Situational ethics: An empirical study of differentiators of student attitudes

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a questionnaire administered to 1,178 undergraduate students and discusses how they responded to ten situations which asked them to assess their personal evaluation of the ethical acceptability, how society would similarly assess the situation and how business persons would respond. Multiple versions of the instrument were developed to investigate if the sex of the person involved in the situation would influence the respondents’ perception of the ethical action involved. No differences were identified. Further, the image of business persons as less ethical than society in general seems to have evaporated.