Abstract:

Ethics is an unavoidable topic when discussing today’s major concerns of organizations’ management. Previous literature has sought to understand how business schools are responding to ethic-related challenges. Indeed, higher education institutions (HEI) cannot be bystanders in the formation of ethical professionals. Firstly, HEI must create opportunities to stimulate students’ critical thinking about ethical dilemma. Secondly, prepare students to integrate ethics in their professional and citizen practices. Research have demonstrated that students exposed to ethical education will develop increased abilities to deal ethically with future dilemmas situations.

Despite general recognition that students’ ethical foundations are established before they reach college age, ethical critical thinking can be improved at any age, so business ethics education is crucial to decrease tolerance for unethical behaviour. Ethical decision-making may depend on situational or individual factors. For the purposes of this study, individual factors are explored, such as age, gender, work experience, political positioning and religiosity. The literature shows contradictory results consider students’ age and gender. While some studies reveal significant differences between men and women, and young and older respondents, others show no significant difference between these factors.

Given this scenario, this study investigates the following research goals:
- Examine the influence of sociodemographic variables (gender, age, work experience) on students’ ethical attitudes.
- Explore the influence of students' religious and political positioning on their ethical attitudes
- Understand students' attitudes towards ethics in Higher education context

Data was collected by a survey from a convenience sample of 200 business undergraduate students in a Portuguese Higher Education Institution. The survey was divided in three parts:
1. Students’ attitudes concerning ethics in higher education contexts, using a Scale developed by Binani (2022), based in five factors:
a) Influence of Ethics on faculty and education system
b) Importance of awareness of ethics;
c) Ethical environment on campus
d) Attitude towards cheating;
e) Impact of technology in cheating;
2. Personal and sociodemographic characteristics: gender, age, work experience, religiosity (9-point scale from ‘0’ (not religious at all) to ‘9’ (very religious), and political attitude (9-point scale from ‘0’ (politically left oriented) to ‘9’ (politically right oriented).

Results provide interventions in curriculum and pedagogical activities related to ethics that can boost less developed elements identified in the survey.

Keywords:

Business education, ethics, student’s attitudes, cheating.