Ethics Principles, Personal Values, And Ethical Judgment

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Researchers have conducted various studies in an attempt to gain insights into the ethics of business leaders to postulate possible reasons for unethical behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Recent scandals such as Enron, Worldcom, and Adelphia indicate an ethical problem still exists in the business community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Business ethics are typically discussed at length in university business programs, sometimes with one or more courses devoted to the topic. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very often students are used as surrogates for business leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>One such study by Ahmad and Fadzly (A & F, 2004) posited that when a person observes what they consider to be an unethical act they will try to explain (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ethical judgment</span>) why the individual acted unethically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The person would then either endorse the action as acceptable in the circumstances or reject it as unacceptable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Their <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ethics principles</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">personal values</span> would supposedly influence that decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Additionally, the authors suggest that the perceived consequences of the unethical act would have an influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This study is an attempt to replicate the A & F study, using accounting and business students in the United States (their study was conducted with Malaysian students). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ahmad and Fadzly’s questionnaire was modified and administered to 418 university business and accounting students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The questionnaire contained 19 questions, randomly arranged, that related to five factors. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Respondents in the present study indicated a high level of <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ethics principles</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">personal values</span>, and females displayed higher level <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">personal values</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ethical judgment</span> scale reflects the level of acceptance of (making excuses for) unethical acts and less than 20% of the participants in the present study indicated that they would agree that the unethical acts contained in the scale were acceptable in the environment described.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Almost 60% of the respondents in the present study believed that they would experience positive consequences from unethical actions and a similar number, 56.13%, believed that they would experience negative consequences from unethical actions.</span></p>