The effects of gender, major, age, and ethics education on the ethical perceptions of business students

Abstract

This study addresses probably the most important yet least investigated question regarding business ethics education in South Korea. South Korea has lagged behind other advanced countries on the research about the business ethics education. Thus, this study investigates the present condition of the business ethics education in South Korea and tests for (a) gender, (b) major, (c) age, and (d) ethic education based differences in ethical intention, ethical evaluation among students from a Korean national university. Results indicated that students who majored in accounting and management students had shown consistently different ethical evaluations and intention compare to other majors. On the contrary to literature (Robin & Babin, 1997; Dawson, 1997; Rugger and King, 1992; Vorherr, Petrick, Quinn, and Brady, 1995) no age and gender effect was found. Even though there were some evidences of ethics education effects, the evidence was rather weak to be acceptable.