

example, the 3rd Procurement Integrity Survey conducted by The Public Procurement and

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