Multidimensional Ethics Scale Research Articles

Ways ethics education toolkit impacts moral judgment of accounting students

PurposeTo build public trust in the accounting profession, previous research studies have stressed the need for ethics education. This present research aims to investigate the effects of teaching ethics using the ethics education toolkit (EET) developed by the International Accounting Education Standards Board on accounting students’ moral judgment.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental design was used to determine the effects of teaching ethics using the EET on moral judgment. Data were obtained using the multidimensional ethics scale questionnaire and analysed with multiple linear regression. Factor analysis was performed to obtain the four moral philosophies defined in the literature.FindingsThe results confirm that use of the EET improves the moral judgment of accounting students. The influence of utilitarianism and relativism on moral judgment was reduced, while the students’ ability to recognise violating an unwritten contract as an unethical act was improved. Contrary to expectations, the influence of justice on moral judgment decreased.Practical implicationsThe study may benefit academics by showing positive outcomes of EET use. The EET is a well-developed teaching tool, also suitable for educators insufficiently qualified to develop their own ethics courses or facing time constraints.Originality/valueThe EET was developed to support implementation of ethics education in programmes for professional accountants. By investigating the applicability and effects of the tool in higher education, this study aims to develop moral judgment in accounting students before they enter the accounting profession.

A Comparative Study of Emotional Solidarity Between Homestay Hosts and Tourists

The expansion of the homestay industry is shadowed by ethical concerns and perceived risks. In this context, the emotional relationship between hosts and tourists in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic needs to be re-examined. Focusing on the togetherness of “we” rather than the demarcation of “you versus me,” we integrate homestay hosts and guests into a conceptual model to examine and compare their emotional solidarity with each other, as well as the relevance of emotional solidarity to perceived risk, MES (Multidimensional Ethics Scale), and support for homestays. Our results show that despite the assumption of perceived risk, tourists feel welcomed by hosts during the pandemic, while hosts feel emotionally close to tourists. In addition to the findings that emotional solidarity mediates perceived risk, MES, and support for homestays in both samples, we find that hosts’ perceived risk is more likely to influence their emotional solidarity and support for homestays.

Exploration of Students' Perception of Academic Misconduct: Do Individual Factors, Moral Philosophy, Behavioral Intention, and Judgment Matter?

Using Reidenbach and Robin’s Multidimensional Ethics Scale, this study designs three scenarios related to academic dishonesty (AD) dilemmas to explore students’ moral philosophies, behavioral intentions, and ethical judgments and further examines whether students with different individual factors (i.e., culture of place, gender, and educational level) have differences in the above variables. A total of 605 students from two areas, Taiwan and Mainland China, participated in this study. The results indicated that Taiwanese students had stricter moral equity, relativism, and contractualism philosophies in the duplicate submission scenario than Mainland China students. They also had stricter moral equity and relativism philosophies in the incomplete citation scenario. Similarly, relatively harsh relativism and contractualism philosophies accompanied by a low level of willingness to be a perpetrator in the failure to cite research published in other countries scenario were found. In addition, females applied relatively harsh moral equity and utilitarianism to all scenarios, reporting that they and their peers were less likely to engage in all AD activities. Graduates had a stricter egoism attitude toward duplicate submission and had stricter moral equity, relativism, and contractualism philosophies toward the behavior of incomplete citation. Graduate students also had strict moral equity, relativism, egoism, and contractualism beliefs in the failure to cite the foreign research scenario. Finally, regression analysis showed that moral equity, contractualism, and self-behavioral intention are significant predictors of students’ ethical evaluations in the three scenarios.

Individual and situational influences on the propensity for unethical behavior in responses to organizational scenarios

This article reports two studies evaluating the impact of moral intensity, work experience, and gender on the propensity (attitude, behavioral intention, and subjective norm) for unethical behavior of Venezuelan students and employees responding to different organizational scenarios, and controlling the effects of moral disengagement and empathy. One study singled out moral disengagement as a covariate, and the other did the same with empathy. In both studies, moral intensity, work experience, and gender acted as independent variables. Each study consisted of around 400 participants (totaling 801 participants in both studies): one-half were students without work experience and the other half were employees. For manipulating moral intensity, we used six scenarios describing ethically questionable situations. After reading each of the scenarios, participants answered the Multidimensional Ethics Scale to measure propensity for unethical behavior. After completing this phase, participants responded to the moral disengagement scale in Study 1 and the empathy scale in Study 2. This research did not find concluding, significant effects of moral intensity on the measures of the propensity for unethical behavior. Employees expressed higher intentions of acting unethically than students, though the effect was small (ε2Study 1 = .016. ε2Study 2 = .026). Gender had no significant effect on attitude and subjective norm; but, in behavioral intention, men's scores were significantly higher than women's in Study 1, but not in Study 2. Moral disengagement had a stronger effect than empathy on the propensity for unethical behavior (ε2moral disengagement: attitude = .225, behavioral intention = .179, subjective norm = .159. ε2empathy: attitude = .016, behavioral intention = .011, subjective norm = .010). The authors highlight the relevance of contrasting findings from less-developed countries with those from developed countries, commonly found in the literature, and suggest avenues for further research.

Ethical Attitudes toward COVID-19 Passports: Evidences from Spain.

A so-called COVID-19 passport or Immunity passport (IP) has been proposed to facilitate the mobility of individuals while the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic persists. A COVID-19 passport can play a key role in the control of the pandemic, specifically in areas with a high density of population, and the help of smart city technology could be very useful to successfully implement IPs. This research studies the impact of ethical judgments on user attitudes toward using vaccine passports based on a Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES) that contains five ethical constructs: moral equity, relativism, egoism, utilitarianism, and contractualism. Regression analysis shows that MES satisfactorily explains attitude (R2 = 87.82%, p < 0.001) and that a positive evaluation in moral equity, egoism and utilitarianism is significant (p < 0.001). The objective of the passport (variable leisure) shows a significant negative moderating effect on moral equity (coefficient = −0.147, p = 0.0302) and a positive one on relativism (coefficient = 0.158, p = 0.0287). Adjustment by means of fsQCA shows that five ethical constructs satisfactorily explain both favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward IPs. Solutions explaining acceptance attain an overall consistency (cons) = 0.871 and coverage (cov) = 0.980. In the case of resistance, we found that cons = 0.979 and cov = 0.775. However, that influence is asymmetrical. To have a positive attitude toward the passport, it is a sufficient condition to attain a positive evaluation on a single ethical factor. On the other hand, when explaining resistance, and with the exception of the recipe ~utilitarianism (cons = 0.911 and cov = 0.859), explanatory prime implications require the interaction of at least two variables. Likewise, the context in which the passport is required is significant to explain rejection.

Emerging cyborg products: An ethical market approach for market segmentation

Cyborg products are already available on today's market. They are a potentially large market offering extraordinary opportunities and challenges for businesses. Becoming a cyborg involves many ethical aspects that can be explored from a consumer behavior perspective. However, while these ethical variables have been used in several market analyses, none has examined their potential use for market segmentation in disruptive markets such as the one for cyborg products. We use the Composite Multidimensional Ethics Scale (Composite MES) to explore ethical judgments regarding cyborg products in a sample of 1563 university students in seven countries. Our findings show that all ethical judgment dimensions contribute in the same way and with similar intensity to cyborg market segmentation. We identify three potential market segments. These segments exhibit different characteristics with regard not only to their willingness to become a cyborg but also to their technology acceptance analysis dimensions. We make recommendations for the ethical exploration of this emerging market.

Ethical Decision Making and Psychological Entitlement

AbstractJob candidates who possess characteristics likely to result in organizationally desired outcomes are valuable, yet not always easily identified. Offering validation support for selection tools that organizations can use to identify such candidates is therefore important. The present study examines the construct of psychological entitlement to determine if it can be used to identify individuals who are more likely to make sound ethical judgments in organizations. Specifically, we examine the relationship between psychological entitlement and ethical decision making, positing that individuals with high levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to make less ethical decisions and to use less ethical upward influence tactics than those with opposing characteristics. We administered a survey to 174 participants using the Multidimensional Ethics Scale, the Subordinate Influence Ethics Scale, and the Psychological Entitlement Scale. To test our hypotheses, we used hierarchical multiple regression. Results suggest that individuals with high levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to consider unethical actions as ethical, given several scenarios. In addition, individuals with high levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to consider self‐serving and maliciously‐intended upward influence tactics as acceptable when used to advance in an organization. They are also less likely to consider pro‐organizational upward influence tactics to be acceptable when used to advance in organizations.

Does Ethical Judgment Determine the Decision to Become a Cyborg?

Today, technological implants to increase innate human capabilities are already available on the market. Cyborgs, understood as healthy people who decide to integrate their bodies with insideable technology, are no longer science fiction, but fact. The cyborg market will be a huge new business with important consequences for both industry and society. More specifically, cyborg technologies are a unique product, with a potentially critical impact on the future of humanity. In light of the potential transformations involved in the creation of “superhuman” cyborgs, ethics must be a cornerstone of cyborg marketing decisions. Businesses need to take ethics into account, not only to ensure they behave ethically, as always, but also because ethics will be an important factor in buyers’ decisions in the emerging cyborg market. This is because the decision to become a cyborg is determined, among many other factors, by ethical judgment. Our research focuses on how the dimensions of the Composite Multidimensional Ethics Scale (Composite MES) influence an individual’s decision to become a cyborg. To test our hypotheses, we surveyed a total of 1563 higher-education students in seven different countries. The results of the survey show that ethical judgment will be a keystone in individual cyborgization. Specifically, ethical dimensions explained 48% of the intention to use cyborg technologies. The ethical analysis showed that not all MES dimensions have the same influence on the ethical judgment regarding this decision. Egoism was the most influential dimension, while contractualism was the least. These findings have important implications for both academia and business.

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF TOURISM STUDENTS’ ETHICS AWARENESS, INTENTION AND ORIENTATION

ABSTRACT Ethical perception, intention and orientation of tourism students have become an increasing concern in the literature. This study aims to measure ethical perception of tourism students at different education levels in tourism faculties and vocational schools in Turkey by utilizing the Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES). Selected doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, vocational school level tourism students were examined to compare the ethical awareness among them. In total, 177 responses were achieved. The findings showed that the participants perceived a higher level of ethics awareness in environmental scenario than social and economic scenarios. The ethical decision mean scores according to approaches were higher for justice and relativism theories compared to deontology (ethics codes, duties, principles). Tourism students’ ethics approach intention was not influenced whether they took ethics courses before or not. The findings supported that, female students were more sensitive to ethical issues than male students from ethical orientation perspective. Contrary, there were no significant differences between males and females in terms of the ethical intention.

Ethical Awareness of Seller’s Behavior in Consumer-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce: Applying the Multidimensional Ethics Scale

ABSTRACTConsumer-to-consumer electronic commerce (C2C e-commerce) has opened the possibility of consumers completing more transactions with each other. It has also introduced the ability for consumers to behave unethically. This study examines an individual’s ethical awareness of a seller’s behavior in C2C e-commerce situations by applying the multidimensional ethics scale (with measures for moral equity, relativism, egoism, utilitarianism, and contractualism). The study surveys undergraduate business students in four different C2C e-commerce situations and finds relativism to influence ethical awareness in all scenarios. Egoism is found to influence ethical awareness in three scenarios and contractualism in one scenario, and utilitarianism is not found to be an influence in any scenario. The findings from this study suggest that sellers in C2C e-commerce should conduct transactions based on what is culturally and socially acceptable (i.e., relativism), but also consider the importance of one’s reputation (i.e., egoism), and written or perceived contracts (i.e., contractualism).

Ethical Behavioral Intention in an Academic Setting: Models and Predictors

This study examines the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the multidimensional ethics scale (MES). Variables from both are included to determine which ones significantly correlate with student ethical behavioral intention in an academic setting. Using a survey, responses are collected from undergraduate business students from two southwestern universities in the United States using a scenario-based approach, looking at individual situations and group situations. SmartPLS was used to assess the results for four scenarios. From the theory of planned behavior, attitude was a significant predictor of behavioral intention across all four scenarios while subjective norm was significant in one scenario. From the multidimensional ethics scale, moral equity and relativism were significant in one group scenario while moral equity and utilitarianism were each significant in an individual scenario. The findings indicate support for the use of the TPB and the MES when exploring ethics in an academic setting and for the need to study both individual and group situations. A discussion of the findings and implications is given.

PERSEPSI ETIKA MAHASISWA AKUNTANSI DAN AUDITOR DALAM SITUASI DILEMA ETIS AKUNTANSI

The aim of this study is to investigate about perceive differences among accounting students between auditors ethical dilemma in accounting. Two hundred and twenty eight respondents were participated in this research. Ethical perceived are measured by Multidimensional Ethics Scale with tens ethics’ characteristic from 5 constructs. Ethical dilemma in accounting is measured by two hypothetical cases. Data was analysis with independent t-test. These results showed there are differences among accounting students between auditors. The implications of the study are to increasing content of ethic in accounting curricula.Keywords: ethical dilemma, multidimensional ethic scale, accounting student, auditors.

Ethics of Chinese & Western tourists in Hong Kong

The potential for tension between tourists and residents due to tourist behaviour is rising. In such environment, understanding tourists’ ethical judgments of different scenarios is important. This study asks tourists and residents to ethically evaluate five different scenarios, using a multidimensional ethics scale and rate the likelihood they are to engage in these scenarios while at home and on vacation. An intercept survey of 1827 questionnaires were collected from Hong Kong residents, Mainland Chinese and Western tourists. Teleological ethical theories may justify actions that are deemed ethically inappropriate by deontology or ethics of justice. Western tourists are more likely to engage in unethical behaviour on holidays than at home. For Mainland Chinese visitors, the opposite is true.

Ethical Evaluations of Business Students in an Emerging Market: Effects of Ethical Sensitivity, Cultural Values, Personality, and Religiosity

Business ethics has become a very important concern in global business and understanding the effects of various factors on ethical judgments continues to attract research and practitioner attention. Using the Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES, Reidenbach and Robin 1988) with its five generally accepted philosophical constructs, and vignettes developed by Cohen et al. (1996), current study investigates the relationship between cultural values, personality, religiosity and the ethical sensitivity of business students. We focus on a rapidly emerging country, Turkey, whose economic environment is similar to that of the most Western nations but with a significantly different background and cultural values. Data (n = 184) for the study is collected from a major university in the southeastern Turkey. Although some significant relationships are identified between ethical sensitivity and cultural values and personality, our study findings confirm that MES dimensions had the highest influence on ethical sensitivity levels of business students.

The limits of deontology in dental ethics education

Most current dental ethics curricula use a deontological approach to biomedical and dental ethics that emphasizes adherence to duties and principles as properties that determine whether an act is ethical. But the actual ethical orientation of students is typically unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the ethical orientation of dental students in resolving clinical ethical dilemmas. First-year students from one school were invited to participate in an electronic survey that included eight vignettes featuring ethical conflicts common to the health care setting. The Multidimensional Ethics Scale was used to evaluate the students’ ethical judgments of these conflicts. Students rated each vignette along 13 ethically relevant items using a 7-point scale. Nine of the thirteen items were analyzed because they represent the dominant ethical theories, including deontology. One hundred sixteen dental students successfully completed the survey. Of the analyzed items, those associated with deontology had comparatively weak associations with whether students judged the action to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. Whether an action was judged to be caring had the strongest association with whether the action was judged to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. These results suggest that adherence to duties or principles has weaker association with students’ ethical judgments and behavior compared to caring, which was found to be more influential in their ethical judgments and behavior. Current dental school curricula with a primary focus on deontology may not adequately prepare students to maintain ethical attitudes and behavior in practice.

Reidenbach and Robin’s Multidimensional Ethics Scale: Testing a Second-Order Factor Model

The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of the psychometric properties of Reidenbach and Robin’s (1988; 1990) MES (multidimensional ethics scale). Unlike earlier investigations that assessed the factor structure of the MES, this study proposes and tests a second-order factor model. Professionals from five public accounting firms participated in this study by completing the 10-item version of the MES. The proposed structure was evaluated using a structural modeling technique, partial least squares. Tests of reliability, validity and internal consistency support four first-order factors and a second-order factor.

Plagiarism Awareness among Students: Assessing Integration of Ethics Theory into Library Instruction

The library literature on plagiarism instruction focuses on students’ understanding of what plagiarism is and is not. This study evaluates the effect of library instruction from a broader perspective by examining the pre- and posttest (instruction) levels of students’ perceptions toward plagiarism ethics. Eighty-six students completed a pre- and posttest survey that measured their ethical perceptions of plagiarism scenarios. The survey used the multidimensional ethics scale (MES) developed by Reidenbach and Robin that is used commonly in business ethics research. The study found that the MES is a reliable tool to measure changes in ethical perceptions of plagiarism. Further, results indicate that students had higher posttest perceptions of plagiarism ethics than they did prior to library instruction. These results suggest that library instruction was effective and had a meaningful impact on students’ perceptions toward plagiarism ethics.

Whistle-Blowing Intentions of Prospective Teachers: Education Evidence

This study investigates whistle-blowing intentions of prospective teachers. Firstly, overall ethical awareness of the participants was examined, and then their underlying ethical reasons of whistle-blowing were investigated. Besides, impact on the intention to blow whistle to internal or external parties offering their job guarantee were searched. Three ethical dilemmas were constructed in three scenarios, and The Multi-dimensional Ethics Scale was used in the study. The results revealed that the students’ overall ethical awareness is high, and justice provides strong explanation power for whistle-blowing intention of the participants. While there have been many studies examining whistle-blowing with different factors, there has not been any intention for examining it in education. Thus, this paper aimed to contribute to the extant literature by choosing Turkey and education as context as most studies have been conducted in the Western cultures, and in accounting or marketing service.

Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?

Investigations into ethical judgments generally seem fuzzy as to the relevant research domain. We first attempted to clarify the construct and determine domain parameters. This attempt required addressing difficulties associated with pinpointing relevant literature, most notably the varied nomenclature used to refer to ethical judgments (individual evaluations of actions’ ethicality). Given this variation in construct nomenclature and the difficulties it presented in identifying pertinent focal studies, we elected to focus on research that cited papers featuring prominent and often-used measures of ethical judgments (primarily, but not exclusively, the Multidimensional Ethics Scale). Our review of these studies indicated a preponderance of inferences and conclusions unwarranted by empirical evidence (likely attributable at least partly to inconsistent nomenclature). Moreover, ethical judgments related consistently to few respondent characteristics or any other variables, emergent relationships may not always be especially meaningful, and much research seems inclined to repetition of already verified findings. Although we concluded that knowledge about ethical judgments seems not to have advanced appreciably after decades of investigation, we suggested a possible path forward that focuses on the content of what is actually being judged as reflected in the myriad of vignettes used in the literature to elicit judgments.

Ethical Academic Judgments and Behaviors: Applying a Multidimensional Ethics Scale to Measure the Ethical Academic Behavior of Graduate Students

Using Reidenbach and Robin's Multidimensional Ethics Scale, this study investigated the relationships between background variables and students' ethical evaluations, judgments, and behavioral intentions using 3 scenarios involving dilemmas related to academic dishonesty. The sample included 436 master's students and 142 doctoral students. The study found that the participants used a combination of ethical philosophies to make ethical decisions. The respondents judged improper citations more harshly than acts of inappropriate authorship or the falsification of data. The doctoral students generally considered behaviors related to plagiarism and falsification to be more unethical than the master's students did, though no gender differences were found.