Current opinion: 2022 Vol: 23 Issue: 2
Betz Ugras, Central Connecticut State University
Citation Information: Ugras, B. (2022). Investigating the constancy of business and economics students' ethical perceptions. Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research, 23(2), 1-2.
Many studies have been undertaken on business people’s behaviour and their perceptions of business ethics. However, just a few studies have looked into students' perceptions of corporate ethics. Students are, without a doubt, our future generation, who will play a significant part in Indonesia's business and economy. We make comparisons between groups of students based on maturity, formal business ethics education, gender, and professional backgrounds. Furthermore, students with varying intellectual maturity and professional backgrounds have vastly different perspectives on corporate ethics. In comparison to students without a business background, students with a business background are less ethical. This could be in line with prior research that suggests business students need to be taught more about ethical ideals. In contrast, there are no differences in business ethics perceptions among students from other gender groups or who have taken a formal business ethics course. This could be because formal business ethics education takes time for participants to internalise, or because students who do not attend a formal business ethics course acquire business ethics from other sources.
Economics Higher Education, Economics Students.
Understanding how today's business and economics higher education students ethically evaluate corporate behaviour may help predict how they will conduct as corporate actors and leaders in the future. Students watch and interpret academic behaviour now; in the future, they will make decisions and act in a business setting Mintzberg & Gosling (2002). The hypothesis, which is concerned with consistency between the perceptions of the aforementioned two contexts evaluated at the same time by a questionnaire provided to business and economics undergraduate students at a leading Portuguese school, was tested.
In many industrialised countries, research has been undertaken on the perceptions and attitudes of students, academics, and businesspeople Pfeffer & Fong (2002). The sample size used in those researches varies as well, spanning from school to national to international levels. A sample of students from throughout the United States was used to study student perceptions of business ethics. These studies show that many factors are employed in corporate ethics research, and the results are inconclusive. Inconclusive results and recent global financial scandals appear to be drawing academics' attention to the drivers of ethical decisions Roxas & Stoneback (2004).
Unlike in industrialized nations, there are few studies on business ethics in Indonesia, despite the fact that several company scandals have occurred owing to a lack of ethical compliance, such as the Global Bank, Lapindo, Buyat Minahasa, and Century Bank incidents. As a result, this study looks into how students perceive business ethics based on their academic maturity, gender, formal business ethics education, and professional history Starkey & Madan (2001).
The findings of our analysis, based on the sample we used, show that academic mature and less academics mature students have significantly different perspectives on business ethics. Students with various professional backgrounds experience the same outcomes. In contrast, there is no difference in business ethics perceptions between student gender groupings, students with formal business ethics education, and students without professional business ethics education.
Corporations with legal entities are a type of economic institution that has a significant impact on the community. A corporation is treated as a legal entity with the same legal rights as a person. Investors, management, employees, and society, which have become a customer and a component of the social environment, are all served by modern corporations.
Students are immersed in academic career, and as young adults, they make ethical judgements on a daily basis; as a result, their attitudes toward academic moral behavior are not only hypothetical, but rather reflect their ethical judgements in reality and behaviour. On the other hand, ethical considerations outside of academia, particularly in the corporate sector, are more speculative for those students because they relate to their future job situation, particularly in the instance Waerneryd & Westlund (1993).
The purpose of this study is to find out how students feel about business ethics. Students from the Business, Accounting, and Pharmacy departments make up the sample. The findings show that students have a high level of ethical awareness (perception), particularly when it comes to issues concerning their vocations. Business students have lower ethical business awareness than pharmacy students, which is a surprising discovery. This finding could explain the recurrence of numerous corporate scandals perpetrated by company executives. The maturity level of the pupils has an impact on their perception of business ethics. In contrast, the gender component had no effect in distinguishing between male and female students' ethical perception levels.
Mintzberg, H., & Gosling, J. (2002). Educating managers beyond borders. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1, 465-476.
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Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C.T. (2002). The end of business schools? Less success than meets the eye. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1, 78-95.
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Roxas, M.L., & Stoneback, J.Y. (2004). The importance of gender across cultures in ethical decision-making. Journal of Business Ethics, 50(2), 149-165.
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Starkey, K., & Madan, P. (2001). Bridging the relevance gap: aligning stakeholders in the future of management research. British Journal of Management, 1223-26.
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Waerneryd, K.E., & Westlund, K. (1993). Ethics and economic affairs in the world of finance. Journal of Economic Psychology, 14, 523-5539.
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Received: 04-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. JEEER-22-110; Editor assigned: 07-Mar-2022, PreQC No. JEEER-22-110(PQ); Reviewed: 22-Mar-2022, QC No. JEEER-22-110; Revised: 25-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. JEEER-22-110(R; Published: 31-Mar-2022