Perceptions of business ethics: Students vs business people

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of business students and of business practitioners regarding ethics in business. A survey consisting of a series of brief ethical situations was completed by 537 senior business majors and 158 experienced business people. They responded to the situations, first, as they believed the typical business person would respond and, second, as they believed the ethical response would be. The results indicate that both students and business people perceived a significant gap between the ethical response to the given situations and the typical business person's response. Students were significantly more accepting than business people of questionable ethical responses, and they also had a more negative view of the ethics of business people than did the experienced business people. The male students were more accepting of questionable ethical responses and saw less difference between typical and ethical responses than did the female students. However, male and female business people appeared to think alike with regard to both typical and ethical responses. Some suggested implications included the idea that businesses need to increase their efforts to promote ethical conduct and to make ethics a well-known priority in all actions and policies.