Search results

This study aims to examine and compare ethical perceptions between genders on various potentially unethical consumer situations in Indonesia and Thailand.

A survey was conducted by distributing self-administered questionnaires to a convenience sample of university students in two large cities in Indonesia and Thailand. There are 278 respondents in Indonesia 158 participants for Thailand. Most respondents aged between 18-24 years.

Indonesian youths were found to believe that “passively benefiting”, “questionable action” and “downloading” are more unethical than Thai youths do. The relationship between gender and consumer ethics is not consistent in Indonesia and Thailand. Female youths in Indonesia tended to be more ethical in four out of seven dimensions of Consumer Ethics Scales than their counterparts, while no gender differences were found in Thailand.

The results show the different consumer ethics between Indonesia and Thailand that may reflect cultural variations, where Indonesia is more multicultural than Thailand. The mixed findings of the gender differences may suggest that there are no intrinsic gender differences in consumer ethics. Further, the results also provide implications for educators and public policy makers in both countries to encourage more active roles played by universities in building ethical sensitivity among future leaders.

This is one of the few studies examining the impact of gender on consumer ethical behavior in Southeast Asian countries, where various unethical behaviors (e.g. buying and using pirated products) are prevalent.

Many believe we are suffering from an ethics crisis (Perry & Nixon, 2005). The increased incidence of irresponsible behaviour by business, recent examples being the global financial crisis and the BP oil spill, and the devastating consequences on society have focused attention on the role business schools play in educating future business (and other) leaders. There have also been criticisms of business schools failing to take into account the ‘factually impossible notion of unlimited growth in a world of limited resources’ (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006), and continuing to encourage business strategies which are at odds with the growing challenge of sustainable development, which include issues of climate change, inequity and resource depletion (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006; Shrivastava, 1995; Waddock, 2007). Indeed, business schools have been criticised for encouraging a self-interested, profit-oriented focus that ignores the wider responsibilities of business to society (Gioia, 1992; Kochan, 2002; Mitroff, 2004). Starkey, Hatchuel, and Tempest (2004), for example, claim that the business school has become “ethically compromised because the values it espouses have been implicated in recent corporate scandals.” McPhail (2001) suggests the inclusion of business ethics into accounting and business education as a possible remedy. Cant and Kulik went further and claimed that “business schools would be remiss, if not unethical themselves, if their ethics education efforts were not increased in light of recent events.” (2009).

Recent misconduct and highly questionable behavior has fostered considerable distrust, cynicism, and antagonism among the populace toward the leadership of virtually all social institutions. This paper aims to examine the impact of ethics training on business students values.

Focuses on the central question whether exposure to ethical dilemmas and discussions in the classroom setting will lead to new paradigms of leadership incorporating instrumental values.

The results support the contention that senior level students were influenced in their perceptions of the importance of instrumental values in comparison to freshmen. As hypothesized no difference was found between men and women in both the importance and reinforcement of the instrumental values examined. The results do not support the contention that increased emphasis on ethics in textbooks and courses has had a significant impact.

Directions for future training are considered in light of the findings.

Points to the conclusion that current models of business education are not helping to reinforce instrumental values.

This paper aims to identify the influence of personal factors on the ethical judgement of future accountants in Malaysia. In particular, there are two research objectives for this study: first, to investigate the influence of ethical ideology on the ethical judgement of accounting students and second, to investigate the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on ethical judgement.

The respondents of the study were final year undergraduate accounting students from three public universities in Malaysia. A survey questionnaire comprising instruments about ethical ideology, EI and ethical judgement was distributed. A total of 205 responses were received and were deemed as useable. To achieve the research objectives, multiple regression was performed.

The findings indicate that idealism and EI have a positive influence on the ethical judgement. In contrast, the study discovered that relativism influences ethical judgement negatively.

This study fills the research gap as research on personal factors on the ethical judgement of future accountants is very limited and scarce. It gives insights to the various parties concerning how to enhance ethical judgement among future accountants, which ultimately will improve the credibility of the accounting profession.

If females are more ethical than males, as the literature on the subject generally suggests, engaging and encouraging females in their careers would certainly promote an ethical environment. The present paper is motivated by such a viewpoint and aims to investigate gender‐based differences in the ethical disposition and the underlying dimensions in ethical decision‐making processes, by specific examination of business students.

The main research instrument is a quantitative questionnaire through which the responses of 162 business students (45 females and 117 males) are examined. For data analysis univariate analysis by invoking one‐way analysis of variance and multivariate approach using cluster analysis are conducted to investigate gender‐based differences in the ethical disposition. To determine the underlying dimensions in ethical decision‐making processes, for female and male business students, the principal axis approach to factor analysis has been used.

The findings provide evidence that female business students are more ethically predisposed than their male counterparts. It is further observed that males exhibit less diversity in ethical decision making while females more readily invoked different ethical dimensions for different business scenarios.

The paper offers valuable insight into the role of gender in ethics in the context of Indian business. The fact that females appear to demonstrate greater sensitivity on ethical issues suggests that practitioners may want to use this knowledge for developing their organizational strategies, ethical codes, and evaluation systems. Further, the study also highlights the importance of realigning the curriculum in a manner that the teaching of ethics becomes an integral part of business school education.

This paper aims to examine the influence of employees’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions on their engagement level at work. In addition, the study looks into the contingencies of the relationship by proposing and examining gender as moderator of the proposed relationship.

The study sample consisted of 187 business professionals from both public and private sector manufacturing and service firms operating in India. The study uses a non-experimental correlational field study design. The data were collected with the help of self-administered questionnaires via both personal visits to the organizations and internet-based questionnaire using snowball sampling. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to test the study hypotheses.

The study results clearly underscore the potential of firm’s involvement in CSR activities in influencing the employee attitude and behaviour at work. However, the study findings failed to show any significant effect of interaction between CSR and gender on employee engagement.

Given the positive association of CSR with employee engagement irrespective of gender differences as reflected in the study results, CSR can actually be used across the organizations as tool for talent management.

The study bridges the macro-micro divide and addresses to the need for micro level research in CSR stream by examining the influence of CSR perceptions on work engagement level of employees. The study advances existing body of knowledge beyond developed Western economies by exploring the strategic value of CSR in India, which presents a unique cultural context to look at.