Does Education Influence Ethical Decisions? An International Study

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Academic Ethics

Publication Date

9-1-2011

Abstract

This study examined whether having attended a public, private or religious affiliated grade and/or high school influenced a college student's ethical decision making process. We also examined whether having taken an ethics course in college influences a student's ethical decision making process. Our sample included 508 accounting students (237 men and 271 women) from Albania, Ecuador, Ireland and the United States. Our analyses indicated no differences in ethical decision making that associated with either grade-or-high-school education. While our data showed no difference in the reported attitudes between students from Ecuador and the United States after controlling for social desirability response bias, we found significant differences between the attitudes students from the United States and students from both Albania and Ireland. While gender was also significant for six of our seven scenarios, social desirability response bias was significant in all of our scenarios. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Volume

9

Issue

3

First Page

235

Last Page

256

DOI

10.1007/s10805-011-9134-3

ISSN

15701727

E-ISSN

15728544

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