The Factors of Age and Sex on the Perception of Ethics

ABSTRACT Ethical are of great interest to the nation's business schools, management professionals, men and women of business on the front lines of decision making, and the general public they serve. Are the nation's business schools adequately preparing students for the challenge of public trust? Two (2) surveys were administered in the spring of 2000 to alumni and faculty of a mid-sized regional state university to evaluate the state of ethics in business and society and the perceived effectiveness of ethics preparation as an aspect of the education. The alumni were surveyed to determine the following: their perception of ethics in society and business, their experience in workplace decision-making, and their opinion regarding business ethics/social responsibility preparation as applied to the workplace. A separate survey was distributed to faculty members. The purpose of the survey was to determine the following: their perception of ethics in society and business, responses regarding the reasons for unethical behaviors in the workplace, and their opinion of the decision-making ability of their students. Both students and faculty believe they are living in a time of general decline. Societal decline is believed to be greater than decline in business. The faculty and alumni responses were cross-referenced demographically. In examining the demographic information, a pattern emerges from the data indicating that perceptions of behavior are influenced by age and sex more than any other factors INTRODUCTION ethics has matured as an academic discipline during the last quarter of the Twentieth Century. Courses are taught in ninety percent (90%) of America's business schools utilizing more than twenty-five (25) textbooks, three (3) academic journals, and sixteen (16) research centers dedicated to business ethics (Stark, 1993). The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of (AACSB), the highly sought accreditation of business schools in colleges and universities across America, establishes the standards for management education. ethics as an academic field, integrated into the curriculum of the business colleges when the AACSB revised their requirements in the late seventies, includes ethical and global issues as the first listing under Curriculum Content and Evaluation (Horvath, 1995). Yet, contends Horvath, the wording implies a macro orientation to business ethics. A decade following inclusion of ethics in the curriculum, the effects of this approach were measured in a survey of business ethics educators, deans of colleges and universities associated with the AACSB. Evaluating the course curriculum with ethics content, seventy-four percent (74%) taught in the colleges of business, a major issue raised by the respondents was, how to do it, and where to put it according to Schoenfeldt. Ethics in the business curriculum continues to be a concern, especially in light of the recurring breach of personal and societal ethics in every strata of society. By the late eighties, an emphasis on ethics had increased four (4) times in the classrooms of higher learning as evidenced by the submission of professional and academic journal articles (Schoenfeldt, 1991). In 1987, John S.R. Shad, former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, former vice-chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and former vice-chair of E.F. Hutton and Company, contributed $20 million to the Harvard School. The purpose of the gift was to establish a teaching program in ethics for MBA Students, Business Leadership and Ethics, in response to insider trading scandals, which involved Harvard graduates, further highlighting the importance of ethics in the curriculum of business schools (Byrne, 1987). The Harvard School has generated a large volume of research and academic publications on the state of ethics in the academia and corporate America; yet, the state of ethics curriculum in the United States during the 1990's continued to be undernourished, (Weber, 1990). …

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