Information Ethics Among College Students–Selected Countries Analysis

Abstract

Information ethics (IE) influences how people use and produce information and affects information services, information technology (IT), and professional practices. Lack of IE severely affects individuals, teams, organizations, or the community. This research bridges a gap in understanding IE perceptions and IE-declared behavior among different sociodemographic profiles in the global communicative space. We devised an extended version of the IT ethics survey to measure attitudes toward IE issues. We surveyed a sample of 1,648 college students in seven countries. We identified four clusters, uncovering groups of people with very high (Legalists), high (Moralists), fair (Pragmatists), and low (Anarchists) perceptions of the IE issues. Clusters allow the exploration of patterns in IE perceptions that would remain hidden at an individual level of analysis and can help to predict IE-related behavior. The findings imply that teachers should adapt IE curricula, and managers should customize the policies and interventions to these groups. Furthermore, managers should consider group behavior and account for factors that affect it in the corporate world, such as lower computer knowledge. International managers should be aware that certain groups behave more unethically with IT and are overrepresented in certain countries.