Understanding Student Perceptions of the Value of Ethics Training

Abstract

In this paper, we attempt to replicate and expand a set of studies conducted by Tormo-Carbó, Seguí-Mas, and Oltra and published in Journal of Business Ethics and Procedia (with Klimkiewicz) in 2016 by conducting an experiment focused on directly addressing similar but refined research questions and contradictory results from their set of studies using improved methodology and question construction. Tormo-Carbó and co-authors engaged business school students in a survey of their orientation towards ethics learning and discussion and generally found that those who had taken a business ethics class were more likely to express interest in and an appreciation for ethics training; however, this result was not robust across locations over time when further studies were conducted using similar methodology in new settings and with different students. Using a student sample of 653 respondents enrolled in two introductory business and economics courses, we explore the influence that short ethics learning exercises have on students' interest in and appreciation for ethics training. We find that students' interest in ethics training does not increase after exposure to short training opportunities. We further find that these students do not indicate an increased willingness to engage in such training or express an increase in the belief that ethics training should be required in degree programs.