THE ETHICAL VIEWS BUSINESS LEADERS, UNIVERSITY
FACULTY AND STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
|
SELECT YEARS 1983 - 2003 |
|
|
|
FINAL
DRAFT BY |
Ellen Sutor, Kathleen Casey and
Paul C. Thistlethwaite
Department of Marketing and Finance
Western Illinois University
Research Design Dynamics
Macomb, Il
DEVELOPED FOR THE AMERICAN NATIONAL BUSINESS
HALL OF FAME BOARD
November 4, 2004
|
TABLE
OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
Contents |
Page |
|
|
iv |
||
|
1 |
||
|
7 |
||
|
13 |
||
|
32 |
||
|
44 |
||
|
55 |
||
|
67 |
||
|
93 |
||
|
109 |
||
|
123 |
||
|
137 |
||
|
|
138 |
|
|
|
141 |
|
|
|
148 |
|
|
|
151 |
|
|
|
157 |
|
|
List
of Tables |
||
|
|
Table |
Page |
|
RESPONSE RATES FOR THE THREE
BUSINESS LEADER STUDIES. |
3 |
|
|
RESPONSE RATES FOR THE TWO FACULTY
STUDIES |
3 |
|
|
NUMBER OF STUDENTS FROM EACH
UNIVERSITY |
4 |
|
|
RESPONSE RATES FOR THE TWO STUDENT
STUDIES |
4 |
|
|
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS ASKED IN EACH
SURVEY |
5 |
|
|
PERCENT IN EACH GROUP HAVING TAKEN
AN ETHICS OR MORAL PHILOSOPHY COURSE |
8 |
|
|
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
RESPONDING BUSINESS LEADERS |
9 |
|
|
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
RESPONDING FACULTY |
11 |
|
|
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
RESPONDING STUDENTS |
12 |
|
|
PERCENT OF EACH OF THE THREE 2003
RESPONDING GROUPS AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT
(1=SA;
5=SD) |
15 |
|
|
FOR ALL SEVEN YEARS, PERCENT OF
EACH OF THE THREE GROUPS PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH
STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
25 |
|
|
PERCENT OF THE BUSINESS LEADERS IN
2003 AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT (1 = SA , 5=SD) |
34 |
|
|
PERCENT OF THE BUSINESS LEADERS IN
2003 PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
39 |
|
|
PERCENT OF THE FACULTY IN 2003
AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT(1 = SA , 5=SD) |
46 |
|
|
PERCENT OF THE FACULTY IN 2003
PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH STATEMENT (1=SA; 5=SD) |
50 |
|
|
PERCENT OF THE STUDENTS IN 2003
AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT(1=SA; 5=SD) |
57 |
|
|
PERCENT OF THE STUDENTS IN 2003
PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH STATEMENT (1=SA; 5=SD) |
62 |
|
|
FOR ALL YEARS, PERCENT OF EACH OF
THE RESPONDING GROUPS AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT(1=SA;
5=SD) |
69 |
|
|
FOR ALL SEVEN YEARS, PERCENT OF
EACH OF THE THREE GROUPS PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH
STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
81 |
|
|
FOR EACH OF THE THREE STUDIES,
PERCENT OF THE BUSINESS LEADERS AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
95 |
|
|
FOR EACH OF THE THREE STUDIES,
PERCENT OF THE BUSINESS LEADERS PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH
STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
102 |
|
|
FOR EACH OF THE TWO STUDIES,
PERCENT OF THE FACULTY AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT
(1=SA;
5=SD) |
111 |
|
|
FOR EACH OF THESTWO STUDIES,
PERCENT OF THE FACULTY PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH EACH
STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
117 |
|
|
FOR EACH OF THE TWO STUDIES,
PERCENT OF THE STUDENTS AGREEING WITH EACH STATEMENT
(1=SA;
5=SD) |
125 |
|
|
FOR EACH OF THE TWO
STUDIES, PERCENT OF THE STUDENTS PROVIDING THEIR DEGREE OF AGREEMENT WITH
EACH STATEMENT (1=SA;
5=SD) |
131 |
SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
BUSINESS LEADERS, FACULTY AND
STUDENTS ETHICAL VIEWS:
SELECTED YEARS
1983 2003
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study
of business professionals, university faculty and college students provides
insights into their ethical beliefs. Not only can one compare the views of
these three groups in late 2003, but the views can be compared to prior studies
of the three groups. Consequently, a very large amount of information has
been provided in this report for the reader. Trying to summarize the
important findings will be left to the reader. People interested in this
study will have different perspectives and different research needs. Please
examine the information that you are interested in. Do write about it.
Only one conference paper has been developed from the data thus far.
The American
National Business Hall of Fame board members have received a file copy of this
report, the SPSS data file, and an excel file containing results from an
additional 189 students from University of Louisiana at Monroe and 84 students
from the University of Oregon. Other persons interested in the data may contact
Richard Hattwick for the files at
richardhattwick@bellsouth.net or (561) 676-8784
SECTION 2:
INTRODUCTION
AND
METHODOLOGY
BUSINESS
LEADERS, FACULTY AND STUDENTS
ETHICAL VIEWS:
SELECTED YEARS, 1983 TO 2003
INTRODUCTION
The Illinois Hall of Fame began an intensive study of ethics
in 1983 with a mail survey of randomly selected business leaders of Americas largest 10,000 corporations. Other studies of
other business leaders, university faculty and students were conducted in 1988, 1989 and 1995. In order to
obtain the views of these three groups in 2003, followup studies were commissioned by the Board of Directors of the American National
Business Hall of Fame. Paul Thistlethwaite, president of
Research Design Dynamics and Emeritus Professor of Marketing at WIU worked with
two senior students in marketing, Ellen Sutor and Kathleen Casey
to conduct the studies. Several objectives guided the research. In order to
demonstrate these in this report, a structure was created that will facilitate the appropriate comparisons.
1. To obtain updated information on each of the three
groups.
2. To compare the three groups
opinions in 2003.
3. To compare the 2003 opinions with the earlier four
studies.
4. To compare the 2003 business leaders opinions with those of
1988 and 1983.
5. To compare the 2003 faculty members opinions with those of
1989.
6. To compare the 2003 students opinions with those of 1995.
This report will be primarily a statistical report since so many different comparisons of groups are made. Different persons can use the information to develop professional articles.
METHODOLGY
In order to obtain the views of business leaders, faculty and students, three different methodologies were employed. The business leaders and faculty were surveyed using the methodologies of the earlier studies. The students opinions were gathered from several universities instead of just one; the methodology employed in the earlier studies. The following two sections discuss the actual data collection procedures including response rates and the differences in the questionnaires.
Business Leaders
The Hall of Fame has conducted three studies of business leaders. All three surveyed random selections of organizations from the 10,000 largest in the U.S. A mail survey was employed in each of these. The appropriate respondent was the chief executive officer or the president. Others were given the survey to respond to though. The response rates for these studies are presented in Table 1.
*Hattwick, Richard, Bong-Gon P.
Shin and Larry C. Wall (1984). Business Ethics- Findings of a Survey of Americas Leaders, Journal of Behavioral Economics, pp. 157-185. **Prasad, Jyoti, Yunus Kathawala, Matthew Monippallil and Richard Hattwick (1993). Business and Academe: A comparison of Perceptions on Business Ethics, The Journal of Socio-Economics, Volume 22, Number 1, pp. 69-83. The response rate in 2003 was much lower than the other two groups. In the intervening 15 years, chief executives and presidents have been receiving many more surveys than in
the past. This might account for the lower response rate. The lack of a
follow-up postcard might have contributed to it also. Twice as many surveys were sent out this time as in the past so a follow-up postcard would not be necessary. This was not an accurate assumption. A follow-up
postcard would probably have been more effective.
Faculty In both 1989 and 2003, university faculty were contacted by sending a letter to the Dean of a college of business and asking him or her to complete the survey and also ask three other faculty to respond. All of the selected colleges in 2003 were members of the AACSB. A follow-up postcard was sent out three weeks after the initial survey was mailed. This was too apparently too long of a time period to elapse to be effective. A problem also did arise with this survey that may have contributed to a lower response rate. Some of the faculty received questions that inadvertently had been printed with the student demographic
questions rather than the faculty demographic ones. All of the deans received the correct version. *Monippallil, Matthew, Yunus Kathawala, Richard Hattwick, Larry Wall and Bong-Gon P. Shin, (1999). Business Ethics in America: A View From the Classroom, The Journal of Behavioral Economics, Volume 19, Number 1, pp.125-140. Students The students in the 1995 study were college of business students from Eastern Illinois University. In order to obtain a wider perspective of students ethical attitudes, faculty from the American National Hall of Fame were invited
to participate in the collection of student data at their university. A few other selected faculty were also invited to participate. By January 10, 2004, a total of 1009 good questionnaires were returned for processing and analysis. An additional 84 were provided by Simona Stan at the University
of Oregon. Jerry Wall at University of Louisiana at Monroe collected 189 surveys from his university. They were received in February and could not be included in the first version of this report. Redoing the many, many tables to include their data was beyond the scope of this study. They, however, will be part of the database that faculty can use to develop professional articles. The students
attended college at a private university, several regional
universities and two flagship universities. Table 2C presents the listing of the universities that participated and the number of students surveyed at each. Table 2.E gives information about the number of students in each of
the two studies. *Not included in this report. * Prasad, Jyoti, Nancy Marlow and Richard Hattwick (1998). Gender-Based Differences in Perception of a Just Society, Journal of Business
Ethics, Volume 17, pp. 219-228.
QUESTIONNAIRE The researchers thought the questionnaire would be the easiest part of the research process. They were mistaken. This part of the research became a very complicated part. The studies from 1983 to 1995 did not include the same questions for all studies nor was the wording of the same question exactly the same. Some of the differences were unintentional. For example, the wording of the questions in the report for the 1983 study had slightly different wording for some of the questions that had been on the questionnaire. All questions from the studies were entered into an Excel spreadsheet so that a visual examination of the questions could be made. Anyone interested in looking at this spreadsheet should contact Paul. The first page of the spreadsheet is given as Appendix A. Consequently, in most instances, the most recent wording was used. Also, in doing all of the investigation of the wording of the questions, an error was made in the current study. In the previous studies, a five-point Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree scale had been utilized with No Opinion being the midpoint for most of the questions. In the 2003 survey, questions 30 to 38 were to have had the Influence set of answers. But the Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree set of answers was mistakenly used instead. The possible answers should have been Extensive Influence, Some Influence, No Opinion, Little Influence and No Influence. Therefore, the extent of influence can be gained by
interpreting a questions such as To what extent are ethical standards of business executives influenced by peer group pressure? as Peer Group
pressure influences the ethical standards of business executives with the degree of agreement being the possible answers.
Table 2.F gives the number of questions asked of each group for each survey. The first survey in 1983 had 93 questions. All three of the 2003 questionnaires had approximately 50 questions, instead of more questions, to try to increase response rate. One of the major goals for the 2003 study was to keep the survey to no more than two pages, plus a cover. Also, the same attitudinal questions were to be asked of all three groups in 2003. Consequently, a review of the questions that had been asked all three groups from 1983 to 1995 revealed that only 29 had been asked of business leaders, faculty and students. These became the first 29 questions on the 2003 survey. Then, nine questions that had been asked of both the business leaders and the faculty were included. These were the infamous influence questions that need to be reinterpreted from the original wording of the questions. The last nine questions had been asked of both business leaders and students. There were NO questions included on the 2003 questionnaires that had been asked of only one group. The demographic questions were changed for the three groups. Note that some of the faculty received a survey that had student demographics. For those instances, the information concerning having taken an ethics course and gender was still recorded for the faculty. As indicated above, the seemingly relatively simple updating of the ethical views of three groups became complex since three different research designs had to be employed. Also, the original 84-attitudinal questions had to be analyzed for consistency in wording in subsequent surveys. Other ethical questions were added to the faculty survey. All subsequent surveys had no more than 48 attitudinal questions. Therefore deciding what to ask became a somewhat complex question.
The research team consulted with Dick Hattwick concerning which form of the question should be used. The questionnaires for the business professionals, faculty and students are provided in Appendices B to E.
METHOD OF ANALYSIS Given the complexity of the research design and the relatively few questions that had been asked of all three groups in earlier studies, the analysis therefore became a little more complex. Only 29 of the 47-attitudinal questions had been asked of all three groups in earlier studies. Therefore, the tables of analysis in this study had to accommodate the other 18 questions. The research team tried to make the tables of information as consistent and easy to use as possible. When a question was not asked of a particular group, then a NA was entered into
the table. For the students in the 1995, some of the information asked on the
survey was not presented in the journal article. Therefore, a NI for No Information (but asked) was included on the tables. For this current study,
any nonresponse for the attitudinal questions was coded as a 3 for no opinion. Because there is so much information to be presented, the tables were segmented into logical sections. Also, within each section, where possible, a more summary like table with the question, the year, the group, the percent who agreed, the average response, the standard deviation and the number
of respondents is presented. The second table, where possible, presents the percentage of respondents who gave each of the Agreement answers. ALL THREE GROUPS BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
BUSINESS LEADERS, FACULTY AND STUDENTS
INTRODUCTION The
background characteristics of each of the three groups for 2003 will be presented. A comparison to the earlier respective
demographics will also be given. The question on ethics is presented before
the demographics. The characteristics of the business leaders, faculty and
students will then be discussed. Although not
a demographic question, the question concerning haven taken an ethics class,
its information is presented in this section.
Table 3A reveals that business leaders were more likely to have taken the
ethics course than the current college of business students. The students
were the least likely to have had such a course. TABLE 3A. PERCENT IN EACH GROUP HAVING TAKEN AN ETHICS OR
MORAL PHILOSOPHY COURSE Source: 2003 Study of Ethics
DEMOGRAPHIC
CHARACTERISTICS BUSINESS
LEADERS As shown in
Table 3B, in 2003 an overwhelming percentage of the respondents were male,
92%. Even though Best Lists of Arizona randomly selected the sample of large
companies, none of the respondents companies employed more than 900
persons. The average was in the 700 range. The two states with the
largest number of respondents were California and Illinois, 14% and 11%.
Almost half of the respondents were CEOs, in the service sector and had a
management and marketing background. The
percentage of respondents in 1983 identifying themselves as CEOs was very
close to the 2003 percentage. No information was
reported in the 1988 article about business leaders. TABLE 3B.-1 DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDING BUSINESS
LEADERS TABLE 3B-2 DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDING
USINESS LEADERS Source: 2003 Study of
Ethics FACULTY In 2003,
three fourths of the faculty respondents were male. The largest responding
group was faculty. About half were from regional universities with
masters programs. About 4 in 10 were in business administration or
management. All of the respondents in 2003 were from AACSB accredited
schools. Only 43% of the 1989 respondents were from AACSB schools. Note
that there are many missing values in this data since not all faculty received
a questionnaire with the correct demographic questions on it. In 1989,
almost the same percentage of faculty responded as in 2003, 53% to 52%. TABLE 3C. DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDING
FACULTY Source: 2003 Study of
Ethics
STUDENTS In 2003,
over half of the students were male compared to 49% in 1995. There were a
lower percentage of senior students in 2003 compared to 1995, 39% to 47%. The vast majority in both years was college of
business majors. TABLE 3D. DEMOGRAPHIC
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDING STUDENTS Source: 2003 Study of
Ethics
SECTION 3: BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS OF
SECTION 4:
FOCUS ON ALL THREE GROUPS FOR 2003 ONLY
SECTION 4:
FOCUS ON ALL THREE GROUPS FOR 2003 ONLY
INTRODUCTION
In this section, the focus is on the information concerning all three groups: business leaders, faculty and students. Table 4A presents a summary version of the information for each of the 47 attitudinal questions. For each question for each group, the percent that agreed with each statement is given. In addition, the average response (low is positive) and the standard deviation for each question are provided. The number of responses completes the information for each group for each question. Questions 30 to 38 are given at the end of the table since their answers should have reflected to what extent instead of a SA to SD perspective. See Table 4B for a clearer understanding of these questions.
Table 4B gives the percentage of respondents who either Strongly Agreed, Agree, gave No Opinion, Disagreed or Strongly Disagreed for each question for each group. The discussion will focus on Table 4A. One can examine the differences in the actual responses in Table 4B depending upon his or her interest in the particular question and/or group.
ANALYSIS
Table 4A shows the percent of the three responding groups agreeing with each statement. Of the 47 questions on the 2003 questionnaire, 27 answers were positive from all of the respondents. Nine responses were negative from all of the respondents. The respondents answers were mixed on the other 11 questions. Of the 11 questions with mixed responses, faculty and students agreed 6 times, faculty and business people agreed 3 times, and business people and students agreed twice. Four out of the six times that faculty and students agreed their answers were positive. All three times that faculty agreed with business people their answers were negative. Business people and students agreed once positively and once negatively. Overall, business people gave positive answers 66 percent of the time; faculty gave positive answers 68 percent of the time; and students gave positive answers 72 percent of the time.
SECTION 5
FOCUS ON ONLY THE BUSINESS
LEADERS FOR 2003
SECTION 5
FOCUS ON ONLY THE BUSINESS LEADERS
FOR 2003
INTRODUCTION
In this section, the focus is only on the business leaders for the 2003 study. Table 5A presents a summary version of the information for each of the 47 attitudinal questions. For each question, the percent that agreed with each statement is given. In addition, the average response (low is positive) and the standard deviation for each question are provided. The number of responses completes the information for each group for each question. Questions 30 to 38 are given at the end of the table since their answers should have reflected to what extent instead of a SA to SD perspective. See Table 5B for a clearer understanding of these questions. Table 5B gives the percentage of respondents who either Strongly Agreed, Agree, gave No Opinion, Disagreed or Strongly Disagreed for each question.
ANALYSIS
One can
examine the differences in the actual responses in these two tables depending
upon his or her interest in the particular question and/or group.
A detailed analysis of the information in this section is beyond the scope of
the project.
SECTION 6:
FOCUS ON ONLY THE
FACULTY FOR 2003
SECTION 6:
FOCUS ON ONLY THE FACULTY FOR 2003
INTRODUCTION
In this section, the
focus is only on the faculty for the 2003 study. Table 6A presents a
summary version of the information for each of the 47 attitudinal questions. For each question, the percent that agreed with each statement is
given. In addition, the average response (low is
positive) and the standard deviation for each question are provided. The number of responses completes the information for each group
for each question. Questions 30 to 38 are given at the end of the
table since their answers should have reflected to what extent instead of a SA to SD perspective. See Table 6B for a clearer understanding of these questions. Table 6B gives the percentage of respondents who either Strongly
Agreed, Agree, gave No Opinion, Disagreed or Strongly Disagreed for each
question.
ANALYSIS
One can examine the
differences in the actual responses in these two tables depending upon his or
her interest in the particular question and/or group. A detailed analysis of the information in this
section is beyond the scope of the project.
Source: 2003 Study of Ethics
* The actual question on the questionnaire was * To what extent are ethical standards influenced by
SECTION 7:
FOCUS ON ONLY THE STUDENTS
FOR 2003
SECTION 7:
FOCUS ON ONLY THE STUDENTS FOR 2003
INTRODUCTION
In this
section, the focus is only on the students for the 2003 study. Table 7A
presents a summary version of the information for each of the 47 attitudinal
questions. For each question, the percent that agreed with each statement is
given. In addition, the average response (low is positive) and the standard
deviation for each question are provided. The number of responses completes
the information for each group for each question. Questions 30 to 38 are
given at the end of the table since their answers should have reflected to
what extent instead of a SA to SD perspective. See Table 7B for a clearer
understanding of these questions. Table 7B gives the percentage of
respondents who either Strongly Agreed, Agree, gave No Opinion, Disagreed or
Strongly Disagreed for each question.
ANALYSIS
One can
examine the differences in the actual responses in these two tables depending
upon his or her interest in the particular question and/or group. A detailed analysis of the information in
this section is beyond the scope of the project.
Source: 2003 Study of
Ethics
The actual
question on the questionnaire was To what extent
are ethical standards influenced by
Source:
2003 Study of Ethics
* The actual question on the questionnaire
was To what extent are ethical standards
influenced by
Source: 2003 Study of Ethics
* The actual question on the questionnaire was * To what extent are ethical standards influenced by