with a female voice and is more "care" or responsibility-oriented, or writh a male voice that is more

"justice" or rights-oriented.

A major problem with Gilligan's theory develop ment is that her "reconsideration of the
substance of moral development still is confined within the societal and disciplinary structures to
which it appears to react . . . dominated by a white, middle class, Western conception of adulthood"
(Gould, 1988, p. 413). Other deficiencies include the use of an unwanted pregnancy scenario as a
surrogate for Kohlberg's ethical dilemmas, and the failure "to recognize the role caring (and women)
can play in establishing a just society" (p. 413). Gould instead suggested a feminist perspective of
integration that avoids the male/female masculine/feminine di chotomies. This paradigm recognizes
that women are labeled as caring, not because they are caring, but because they are subordinate,
and because the caring traits are of secondary importance and therefore assigned not to men, but to
women. There must be a separation of "that aspect of [women's] experience that has its own
integrity and offers its own achieve ments" from femininity as it is defined by the patriarchal order"
(p. 414). This feminist perspective is similar to the ideal transcendent ethic mentioned by Gilligan.

Gould characterized the transcendent ethical framework as a validation, incorporation and

integration of the previously separate justice/rights ethics and the care/responsibility ethic. These
care/justice modes are replaced with a structure based on "the ultimate value of the individual
human being and the value and need for community. These elements correspond to Kohlberg's
emphasis on the develop ment of autonomy in the morally mature adult and Gilligan's emphasis on
caring for one another within a web of relationships" (Bloom, 1990, p. 251).

This study does not address which theory of moral development and subsequent ethical
frame work is currendy operational in society. The concern is, given a student's moral and ethical
stage, how does he/she react to a given ethically sensitive situa tion? These reactions can be
assessed with a model that classifies ethical behavior into one of three categories:

1. Utilitarian model. The most ethical choice is the one that maximizes benefits and minimizes
costs for most people or stakeholders, i.e., the ends justify the means
2. Rights (Kantian) model The ethical choice assures each person or stakeholder of certain
human rights. The means, not the ends, are of concern here
3. Justice (Golden Rule) model The ethical choice guarantees justice, in terms of fairness,
equality, and impartiality, to all. (Velasquez et al, 1983)

Most ethical behavior corresponds to one of these models. The ethical attitudes of the
respondents in this study are analyzed according to this framework to determine the operative
model, and whether this model changes according to characteristics such as sex, age and exposure
to ethics in coursework.
The stakeholders in these models are defined by Mitroff (1983) as "all those interest groups,
parties, actors, claimants, and institutions ? both internal and external to the organization ? that
exert a hold on it" (p. 4). Stakeholders exist and react in a social system characterized by four
dimensions: creativity and change, political and economic, information and communication, and,
finally, ethical, moral, and cooperative (Mitroff, 1983). Within these dimen sions, the stakeholders
and the organizations are classified according to the Jungian framework by input (perception)
modes: sensation (by breaking down a situation into smaller components ? hard facts, details, data-
bound) or intuition (viewing a situation as a whole ? possibilities, generalities, data free); and by
decision-making (evaluation) modes: thinking (impersonal rational reasoning, generaliza tions ?
cognitive process) or feeling (personal, individuation ? affective process). This leads to the Jungian
personality types: sensing-thinking (ST), sensing-feeling (SF), intuition-thinking (NT) and intuition-
feeling (NF).
In the current study, stakeholders (the students) interpret the facts about the ethical
conflicts differ ently due to differences in "emotional makeup and psychological structure. They
perceive the same 'facts' differendy, if not seeing entirely different facts to begin with" (Mitroff,
1983, p. 7).

Towards a theory of ethics education

Two questions consistendy surface when the subject of teaching ethics to business students arises.
The first question is: Should ethics be taught to students? The American Assembly of Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB) answered in the affirmative, but did not dictate the form of instruction.
In 1978, the AICPA (1978) felt that the accounting curriculum did not expose students to or make
them aware of the legal and/or ethical obligations facing accounting professionals. Changes in the
curriculum were suggested to address this omission. Cooke et al (1987) reported that little progress
had been made in the ten years since that AICPA report. In their opinion, the lack of emphasis on
ethics in the current curriculum can be traced to two situations. The first is a continuing lack of
emphasis on ethics in the CPA examination.,The second is that "some members of the business
community . . . mistakenly see business ethics as containing an implicit criticism of the profit motive"
(p. 66). The first situation can be addressed by the AICPA integrating more ethics questions into the
CPA exam. The second situation is more difficult to deal with. As current business students are
exposed to ethics as an integral part of their curriculum, they should not share the current business
community's wariness about ethics and profit being mutually exclusive.
The second question is: Can ethics be taught to accounting students? Those opposed to
ethics education in professional schools advance two arguments. The first is that a person's ethical
character is irrevocably determined by the time one reaches adolescence, so that ethics cannot be
taught at any level of higher education (Rohatyn, 1988). Recent psychological research, including
cross-sectional, longitudinal and sequential age-trend data studies (Rest, 1988), shows that people in
their twenties and thirties change the "basic assumptions and perspec tives by which people define
what is morally right or wrong," and that "formal education (years in college/ professional school) is
a powerful and consistent correlate to this change" in moral judgment (pp. 22? 23). While many
facets of one's ethical personality are determined during adolescence, this ethical personality
continues to change and develop well into adulthood; therefore, in order "to function ethically in
professional situations (one) requires special education and preparation" in conjunction with one's
professional training (p. 25). Ethics therefore can be taught to students as part of the college and
graduate school curricula. This supports Kohlberg's theory of moral development.
The second argument is that even if students can be taught ethics, ethics cannot be properly
taught in professional schools because only professionals trained formally in ethics can teach ethics
effectively. This argument is rebutted by both business and psychology research, and is not of
concern in this study. However, the content of ethics materials and their integration into the
curriculum is shown to be more important than the formal training of the person presenting those
materials. Arthur Andersen & Co. is in the middle of a five-year program designed to encourage
business faculty to incor porate ethics modules into the current curriculum. The integration of ethics
into the spectrum of business courses should help students "understand the ethical dimension in
decision-making and sharpen their skills in moral reasoning so that they can be more successful and
effective in today's business environment" (Arthur Andersen and Company, 1989, p. 1).
Given that there is a general consensus that first, ethics can be taught to college students,
and second, ethics should be taught as part of the business or professional curriculum, two
questions remain. Are business ethics being taught to business students? If so, what is the effect on
their ethical attitudes?

Prior studies
In a series of studies of the personal and political attitudes of college students from
1968?1971, Yan kelovich (1972) found that the 1,244 undergraduate and graduate students
interviewed in Spring 1971 increasingly challenged authority, and decreasingly believed in the
Puritan ethic. Male students are "skeptical, cynical, and pessimistic about the present state of our
society and its institutions. Women students are more adamant in their rejection of violence as a
tactic or a philosophy . . . (and) have a greater sense of commitment to doing things for others; set
greater moral store on love, family and living a clean moral life" (Yankelovich, 1972, p. 139).
These student attitudes prefigure Gilligan's (1982) care/justice framework.
Yankelovich groups college students as either career-minded (to improve economic well-
being, career and social position) or taking affluence for granted (to reap intangible benefits such as
education for its intrinsic value). This corresponds to studies done from 1968 through 1991 at the
university from which the sample for the current study is drawn. In 1972, the university in the
current study reported that 19% of the incoming freshmen were career minded and 22% took
affluence for granted. There was, however, a 58% majority that classified them selves primarily as
"collegiate," defined as holding a personal philosophy that stresses the extracurricular aspect of
college Ufe. In 1991, the incoming fresh men were even more collegiate in orientation (66%)
compared to 15% career-minded and 18% in the take-affluence-for-granted category. 1991 was the
first year in which men and women reflected the same positions in the three categories.
Some empirical studies have examined whether the ethical positions of business students
are influenced by instruction or determined by the students' background, with mixed results.
McNichols and Zimmerer (1985) studied whether the ethical attitudes of undergraduate students
were affected by academic major, sex or religious beliefs. Using ten ethically questionable scenarios,
they found no differences in ethical attitudes due to either sex or major. Business professionals were
viewed as no more or less ethical than society in general.
Grant and Broom (1988) surveyed business students from both private and state schools
about their approach to solving a business-oriented ethical problem. They found that responses
were affected by the level of family income, and the size of the college attended. Miesling and
Preble (1985) and Arlow (1991) also confirmed that background characteristics influence students'
ethical positions.
Few empirical studies were conducted to explore the connections between gender and
ethical posi tions, again with mixed results. Gilligan (1982) found problems with Kohlberg studies
and developed the care/responsibility and justice/rights framework. Miesling and Preble (1985), and
Betz et al (1989) found that females take more ethical positions than males, contradicting Fritzsche
(1988) and McNichols and Zimmerer (1985).
 The effects of exposure to a professional code of ethics on student's ethical attitudes were
studied by Fulmer and Cargue (1987). Accounting students familiar with the AICPA ethical code had
a higher perception of their ethical standards than non-ac counting business students. This
perception did not translate into more ethical actions, however, ac counting students would not
actually act more ethically than other students in a given situation.
Agacer and Cassidy (1989) used IMA videotapes to assess ethical positions before and after
exposure to the scenarios. Some positions did change, but not always to a more ethical one.

Research methodology

Five scenarios involving different ethical problems facing the accountants are available on videotape
from the IMA. After review by ?ie authors, two cases were chosen for this study based on their
relative freedom from sexual, racial or societal bias. Participants in the study were 51 freshman, 39
junior and 40 graduate MBA students from a medium-sized private university in the Northeast. They
were enrolled in Principles of Accounting I, Cost Accounting, and Graduate Managerial Accounting,
respectively. Freshmen and juniors were full-time students, while most MBAs were part-time
students. Students completed a demographic survey, after which they read a one-page summary of
Case 1. This case concerns the conflicts faced by the controller of a recently acquired subsidiary
when preparing sales projections (subject to certain internal pressures) for the controller of the new
parent company. The students then viewed a detailed five minute video tape of the case, after which
they responded to specific items regarding the ethical behavior of the principals. This procedure was
then repeated for Case 2, in which an accountant is faced with authorizing payment of approved
expense reports, though some items are questionable. The questionnaire, including the case
summaries, is presented in the Appendix.

Variables

Demographic variables included sex* age, major, student and employment status, and prior
exposure to ethics via coursework. The latter was measured by enrollment in courses dealing with
ethics, either generally or business-specific.
Statements about ethical behavior were developed for each case using the IMA's discussion
outline and the studies previously discussed. These items were used to determine the ethical
attitudes of the respondents using a Likert scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Factor
analysis of these items yielded three dimensions corresponding to the utilitarian, rights and justice
models for each case.
The IMA's Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants discusses
responsibilities in terms of competence, confidentiality, integrity and objectivity, and presents them
within the justice framework. The application of these standards, how ever, may serve the interests
of one group of stakeholders at the expense of another. An individual's ethical orientation
'(utilitarian, rights or justice) should affect how one views responsibility toward stakeholders. The
stakeholders (IMA, 1983; Mitroff, 1983; Mayer, 1988) included shareholders, the company itself,
family, oneself, and the profession. Respondents ranked these groups in order of im portance for
each case.
One's ethical orientation should influence which actions are preferred in a given situation,
and include some options suggested by the IMA in resolving ethical conflict. These actions included
consulting the immediate supervisor, going above the supervisor, ignoring the matter, resigning and
searching for a new job, and searching for a new job and then resigning.
A final ranking was sought for sources of guidance if the respondent was faced with an
ethical conflict. Some of these sources are suggested by the IMA, and their importance would be
affected by one's ethical orientation. The possibilities included a family member, immediate
supervisor, friend from within the company, prior conduct within the company, the company code of
ethics, and the profession's code of ethics.
Results for the specific ethical items and the rankings of responsibilities, actions and
guidance were analyzed by comparing groups (freshmen, juniors, MBAs), and by aggregate:
male/female, accountmg/non-accounting major, and MBA/undergraduate.

Data analysis

Data were analyzed using Fisher's exact probability test, since the data are either nominal or ordinal
and do not meet the assumptions and requirements of parametric statistics. The Fisher exact test
determines the significance of differences among the three groups, and between the male/female,
accounting/non-accounting, and graduate/undergraduate aggregates. Asymptotic chi-squared
approximations are not used here because it is not feasible or defensible to collapse or drop data in
order to achieve higher cell counts in this analysis. New algorithms have made Fisher's test, formerly
constrained to a two-by two analysis because of computational limitations, usable in the larger
contingency tables required to analyze this study's data (Baglivo etal, 1988).
Descriptive statistics for selected demographic variables are presented in Table I. No
differences in ethical positions were found based on employment experience in general or exposure
to ethics in prior coursework.

Analysis by ethical attitude

Each case was analyzed by comparing each group's or aggregate's responses for the utilitarian,
justice and rights factors. In the group analysis for both cases, freshmen and juniors were
significandy more justice oriented than MB As. In Case 2, however, MBAs and freshmen were more
utilitarian than juniors in their ethical approaches. The actual work experience of older MBAs may
affect their ethical attitudes and temper their idealism. These findings do not support Kohlberg's
theory of moral develop ment that higher ethical positions correspond with age.
Males were more utility oriented than females for Case 2, with no differences found for Case
1. Surprisingly, males were consistendy more neutral in their responses to the specific ethical items
than females. Fritzsche (1988) and McNichols and Zim merer (1985) found no differences due to sex,
while Chonko and Hunt (1985) found females to be more aware of ethical issues, but not necessarily
more ethical. Miesling and Preble (1985), and Betz et al (1989) found that females take more ethical
positions than males. These findings do not support Gilligan's