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The Business and Society Course" WilliamR.

Wynd
Does It Change Student Attitudes? JohnMager

undergraduate program. Over half of the under-


ABSTRACT. The purpose of this research was to determine graduate programs require a separate ethics course
if there is a significant difference in the attitudes of students or module, while only one third of the graduate
toward situations involving ethical decisions before and after programs use this approach.
taking a course in Business and Society. A simulated before Teaching ethics in business schools is apparently
and after design was used with Clark's personal business widely accepted among accredited schools of busi-
ethics and social responsibility scale serving as the measure- ness. But does the course really change student
ment instrument. The result of the study indicated that the
attitudes toward what should or should not consti-
Business and Society class had no statistically significant
tute ethical behavior in the business world? If there
impact on student attitudes.
is no change in the way students perceive ethical
business decisions after taking the course then per-
haps resources should be used in other areas. This
Ethical standards of businesspersons have long been
paper reports the results of a study to determine if
a societal concern. Both consumers and politicians
have expressed outrage at scandalous episodes of there is a significant difference in the attitudes of
students toward situations involving ethical decisions
fraud, cheating, and monopoly pricing that surface
before and after taking a course in Business and
from time to time. Businesses are increasingly mak-
Society.
ing ethics a more important social priority (Byrne,
1988). The commitment to ethics on the part of
businesses and University schools of business is often
Previous work
operationalized by the creation of ethics and values
decision making education. Ninety percent of the
Much of the previous work has measured the differ-
business schools responding to a recent Ethics Re-
source Center (1988) survey of business schools ence in ethical attitudes between students and busi-
accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate nesspersons. The result for some of the student/
Schools of Business indicated ethics is included in businesspersons comparison studies are summarized
the curricula. Three quarters of these schools report in Table I.
that ethics is a required part of the MBA and Goodman and Crawford (1974) surveyed 1500
students at 12 colleges and universities comparing
their responses to a set of questional~le marketing
William R. Wynd graduatedfrom Michigan State University with a research practices with those of marketing executives
Ph.D. in 1969. He is a professor of Marketing Management at who had responded to an earlier study published in
Eastern Washington University and has over twenty years of the Harvard Business Review. Overall the business
teaching experience. Dr. Wynd has previously published in
students were not any more critical of unethical
several other academicjournals and conferenceproceedings.
John Mager graduated with a Ph.D. in Marketing from the
research practices than the executives. Goodman and
University of Oregon in 1986. He is currently an assistant Crawford concluded "Across the range of ethics
professor of Marketing at Eastern Washington University. Dr. studied here, the young people now coming into the
Mager has published in the Journal of Consumer Research employment of business have standards not signifi-
as well as numerous national and international academic candy different from those of marketing executives
conferences. already there."

Journal of Business Ethics 8:487--491, 1989.


© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
488 WilliamR. WyndandJohn Mager

TABLE I original sample, the executives had significantly


Summary of research results comparing the ethical standards higher personal ethics and lower social responsibility
of students & businesspersons scores than a group of undergraduate business stu-
dents.
Study Ethical standards Overall these results suggest that students are no
more ethical and sometimes less ethical than business
Goodman & executives. Only Arlow and Ulrich found students to
Crawford Studentsas ethical as businesspersons be more ethical than business executives, but this
Percell Students less ethical than businesspersons was only for the social responsibility scale and not
Hollen & Ulrich Students less ethical than businesspersons the personal ethics scale.
Arlow & Ulrich Studentsboth less and more ethical than Arlow and Ulrich also sought to determine the
businesspersons impact of a business and society course on student
Stevens Students as ethical as businesspersons attitudes by surveying a group of 120 undergraduate
marketing, management, and accounting students
before and after taking the Business and Society
In a later study Percell (1977) found a difference course. They found a statistically significant differ-
between the attitudes of students and businesspersons. ence on the pre- and post-measures for the social
While teaching a graduate seminar in Management responsibility scale. The difference was contributed
Ethics at Dartmouth College in 1961 he asked his by the marketing and management students, with no
students for their opinion on a series of' ethical change between pre- and post-measures occurring
problems. Ten years later he asked those same for the accounting students. There was no significant
students for their opinions on the same set of change overall between pre- and post-measures on
problems. Percell concluded that %.. these young the personal ethics scale; however, there was again
businesspersons seem to have developed a greater a difference for the marketing and management
ethical consciousness and sophistication after their students. Therefore, this particular study does indi-
decade of business experience." Mthough admitting cate that the Business and Society course had an
his sample was small, he did not indicate its exact impact on student attitudes, at least for management
size. and marketing students.
Hollen and Ulrich (1979) surveyed senior business Budner (1987) on the other hand, found that the
students and first level managers to determine their taking of an ethics class did not influence student
respective personal business ethics and Machiavellian ethical orientation scores. Based on these two studies,
orientation. They concluded that "collegiates engaged it is not clear whether a business ethics class has any
in the study of business management have lower impact on student attitudes.
personal ethics than managers." Their sample size
was also small, consisting of 25 first level managers
and 35 senior students. Methodology
Stevens (1984) used Clark's (1966) situations to
compare the responses of 349 senior business students In 1966 John Clark published a study which pur-
enrolled in a required social responsibility course ported to measure executives' commitment to per-
with those of business executives. He administered a sonal business ethics and the willingness to accept
questionnaire using Clark's personal ethics and social ethical responsibility for the social effects of business
responsibility scales to a group of business executives decisions. Clark developed 18 situations, 11 of which
listed in a manufacturers directory and to a group of he organized into a personal ethics scale which
students enrolled in a required course entitled "So- sought to evaluate the respondents' acceptance of a
cial Responsibility of Management." Stevens found commitment to personal integrity and honesty, and
that there was no significant difference between the to the observation of laws governing business activ-
personal ethics of business executives and students. ity. The remaining seven situations sought to evalu-
Arlow and Ulrich (1980) found that relative to the ate executives' commitment to social responsibility.
scores for business executives from Clark's (1966) They appraised the degree to which an individual
The Business and Society Course 489

considers himself or herself ethically responsible for TABLE II


the social effects of business decisions. Respondents Before and after questionnaire scores
were asked to read the situations and respond on a
five point scale indicating their degree of approval or Personal business Social
disapproval. Clark tested his cases for internal con- ethics responsibility
sistency and reliability using executives participating
in a training program at U.C.L.A. Before taking course
The same situations originally developed and Sample size 345 345
tested by Clark and later used by Stevens and Arlow Mean 14.8312 18.0659
& Ulrich were used in the present study to test the Standard deviation 2.8737 3.1469
hypothesis that there is no significant difference After taking course
between students' attitudes toward ethical/social Sample size 205 205
responsibility issues after having taken a course in Mean 14.8796 18.3421
Business and Society. Standard deviation 3.2897 3.3984
Like the earlier Arlow and Ulrich study, a before
and after design without control group was used.
This was, however, a simulated before and after
design in that unlike the earlier work the present for the difference on the social responsibility scale
study tested different groups of students before they also was not significant.
took the course and another different group after Table III shows the comparison of mean scores
taking the course in order to eliminate pre-measure- and standard deviations for each situation by stu-
ment bias potentially present in the A r l o w and dents responding to the instrument at the beginning
Ulrich study. and end of the course. The difference between
Over a two and one half year period question- means was significant at the 0.05 level or less for
naires were distributed to 345 students in eight only three of the 17 situations. The null hypothesis is
separate classes on the first day of class. The same therefore accepted for all but these three situations.
instrument was distributed to 205 different students There is no difference between students' attitudes
in seven separate classes on the last day of class. toward ethical/social responsibility issues before and
Students were asked to indicate their degree of after taking a course in Business and Society.
approval or disapproval of the situations depicted in
the cases on a four point scale rated as follows: 1 =
Approve; 2 = Somewhat Approve; 3 = Somewhat Discussion
Disapprove; 4 = Disapprove. A "score" was recorded
for each respondent along with an overall mean Consistent with Budner's research and Arlow and
score for both the before and after groups. A "t" test Ulrich's findings for the accounting students, we
was used to determine if there was a significant found no significant impact on students' attitudes
difference in the mean scores between the before toward ethical decision situations as a result of the
and after groups for both total scale scores as well as Business and Society class. If the assumption is that
each individual situation. students will be inclined to make more ethical deci-
sions as a result of the business ethics education they
receive, then this assumption is not affirmed by this
Results research.
The criteria which students use to judge situations
Table II shows the mean and standard deviation are developed over time. Family relationships, reli-
scores for each of the scale composites before and gious affiliations, education, and cultural interaction
after students took a course in Business and Society. all have a part in the process. Basic values are
A "t" value of 0.1247 indicated no significant differ- normally set early in life and will not change unless a
ence between the means of the two groups on the "significant emotional event" occurs. A single course
personal business ethics scale. The "t" value of 0.9472 in Business and Society is apparently not enough of
490 WilliamR. WyndandJohn Mager

TABLE III
Comparison of mean scores and standard deviations at the beginning and end of the course

Beginning End
of course of course
m

Situation X SD X SD Signi£

Executives conspire to fix prices for electrical equipment 3.2435 0.8310 3.4069 0.8101 0.05
Salesman pressured to accept company policy he considers 2.6647 0.9342 2.7129 0.9340
unethical
Executive uses insider information for financial gain 2.7668 1.1665 2.8719 1.1490
Use car salesman employs pressure and deceit to sell cars 3.6841 0.6347 3.6355 0.7002
Executive condones use of inferior building materials 3.3703 0.8200 3.3300 0.7736
Salesman pads his expense account 3.4227 0.7641 3.4286 0.7698
Executive recommends employee with connections to large 3.4928 0.7198 3.4778 0.7728
client for promotion over a more qualified employee
Newspaper editor won't publicize deliberate sale of defective 3.1246 0.8416 3.1542 0.8781
appliances by large advertisers
Auditor overlooks bribe 2.8455 1.0243 2.8010 1.0001
Executive hires competitor's employee to find out their secrets 2.8235 1.0523 2.8564 1.1037
Securities salesman recommends questionable bonds per 3.1433 0.8832 3.3399 0.8070 0.05, 0.01
directive of his company
Chairman of U,S. Steel says company won't use pressure to force 2.6138 1.0269 2.6447 1.0622
integration in Birmingham
In the face of competition, company president discharges older 3.0593 0.9109 3.1400 0.9299
workers with seniority
"Sweatshop" owner justifies substandard wages by saying his 2.9717 0.9604 2.9397 0.9931
employees would otherwise be unemployed
Company trades illegally with the Red Chinese through a 1.8563 0.8935 1,8492 1.0137
Canadian subsidiary
Companyjustifies gifts to colleges on the basis of community 2.1498 1.0025 1.9543 1.0116 0.05
responsibility
Executive refuses to take foreign accounting interns because they 2.1925 1.0383 2.3520 1.0296
lack experience - offers to speak to University instead

Rating Scale - approve somewhat approve somewhat disapprove disapprove


Weight - (1) (2) (3) (4)

an emotional event to change students' attitudes gained in the business world. Percell's (1977) re-
toward the situations presented in the questioning search provides some support for the hypothesis that
instrument. It is not known whether exposure to a students may become more ethical with years o f
class such as Business and Society will have any experience in business. Does a business ethics class
impact on decision making as more experience is have any future impact? Follow up research on the
The Business and Society Course 491

same set of students is required to gain any insight Ethics, Social Responsibility and Business Students: An
into this question. Empirical Comparison of Clark's Study', Akron Business &
Future research should also address the question EconomicReview, pp. 17--22.
of whether or not attitudes toward business ethics Budner, Howard R.: 1987 (Summer),'Ethical Orientation of
Markefng Students', The Delta Pi EpsilonJournal, pp. 91-
differ by sex. We did not address this question in our
98.
research and only one of the studies we reviewed
Clark, John W.: 1966, Religion & Moral Standards of American
contrasted attitudes by sex. Since women are enter- Businessmen, Cincinnaf: SouthwesternPress.
ing the labor force in increasing numbers and Goodman, Charles S. and C. Merle Crawford: 1974 (March),
assuming greater positions of responsibility, their 'Young Executives: A Source of New Ethics?', Personnel
impacts on ethical decision making is likely to in- Journal, pp. 180-181.
crease. Hollen, Charles j. and Thomas A. Ulrich: 1977, 'Personal
Perhaps, the goal of a course in Business and Business Ethics: Managers vs Managers-to-be', Southern
Society should not be to change the way students BusinessReview, pp. 17--22.
perceive how they should act in certain situations Percell, Theodore V.: 1977 (Summer),'Do Courses in Busi-
involving ethical and social responsibility dimen- ness Ethics Pay Off?', California Manuscript Review, pp.
sions at the current point in time. Rather a more 50--58.
appropriate goal may be to make students aware of Stevens, George E.: 1984 (Fall), 'Business Ethics and Social
Responsibility: The Responses of Present and Future
the ethical and social dimensions of business decision
Managers', Akron Business & EconomicReview, pp. 6-- 11.
making, such that these dimensions may become
components in the decision making process.
WILLIAM R. WYND and JOHN MAGER
Department of Management,
References Eastern Washington University,
Cheney, WA 99004,
Arlow, Peter and Thomas A. Ulrich: 1980 (Fall), 'Business U.S.A.

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