Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Teaching Ethics And Honesty In Business Classrooms: A Study Of Changes In Student Perceptions, Susan R. Madsen, Ovilla Turnbull, Troy Nielson, Larry Hartman

Susan R. Madsen

With recent highly publicized breaches of ethics among members of the business community (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Global Crossing, and Tyco), there is a need to re-examine specific strategies employed in colleges and universities to influence business students toward increased ethics and honesty. The purpose of this study was to examine whether perceptions and attitudes toward ethics and honesty could be influenced during a semester-long college business course. A survey was administered to students in six human resource management classes taught by four different faculty members at Utah Valley State College. The Likert scale questionnaire utilized the 20-item Ethics Position …