Abstract:

This paper presents the results of the Self-reported Inappropriate Negotiation Strategies Questionnaire among Business Administration and Software Engineering students. The SINS scale has previously been used as a measure of ethical awareness among university students. The goal of this study was to examine potential differences in how Business Administration versus Software Engineering students respond to an ethics case, in terms of their scores on a commonly used ethical awareness scale. Participants were undergraduate students majoring in either Business Administration (focus in Marketing, Management, CIS, Accounting, or Finance) or in Software Engineering. Notably, all students were part of the same university college and share several courses with one another. Participants were assigned to three conditions: to read a long eithics case, to read a short ethics case, or to read no ethics case (control). Afterwards, they responded to the SINS scale. Finally, they responded to several demographics questions, including their college major. Results show that Business Administration students had lower scores on the SINS scale relative to Software Engineering students across the three case conditions. In other words, Business Administration students were less likely to report a willingness to engage in inappropriate negotiation strategies compared to Software Engineering students. The results of our study suggest that Business Administration students exbihibit greater ethical awareness than Software Engineering students (as measured by the SINS scale) and that this is unaffected to exposure to an ethics case prior to completing the scale. Given the increased focus on teaching ethics in undergraduate education, our results indicate that students in different majors may have differing predispositions towards ethical awareness. even following an intervention (them reading an ethics case).

Keywords:

Ethics, major, engineering, business, education.