Linking “doing”, “doing right” and “doing right with others”—empirical indications of the relationship between ethical competency, diversity competency, and other parts of the competency construct

Abstract

As a construct, competency is generally divided into several parts (e.g., professional competency, social competency, personal competency), of which ethical competency (“to do right”) and its social counterpart, diversity competency (“to do right with others”), are still being researched. The importance of this research is obvious: Especially, but not exclusively, in business education, teaching “to do” as well as “to do right” and “to do right with others” is becoming more urgent and complex, and concepts related to corporate as well as individual social responsibility are gaining recognition as essential elements. However, analysis of university curricula indicates that higher business education programs are often not as “doing”-orientated as the construct of competency may imply. What is more, effective and efficient methods of measuring students’ expectations and experiences with regard to the teaching of ethical and diversity competency are not yet available. We therefore developed a short self-report scale to screen expected academic acquisition of ethical competency and diversity competency. We tested the scale with the help of students from several business degree programs at a German university. We compared their expected ethical and diversity competency acquisition with expected acquisition of unspecific professional and methodological expertise, social competency and personal competency, as well as their general self-efficacy. Despite the small sample size, the results of the study indicate acceptable degrees of construct validity of the scales within the general construct of competency. We identify a pronounced demand for the teaching of “doing right” as well as “doing right with others” and specific relationships between diversity competency, ethical competency, and the other parts of the competency construct (e.g., an expected strong relationship between “doing right” and “doing right with others”, or the surprisingly missing relationship between ethical competency and social competency).