Predicting intention of business students to behave ethically in the Indian context: from the perspective of Theory of Planned Behaviour

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand business students' intention to behave ethically in general, and in particularly in the business context of a developing country, India. Design/methodology/approach The paper surveyed 250 final semester MBA students from different business schools in Indore city of Madhya Pradesh in India. The study employed the most popular behavioural theory, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to understand the intention of business students to behave ethically. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse direct effects of the constructs on behavioural intention, and the overall model. Findings Findings revealed that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control are positively related and have strong influence on ethical behavioural intention of business students. All constructs together explain 67 percent variance in intention. Attitude alone contributes 46 percent in explaining variance in ethical behavioural intention. Research limitations/implications Business ethics field can benefit from this study as it provides an empirical explanation of the contribution of each factor that is, attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, in ethical behavioural intention of business students. This is directly beneficial for business schools and for education policymakers as the information can help policymakers to understand the potential of existing business ethics education. This study is limited to a data set of 250 business students in the context of a single country which cannot be generalized. So, there is need for research of this type in a more collaborative international context. Originality/value To the best of my knowledge, this is the first study in the Indian context to predict the intention of business students to behave ethically, using the TPB model. This study contributes valuable knowledge to the domain of business ethics, behavioural studies as well the field of business education, and suggests to explore ways to strengthen the three constructs attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control, as these constructs were found to have a strong influence in forming ethical behavioural intention of business students of business schools in India.