Ethics Portfolio

506  |  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2019;28:506–528.© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1   |   I N T R O D U C T I O N

Business ethics education is receiving substantial attention in the current context of an increasing interest in business ethics by both academic and practitioner communities (Harris, 2008; Lehnert, Park, & Singh, 2015; Loeb, 1988; Maclagan & Campbell, 2011; Marnburg, 2003; Tormo‐Carbó, Seguí‐Mas, & Oltra, 2016). Although standards and regulatory norms can contribute to reduce the risks of unethical business practice, such as in marketing, finance, or accounting, the most effective way to achieve this goal would be to develop busi‐ ness practitioners' ability to think and behave ethically (Bampton & Cowton, 2013). Universities and business schools play a key role in improving civic behaviour and professional responsibility of future graduates (Boni & Lozano, 2007).

Future behaviour of business professionals may be greatly influ‐ enced by previous business ethics teaching at university (Bampton

& Cowton, 2013; Dellaportas, Cooper, & Leung, 2006; Uysal, 2010). For instance, those financial sector companies that wish to prevent financial malpractice may logically prefer to hire job applicants with high ethical awareness, resulting in a reduction of the risk of such potential financial malpractice (Graham, 2012). Considering that the main goal of business ethics education is to improve ethical be‐ haviour of future management professionals, and having in mind that research outcomes are so far rather inconclusive, it is worth‐ while to examine how individuals react to business ethics education (Marnburg, 2003).

Having in mind past inquiry on the influence of ethics teaching on management students' ethical awareness (e.g., Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016), we put forward three main re‐ search goals: (a) to ascertain to what extent and how business eth‐ ics courses influence management students' understanding of the importance of business ethics and its educational goals, (b) to find

Received: 1 June 2018  |  Revised: 26 April 2019  |  Accepted: 2 July 2019 DOI: 10.1111/beer.12236

O R I G I N A L A R T I C L E

“Don't try to teach me, I got nothing to learn”: Management students' perceptions of business ethics teaching

Guillermina Tormo‐Carbó1  | Victor Oltra2  | Katarzyna Klimkiewicz3  | Elies Seguí‐Mas1

1CEGEA, Centre for Research in Business Management, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain 2Faculty of Economics, Department of Business Management, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain 3Faculty of Management, AGH University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland

Correspondence Victor Oltra, Faculty of Economics, Department of Business Management, University of Valencia, Av. Tarongers, s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain. Email: [email protected]

Abstract Interest is growing towards including business ethics in university curricula, aiming at improving ethical behaviour of future managers. Extant literature has investigated the impact of ethics education on different ethics‐related students' cognitive and/or behav‐ ioural outcomes, considering variables related to training programmes and students' de‐ mographic aspects. Accordingly, we aim at assessing students' understanding of business ethics issues, by focusing on the differences in students' perceptions depending on gen‐ der, age, work experience, and ethics courses taken. Testing our hypotheses on a sample of 307 management students at a Polish university, and controlling for social desirability bias, we obtained mixed and partially surprising results. We found significant differences in students' understanding of business ethics depending on their gender and age (fe‐ male and older students showed more ethical inclinations), but not depending on having taken ethics courses—actually perceptions of such courses worsened after taking them. Besides, work experience was not a significant variable. Moreover, course exposure in‐ tensiveness (i.e., number of ethics courses completed), and time passed since completion of the latest course, did not confirm hypothesized effects on most of the dependent (sub) variables. These findings stimulate further questions and challenges for future research (e.g., around course design and methodology, and social/cultural/contextual issues).

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out whether there are significant differences in management stu‐ dents' understanding of the importance of business ethics and its educational goals, depending on their gender, age, work experience, and prior enrolment in business ethics courses, and (c) to determine, among those management students who have taken at least a busi‐ ness ethics course, whether there are significant differences in their understanding of the importance of business ethics and its educa‐ tional goals, depending on course exposure intensiveness and time passed since completion of the latest course.

This article contributes to the extant literature by offering a novel study of business ethics perceptions among management students in an underexplored context (Poland), also using previously vali‐ dated research designs. Empirical data were collected with a survey completed by 307 students of the Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Management at the AGH University of Science and Technology (AGH‐UST) in Cracow (Poland). Our dependent variable is construed as students' perceptions of business ethics and its educational goals. The term “perceptions” refers to the students' personal opinion on the importance of ethics in business education, measured as a continuum between negative and positive extremes. Our independent variables are gender, age, work experience, the fact of having (or not) taken a course on business ethics, and (for those who have taken such a course) course exposure intensiveness, and time passed since comple‐ tion of the latest course. Hence, in addition to already studied variables such as gender, age, ethics course enrolment, and work experience, we have added the new variables of intensity of course exposure and time passed since course completion. The introduction of a new context and variables, together with the novel results obtained—often differ‐ ent and rather unexpected compared to prior research—disclose rele‐ vant further inquiry opportunities. Furthermore, in order to scrutinize data truthfulness, and following recent calls for paying attention to the impact of social desirability (SD) bias on subject responses in eth‐ ics research (Lehnert et al., 2015), we include SD as a control variable (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Strahan & Gerbasi, 1972).

Specifically, the Polish context provides an appropriate research setting, as a relatively unfriendly environment for business ethics and a relevant playground for gaining insight into the rather mixed and complex type of evidence found (Van Liedekerke & Demuijnck, 2011). With our study, we emphasize the importance of consid‐ ering the specificities of the geographical, historical, political, and business–economic contexts where ethics courses are introduced (Crane & Matten, 2004). In this regard, our study sheds new light on the situation in Poland, which is a relatively under‐researched environment regarding business ethics education. Since signing the Bologna Act and getting EU membership in 2004, Poland has been trying to enrich its education up to Western European standards. The Polish higher education sector is under constant change, with universities trying to adapt new curricula to adjust the teaching pro‐ cess to the expectations of different stakeholder groups—students, employers, educators, government, European Commission, etc (Bates & Godoń, 2017; Popowska, 2016). Besides, the Polish society is strongly influenced by culturally embedded traditional moral and ethical values (e.g., Catholic Church, Communist past) that may to

some extent impact students' basic assumptions and prior knowl‐ edge (Sojkin, Bartkowiak, & Skuza, 2015). These two contrasting re‐ alities (Westernization of education and traditional cultural values) offer a novel and stimulating investigation setting. Thought‐pro‐ voking contributions are expected, towards a better understanding of, for example, the role of prior students' knowledge and basic as‐ sumptions in assessing the effectiveness of business ethics courses in unfriendly environments. For instance, our intricate results lead us to wonder to what extent introducing business ethics education in Poland through Western teaching patterns may negatively influence students' perceptions of business ethics education.

This article is organized as follows. After this introduction, the next section includes an overview of prior research on business eth‐ ics in higher education. The third section is devoted to outlining the Polish context regarding social perceptions and attitudes towards business (ethics), and the current situation of business ethics in higher education. The fourth section presents the research model and hypotheses. The fifth section is devoted to explaining data col‐ lection and measures. The sixth section explains the study results. A discussion section follows, and a final conclusion and recommenda‐ tions section closes the paper.

2   |   T E A C H I N G B U S I N E S S E T H I C S I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N

Business ethics education is a timely research topic (Gaa & Thorne, 2004; Mayhew & Murphy, 2009; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). The development of individual ethical understanding and judgements has been widely investigated. Trevino (1986) suggested that the personal stage of cognitive moral development will influence de‐ cision making aimed at dealing with ethical dilemmas (Kohlberg, 1969). Accordingly, under the influence of many (internal and ex‐ ternal) contextual circumstances, personal behaviour is eventually the result of individual processes of decision making, which progress throughout different stages, from moral awareness, judgement, and intention, towards actual behaviour (Rest, 1986; Thorne, 1999). In the educational context, Perry’s (1998) scheme of intellectual de‐ velopment considers the changes in students' understanding as an evolutionary process, whereby students increase their understand‐ ing through time, by recognizing and reflecting on the multiplicity of possible world's views, and increasing the abilities that enable them to properly understand and interpret different ways of reasoning in diverse contexts. All in all, these models emphasize similar dynamics, whereby the moral judgment, intention, and eventually actual be‐ haviour comprise a dynamic cause‐effect chain, according to which current behavioural consequences are the starting point for future— contextually constricted—ethical decision making processes (Hunt & Vitell, 1986; Jones, 1991).

The importance of business ethics education in university curric‐ ula is growing (Blanthorne, Kovar, & Fisher, 2007; Ghaffari, Kyriacou, & Brennan, 2008; Macfarlane & Ottewill, 2004; Madison & Schmidt, 2006; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). Regarding business ethics learning,

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Bampton and MacLagan (2005) considered essential to take into account the point of view of the three groups involved: scholars, managers, and students. Most ethics education research focuses on the perception of educators towards ethics pedagogy and its effec‐ tiveness. However, little research considers students' own preferred approaches to learn ethics. Indeed, understanding the students' per‐ spective could importantly help the learning process (Duff, 2004).

The extant literature has pointed at the diversity of instruction methods applicable as an important aspect in influencing students' perceptions of business (ethics) teaching. Waples, Antes, Murphy, Connelly, and Mumford (2009) examined several course charac‐ teristics that influence ethics education effectiveness, concluding that shorter‐length workshops using case‐based approaches, mul‐ tiple activities, and focusing on ethical rules, principles, guidelines, and strategies, were then most effective when compared to other approaches. Later on, Medeiros et al.'s (2017) extensive review on business ethics instruction found that course designers should limit course objectives to a maximum of three, and key topics between four and seven. Besides, not only topics covered should be con‐ sidered, but also the relevant teaching and learning processes and class dynamics involved. Accordingly, Medeiros et al. (2017) found that students' active participation through, for example, presenta‐ tions and class discussions, considerably improves business ethics course effectiveness. Moreover, stand alone, workshop‐based train‐ ing lasting around 1 day proved more effective than integrated and semester‐long training, as were face to face courses versus online education (Medeiros et al., 2017).

The extant literature has found that, generally speaking, ethics teaching is considered relevant by management students. Different studies have supported this idea, in the sense that students' views on ethics training programmes are usually positive, and students who follow those programmes tend to improve aspects of their eth‐ ical perceptions and awareness (see e.g., Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Crane, 2004; Graham, 2012; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). Accordingly, in order to advance substantially on research on ethics teaching ef‐ fectiveness, it seems crucial to focus on research designs that build their samples around the students who have participated in the eth‐ ics training programmes (Graham, 2012). Doing this helps advance research in a twofold way: on the one hand, it contributes to build an accurate picture of how students understand business ethics and, on the other, it facilitates progress towards better evaluating how effective such courses are.

All of the above considerations must, in any case, be taken with caution. Given the delicate nature of ethics research, it is import‐ ant to have in mind the potential effect of the so‐called SD bias (Chung & Monroe, 2003; Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Lehnert et al., 2015)—that is, the extent to which respondents may give answers that the researcher expects to be “correct” instead of responding with honesty (Auger & Devinney, 2007; Zerbe & Paulhus, 1987). In Randall and Fernandes's (1991, p. 805) words, SD “is broadly understood as the tendency of individuals to deny socially unde‐ sirable traits and behaviours and to admit socially desirable ones”. Including SD in ethics education research designs strengthens

data robustness, as doing so provides a rigorous tool for assess‐ ing truthfulness of responses. However, SD issues, traditionally neglected in research on ethics education (Randall & Fernandes, 1991), have been increasingly considered in the past years, in line with the recommendations of recent contributions (see e.g., Campbell & Cowton, 2015; Lehnert et al., 2015). Having this situ‐ ation in mind, we will explicitly include this issue in our investiga‐ tion, treating SD as a control variable—as scarce although relevant organizational research has previously done (e.g., Valentine & Hollingworth, 2012).

3   |   B U S I N E S S E T H I C S A N D H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N : T H E P O L I S H C O N T E X T

In the business world and also in the academic context, awareness of business ethics is growing in Poland (Lewicka‐Strzalecka, 2010). Poland is a post‐communist country where very specific historical, cultural, religious, and legal backgrounds influence people's per‐ ceptions of the business culture (Potocki, 2015). Negative conno‐ tations can be often linked to the term “business”, consistent with perceptions of the formerly planned economy as failing to foster economic efficiency (Lewicka‐Strzalecka, 2006; Ryan, 1995). Also, in Poland, business‐related professions have not usually been very well considered in comparison with other occupations: a business person is often “considered to be a beneficiary of the new sys‐ tem, who, according to popular opinions, did nothing to deserve his profit” (Lewicka‐Strzalecka, 2006, p. 441). The Polish society is characterized by lacking a proper balance between (relatively high) human capital and (relatively low) social capital (Czapiński, 2008), and this fact may help explain the pervasive low trust in business. Consequently, the society shows high scepticism towards private companies' declarations of adherence to social causes, resulting in an understanding of business ethics as a conceptual contradiction. Besides, ethical concerns are approached by business people basi‐ cally in terms of law abidance (Gasparski, Lewicka‐Strzalecka, Rok, & Szulczewski, 2004). Nevertheless, there is a widespread percep‐ tion of business laws and regulations as system that poses barriers for business development and also hinders economy development (Lewicka‐Strzalecka, 2006). Despite this (not very positive) outlook, Poland has been improving its ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), from the 45th position in 2002 to the 36th in 2017—al‐ though with a one‐year deep fall, as it had the 29th position in 2016 (Transparency International, 2018). However, notwithstanding this progress, Poland still lags in the CPI behind many other developed countries, especially after the 2016–2017 notable fall in the ranking (Transparency International, 2018), so we consider it as a relatively “unfriendly environment” (cf., Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016) for business ethics.

From a historical perspective, in Poland there is no long tradi‐ tion of ethics education. Ethics, together with religion as school sub‐ jects, were introduced to Polish schools in 1991. The sociopolitical transition towards democracy determined the changes also in the

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approach to moral development and an increase in the awareness of what it means to be a citizen of a democratic country (Leek, 2015). In Poland, similarly as in other continental European countries, edu‐ cation on ethical issues in business was traditionally incorporated in regular lectures on organizations or business management (Scherer & Picot, 2008). Therefore, while the reflection on business ethics as autonomous subject arrived at universities, we could observe that the content of courses was strongly inspired by institutional literature (Rossouw & Stueckelberger, 2012). For people observ‐ ing the ongoing socioeconomic changes, “business ethics” could seem as an abstraction or a threat for the rapidly growing markets. Acknowledging the low level of trust towards firms and institutions in Poland, and conviction that while doing business you should rather not trust people (CBOS, 2016; GUS, 2015), teaching on ethi‐ cal aspects of business seems to be challenging task.

All in all, social perceptions of Polish business culture are evolving, and discussions around teaching on business ethics are increasingly popular, in line with extant research on the role of effective ethics ed‐ ucation in supporting the development of moral reasoning skills (Rest, 1980). Young Polish people show a low degree of awareness towards corporate social responsibility (CSR), (Ciemniewski & Buszko, 2009), and managers also assess themselves poorly regarding their CSR en‐ gagement (FOB and GoodBrand and Company Polska, 2010). The ac‐ ademic community finds in these facts a strong case for inquiring into the educational implications of these concerns (Rojek‐Nowosielska, 2013). Poland has been experiencing in the past years rapid social and economic transformation, including deep changes in education poli‐ cies. In this context, a broad spectrum of initiatives (conferences, panel discussions, etc.) have been developed around the issue of whether and how to educate on business ethics (Gasparski, 2008; Gasparski & Lewicka‐Strzałecka, 2001; Gasparski, Lewicka‐Strzałecka, Bąk, & Rok, 2012; Kinach‐Brzozowska, 1995). All in all, awareness is increasing in Poland regarding the need of better managerial ability to respond to different moral dilemmas, as well as to undertake actions in the fields of business ethics and CSR, consistent with the intensifying global trends linking business socially responsible behaviour and higher ed‐ ucation challenges (Gasparski, 2008; Gasparski & Lewicka‐Strzałecka, 2001; Rojek‐Nowosielska, 2013).

In 2007, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education published the fundamental contents for study fields (Standardy ksz‐ tałcenia dla kierunków, 2007). According to these regulations, in the Bachelors' of Management, elements of “business ethics” were re‐ quired as topics incorporated within courses on “organizational be‐ haviour” and “human resource management”. In the Master's level, a compulsory module on “business ethics” was required as an integral part of the curricula.

The content of the course—according to the ministerial regula‐ tions—had to cover topics connected to relations between ethics and law, values, ideals and moral sanctions', integration of ethics within organizational culture, conflicts of values in the management process, ethical aspects of globalization processes, the relationship between Christianity and other religions and ethics, ethical culture and ethics in selected countries, ethics in management, work ethics,

ethics and capital markets, ethical aspects of competition, ethics in marketing and advertising, and professional ethical codes. In general, business ethics courses were aimed at developing students' skills in understanding ethical principles, assessing the ethical aspects of the organization, and choosing the right (ethically correct) behaviour (Standardy kształcenia dla kierunków ‐ Zarządzanie, 2007).

These requirements on quite intense business ethics modules— with 30 teaching hours—could have to some extent limited the num‐ ber of elective courses on familiar topics, such as CSR. However, even if there were ministerial standards for including business ethics at bachelor's and master's levels, researchers interested in this topic suggested to offer more Business Ethics courses—that is, maybe elective courses, above the minimum ministerial requirements (Maruszewska, 2011).

In 2011, the amendment of the Act on Higher Education provided initial changes in the approach to business ethics education (Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2011). The requirements described in terms of specific knowledge, abilities and social compe‐ tences did not refer to any precise module that should provide the ethical contents. Based on ministerial guidelines, courses on “busi‐ ness ethics” started to be introduced in diverse modules and forms. At that time, the Polish core curricula supported the idea of leaving lecturers the decision about the scope and ways in which they pro‐ vide the courses, and which methods they decided to use (Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2011).

However, in spite of the relevant debate in Poland on the role of education in business ethics, empirical studies at the university level are still scarce; hence, more studies are necessary in the Polish context, in order to further expand the exploration of the effective‐ ness of business ethics teaching (Nguyen, Reichel, & Rudnicka, 2013; Stachowicz‐Stanusch, 2011). The study conducted by Stachowicz‐ Stanusch (2011) implies, quite surprisingly, that taking business ethics courses diminishes moral competency of students. One ex‐ planation for these findings may be found in the possibility that stu‐ dents' general knowledge and background on ethical issues is quite strong prior to taking ethics courses. Hence, these courses make students highly conscious of their own limitations and shortcomings regarding their ethical business practice, so they deliver responses that apparently show rather negative and sceptical perceptions of business ethics issues (Stachowicz‐Stanusch, 2011). A more recent study in Poland found that ethics teaching did not significantly improve students' moral awareness (Nguyen et al., 2013), a fact that—as the authors themselves suggest—can be attributed to the complexities of accurately measuring moral awareness.

The above findings mostly contradict those of previous studies revolving around similar research questions (e.g., Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). Adkins and Radtke (2004) found that students valued the teaching of ethics, and discussed the pres‐ ence of an “expectation gap” between students and academics, aris‐ ing from the perceived differences in importance, values and goals of accounting ethics. More recently, Tormo‐Carbó et al. (2016) evi‐ denced that students seem to be highly receptive to ethics teaching. Besides, students also indicated the importance of learning about

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ethics in their degrees, with the aim of preparing themselves pro‐ fessionally to be able to effectively tackle ethical decision making at work. Therefore, Poland seems to be an interesting context for further deepening the inquiry into these topics.

4   |   M O D E L A N D H Y P O T H E S E S

Building on the above literature review, we now proceed to present our research questions:

• To what extent and how do business ethics courses influence management students' understanding of the importance of busi‐ ness ethics and its educational goals?

• Are there significant differences in management students' under‐ standing of the importance of business ethics and its educational goals, depending on their gender, age, work experience, and prior enrolment in business ethics courses?

• Among those management students who have taken at least a business ethics course, are there significant differences in their understanding of the importance of business ethics and its edu‐ cational goals, depending on course exposure intensiveness and time passed since completion of the latest course?

Accordingly, in our model (Figure 1), management students' ethical understanding (i.e., perceptions of the importance of a number of ethical issues), as the broader dependent variable, will be linked to three sets of independent variables: gender, age, and work experi‐ ence (H1), students' group (ethics course vs. non‐course) (H2), and exposure intensity to business ethics courses and time passed since completion of latest course (H3).

4.1 | Gender, age and work experience of students

Men and women tend to behave according to socially expected roles and stereotypes (Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Steffen, 1984). Men are ex‐ pected to focus on assertion, ambition, competitive success, and personal growth, thus being more likely to behave unethically than women. Conversely, women are socialized in more communitarian principles (altruism), so they are generally more concerned about

harmony, warmth, and caring for others' well‐being (Pan & Sparks, 2012). Therefore, a more pronounced short‐term and result orienta‐ tion typical of men can lead to more selfish decisions and behaviour compared to women. Women, in turn, are expected to care more about how their actions may have long‐term consequences and im‐ pact on others. After over 35 years of research, empirical results on gender differences in ethical decision making were still rather mixed a decade ago (Tenbrunsel & Smith‐Crowe, 2008). Relevant literature reviews, such as those by O'Fallon and Butterfield (2005) and Craft (2013) also found a high diversity of results, although the most com‐ mon significant outcomes were those indicating that women showed more ethical inclinations than men.

In any case, despite the existence of inconclusive results (McCabe, Ingram, & Dato‐On, 2006), empirical research on the con‐ nection between business students' gender and ethical awareness increasingly supports the idea that women behave more ethically than men, as Lehnert et al., (2015) concluded in their recent litera‐ ture review. A number of studies have shown a higher ethical aware‐ ness among female students, compared to male ones (e.g., Eweje & Brunton, 2010; Pan & Sparks, 2012; Stedham, Yamamura, & Beekun, 2007). Importantly, these outcomes have been corroborated in re‐ search based on business students (Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Nguyen et al., 2013; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016).

Regarding the age of individuals, it is traditionally assumed that, as people become older, their understanding of ethical issues im‐ proves (Kohlberg, 1969), as well as their ethical reasoning (Bernardi & Bean, 2010; Trevino, 1992). In this sense, theoretical consensus appears to support the belief that age improves one's ability to apply relevant ethical standards, which in turn produces more disapprov‐ ing views of ethical lapses (Pan & Sparks, 2012). As for empirical evidence, the overall outlook is that results are rather inconclusive (Eweje & Brunton, 2010; Lehnert et al., 2015), although slightly in‐ clined towards a positive link between age and ethical awareness. Some empirical studies found that younger people render stricter ethical judgements than older people (Ede, Panigrahi, Stuart, & Calcich, 2000). However, most research has found that ethical awareness increases with age (Kish‐Gephart, Harrison, & Treviño, 2010; Peterson, Rhoads, & Vaught, 2001). Moreover, research has also evidenced that, to a notable extent, older business stu‐ dents show a higher ethical awareness than younger ones (Adkins

F I G U R E 1   Hypotheses

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& Radtke, 2004; Borkowski & Ugras, 1992; Nguyen et al., 2013; Ruegger & King, 1992; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016).

In addition to gender and age, employment background is one of the most studied personal factors that may influence the recipient's response to business ethics education (Ford & Richardson, 1994; Lehnert et al., 2015). Studies in this field show that students and man‐ agers differ in their ethical attitudes. On the one hand, some studies illustrate that there is no sufficient support for treating employment background as a significant personal trait (Loe, Ferrell, & Mansfield, 2000; Lehnert et al., 2015; Malinowski & Berger, 1996; O'Fallon & Buttetfield, 2005; Roozen, Pelsmacker, & Bostyn, 2001). On the other hand, other findings provide support for work experience as a signifi‐ cant explanatory variable for understanding student responses to eth‐ ics education (Arlow & Ulrich, 1980; Cohen, Pant, & Sharp, 2001; Cole & Smith, 1996; Stevens, Richardson, & Abramowitz, 1989). Some find‐ ings reveal that older students—with work experience—are more dis‐ satisfied with ethical education than those without work experience (Gómez et al., 2010). An explanation for this might be that older and more work experienced students may place higher expectations on ethics courses and, accordingly, may also get more easily disappointed by them, especially if the course contents and approach does not fit the specific work‐related issues and dilemmas on which the students have prior experience. These results lead to consider the type—or “quality”—of work experience as the key to determine the direction of behavioural intentions in terms of their (un)ethical orientation. In Jones and Kavanagh's (1996, p. 521) words: “an individual's quality of work experience affects his or her likelihood of engaging in uneth‐ ical behaviour”. Interestingly, Larkin (2000) concludes that the ability to identify unethical behaviour is related to professional experience. Consistent with this idea, a number of studies have shown that stu‐ dents are more likely to accept questionable ethical statements than business people (Cole & Smith, 1996).

Having in mind the above arguments, we formulate our first hypothesis: Hypothesis 1 (H1).  Gender, age and work experience influence business

students' ethical understanding, in such a way that female, older and more work experienced students will show a greater perception of the importance of a number of (i) general ethics issues and (ii) objectives of business ethics education.

4.2 | Ethics course versus non‐course students

The teaching of ethics at university has been generally regarded as important by the empirical literature (Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Graham, 2012; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). The need of consider‐ ing the viewpoints of students, scholars, and business professionals alike had been stressed (Bampton & MacLagan, 2005). Nevertheless, the actual impact of business education in fostering ethical aware‐ ness among students has been questioned (Ferguson, Collison, Power, & Stevenson, 2011; Stachowicz‐Stanusch, 2011). Hence, it is important to assess the extent to which business ethics courses affect students' ethical understanding—as a way to predict ethically minded future professional behaviour.

Studies on the impact of ethics education on ethical awareness or behaviour have provided mixed outcomes (Neureuther, Swicegood, & Williams, 2011). Some studies could not conclusively prove that (business) ethics education had a significant influence on student perceptions of ethics and/or ethical behaviour (Davis & Welton, 1991; Low, Davey, & Hooper, 2008; Peppas & Diskin, 2001). Even so, students believed that it was still important to have ethics education in their curricula (Low et al., 2008). Likewise, Dearman and Beard (2009) indicated that experiments on ethics‐oriented behaviour did not clearly show that participants, when facing real life situations, would behave in the same way as shown in the experiments. Hence, substantial business and economics investigations seem to neglect the incentives that participants may have to develop opportunistic (unethical) behaviour when acting in non‐experimental contexts (Dearman & Beard, 2009). Consistent with these ideas, a meta‐anal‐ ysis by Waples et al. (2009) on 25 programmes on business ethics training, concluded that these programmes had a very limited effect on the improvement of ethical awareness, perceptions or behaviour. In this sense, it is argued that ethics courses often tend to be too abstract, thus failing to impact profoundly on the social condition‐ ing of business students (O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2005; Ritter, 2006). However, Nguyen and Biderman (2008) found out that ethics learn‐ ing significantly predicted ethical behavioural intent. All in all, busi‐ ness ethics education is becoming increasingly relevant in Poland and monitoring standards in higher education are improving (Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2011). Moreover, inter‐ est in business ethics is increasing among Polish scholars (Gasparski, 2008; Gasparski et al., 2012; Gasparski & Lewicka‐Strzałecka 2001). Accordingly, we predict an overall positive impact of ethics courses on students' ethical understanding.

Hence, we propose our second hypothesis: Hypothesis 2 (H2).  Exposure to business ethics courses positively

influences business students' ethical understanding, in terms of a greater perception of the importance of a number of (i) general ethics issues and (ii) objectives of business ethics education.

4.3 | Exposure intensity to business ethics courses and time passed since completion of latest course

As argued above, the fact of having taken an ethics course should im‐ pact students' understanding of (business) ethics. However, it seems reasonable to consider not only the fact of taking a course, but the extent to which students have been exposed to such course(s)—for example, the teaching load that students have received.

Besides, as time passes, students may increase their understanding of the importance of ethical education and value it more, compared with right after finishing ethics courses. Receiving courses on business ethics provides new frameworks for analysing the reality, and the con‐ tents of lectures and class activities will interact with students' values, and previous knowledge and experience. However, consistent with cognitive dissonance theory, people are likely to minimize the influ‐ ence of information that is inconsistent with their beliefs (Festinger,

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1957). Hence, students may at first be reluctant to internalize new val‐ ues provided by ethics courses, but later on, as time passes, they may be more receptive to accepting and applying those values to assess complex situations of daily life. According to Perry's (1998) scheme of intellectual development, individual attitudes may differ across several levels. Perry (1998) shows the changes in students' understanding as an evolutionary process: starting from a basic polar perspective (we‐ right‐good vs. others‐wrong‐bad), and then, as time passes, increasing their understanding, and reflecting deeper diversity of possible world's views. Accordingly, when individuals experience uncertainty resulting from colliding perspectives and values, they are encouraged to verify their own beliefs on what is right and wrong. By exercising contex‐ tual interpretation, an individual builds a commitment to identify with multiple responsibilities and the resulting consequences (Perry, 1998).

Consistent with the above framework, new knowledge gathered while participating in a business ethics course may break a comfortable dualism perspective, increase value and cognitive diversity, and evoke uncertainty among students. This may result, in the short term, in lower satisfaction with the course, as it challenged individuals to confront their usual frameworks of reference of thinking about business with new, alternative models. Such models are often quite new for students, as they rely heavily on cornerstones revolving around ethical frame‐ works and values, which are usually neglected by traditional manage‐ ment education. With the passage of time, however, students will face the complexities of adult life in general—and of the professional world in particular—and gradually internalize the ethical frameworks and val‐ ues acquired during the ethics courses. Hence, as time passes, (former) students may be able to recognize the value of prior business ethics education for their daily—and especially professional—life (Cohen et al., 2001; Cole & Smith, 1996; Stevens et al., 1989).

Considering the above arguments, we propose our third hypothesis: Hypothesis 3 (H3).  The intensity of exposure to business ethics courses

and the time passed since completion of the latest course, positively influence business students' ethical understanding, in terms of a greater perception of the importance of a number of (i) general ethics issues and (ii) objectives of business ethics education.

5   |   D ATA C O L L E C T I O N A N D M E A S U R E S

In order to assess the students' perceptions of several ethical issues, a population of 510 undergraduate and postgraduate management students at the AGH‐UST in Cracow (Poland) were requested to complete a survey. Data were collected during regular class time, obtaining 307 valid questionnaires (response rate of 60.2%). The sample characteristics (see Table 1) are comparable to those of the target population: sampling error of 4.64% with a confidence inter‐ val of 99% and p/q = 50/50.

At the time of data collection, the curricula for business ethics education at the target university included a compulsory ethics‐re‐ lated course only for the first‐year master students in Management. Bachelor students in Management had an elective course on

Business Ethics. For students having their degree (Bachelor's or Master's) in Management and Production Engineering there was no module offered directly connected to business ethics contents, al‐ though at the bachelor's level some elements of ethical education were included within the courses on “Organizational behaviour” and “Human Resource Management”. Also regarding the degrees on Management and Production Engineering, despite the fact that there were no compulsory courses on business ethics, Bachelor's students had the possibility to take elective courses such as “Ethics in management” and “Responsible Supply Chain Management”. This outlook helps understand why the majority of the students who admit having taken a business ethics course are Master Students, while just a minority are Bachelor students.

Completing the survey was voluntary and anonymous. Three main sections built up the questionnaire, which took around 15 min to answer. In addition, questions on demographic and course char‐ acteristics were collected: gender as a dichotomic variable, and age, work experience, course exposure intensiveness, and time passed since completion of the latest course as continuous variables.

The first section of the questionnaire included questions on the ethics courses (EC) available (see appendix). We designed this sec‐ tion by adapting the questionnaire developed by Adkins and Radtke (2004), in turn adapted from Cohen and Pant (1989) and also used in other, recent studies (Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). Responses to

T A B L E 1   Sample characteristics

n = 307

Gender

Female 196 (63.8%)

Male 110 (35.8%)

No response 1 (0.3%)

Age Mean = 20.95 years SE = 2.15

Work experience

No 41 (13.36%)

Yes 266 (86.65%)

Full time 128 (Mean = 7.01 months, SE = 12.16 months)

Part time 138 (Mean = 11.11 months, SE = 15.57 months)

Nationality

Polish 300 (97.7%)

Other 4 (1.3%)

No response 3 (1%)

Year

1st year Bachelor 104 (33.9%)

2nd year Bachelor 66 (21.5%)

3rd year Bachelor 48 (15.6%)

1st year Master 25 (8.1%)

2nd year Master 63 (20.5%)

No response 1 (0.3%)

     |  513TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

questions in this first section were dichotomic, that is, either “yes” or “no”—and some of them included a “not sure” option. Within this first section of the questionnaire, question EC1 (“Have you had any eth‐ ics course(s) at university?”) also provided information on the group variable, which is dichotomic.

The second section of the questionnaire included two types of items (which were in fact shuffled in the actual template filled in by respondents, see appendix). On the one hand, students evaluated their perceived importance of ethics in a number of general ethics (GE) issues: dealing with business tasks, teaching business, personal de‐ cisions, and workplace decisions. On the other hand, students rated the importance of six potential objectives of business ethics educa‐ tion (objectives of education, OE) related to business ethics courses. This second section was mostly adapted from Adkins & Radtke's pro‐ posal (2004), which was in turn based on earlier proposals by Callahan (1980) and Loeb (1988), and was also used in other studies (Geary & Sims, 1994; Graham, 2012; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). Items in this second part of the questionnaire were assessed through a seven‐point Likert scale, whereby (1—“totally disagree”; 7—“totally agree”).

Finally, the third section of the questionnaire consisted of a 10‐item short version of the Marlow–Crowne SD scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Strahan & Gerbasi, 1972). This scale was included to control for potential SD bias. Sample items included “I never hesitate to go out of my way to help someone in trouble” and “I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable”. Statements were coded with “0” (False) or “1” (True), and five of these items were re‐ verse scored. Composite SD values were obtained by summing the 10 items for a possible range of 0–10—that is, a score of 10 would mean a maximum effect of SD in responses, and a score of 0 would imply maximum truthfulness.

6   |   R E S U LT S

6.1 | Descriptive analyses

This section includes three sub‐sections. In the first sub‐section, we study management students' perceptions of the importance of EC. In the second sub‐section, we analyse the potential influence of SD bias in our data. In the third sub‐section, we investigate, on the one hand, students' perceptions of GE issues and, on the other, their view on the importance of different OE related to business eth‐ ics courses. Particularly, we study whether differences regarding all the above aspects (EC, GE, and OE) exist in students' perceptions, depending on whether they have previously taken business ethics courses or not.

6.1.1 | Importance of ethics courses

Data resulting from the first section of the questionnaire—where students answered questions on EC at their university—were ana‐ lysed though descriptive statistics (Table 2) and χ2 tests (Table 3).

From the total of 307 students who completed the questionnaire (Table 2), 73 acknowledged having taken a business ethics course

(24.5% of the sample, EC1). However, a considerably higher number of students, 118 exactly, said that they had the willingness to enrol in an ethics course (38.6% of the sample, EC5). Out of the 73 students who had taken an ethics course, 76.7% are second year Master's stu‐ dents, 11% are first year Master's students, and the remaining 12.3% are Bachelor's students. Among such 73 students who took an ethics course, only 36.6% think that is was well designed and effective (EC2). Indeed, despite although 63.2% of all students surveyed believed it is appropriate to have ethics courses offered in their degree (EC6), and almost half (47.4%) believed that such a course would help solve moral

T A B L E 2   Responses to questions on ethics courses (EC)

Items Yes No Not sure

EC1. Previous ethics course

73 225

(n = 298) (24.5%) (75.5%)

How many ethics courses did you take?

M = 1.67

(n = 58) SE = 0.604

How long ago did the latest one finish?

M = 9.24 months

(n = 54) SE = 4.621

EC2. Course well de‐ signed and effective

26 45

(n = 71) (36.6%) (63.4%)

EC3. Ethics courses are offered at university

81 40 184

(n = 305) (26.6.%) (13.1%) (60.3%)

EC4. Ethics course com‐ pulsory in degree

62 72 131

(n = 265) (23.4%) (27.2%) (49.4%)

EC5. Willingness to enrol in ethics course

118 76 112

(n = 306) (38.6%) (24.8%) (36.6%)

EC6. Appropriateness of ethics course in degree

192 41 71

(n = 304) (63.2%) (13.5%) (23.4%)

EC7. Ethics course helps solve moral issues at work

145 69 92

(n = 306) (47.4%) (22.5%) (30.1%)

T A B L E 3   χ2 tests for questions on ethics courses (EC)

Items χ 2 (df) p value Phi

EC5. Willingness to enrol in eth‐ ics course (n = 298)

6.920 (2) .031* .152

EC6. Appropriateness of ethics course in degree (n = 296)

.817 (2) .665 .053

EC7. Ethics course helps solve moral issues at work (n = 296)

36.88 (2) .000** .352

*p < .05; **p < .01.

514  |     TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

end ethics issues related to professional life (EC7), a substantial ma‐ jority of students (73.4%) reported not even knowing (or not being sure of knowing) whether ethics courses are offered at their university (EC3). Moreover, knowledge of the compulsory versus elective nature of ethics courses (EC4) was rather low, since 49.4% of respondents reported not to be sure of the (compulsory vs. elective) status of such courses.

Furthermore, we applied χ2 tests to find out possible significant differences between students who had taken ethics courses (course students) and those who had not (non‐course students). Table 3 shows the results of such χ2 tests.

First, significant differences can be observed concerning the willingness to enrol in an ethics course (EC5, χ2(2) = 6.920, p = .031, Phi = .152), in the sense that—rather paradoxically—non‐course students showed greater willingness to enrol than course students. Detailed analysis of data shows that out of the 73 students that took a course on ethics, only 18 (21.7%) would enrol again in another eth‐ ics course, 23 (31.5%) would not enrol again, and 32 (43.8%) do not know what they would do. Of the 225 students who did not take an ethics course, 94 (41.8%) of them would enrol if the university offered it, 53 (23.6%) would not enrol, and 78 (34.7%) do not know what they would do.

Second, 63.2% of all students surveyed supported the belief that an ethics course is appropriate in the degree (i.e., the belief that is necessary) without significant differences (EC6, χ2(2) = 0.0817, p = .665, Phi = .053) between course and non‐course students (Table 3). However,, although 58.9% students who took an ethics course be‐ lieve such courses are appropriate, it is worthwhile to remind that only 21.7% of them would be willing to enrol.

Finally, and similar to EC5 (willingness to enrol), the belief that an ethics course helps solve moral issues at work (EC7, χ2(2) = 36.88, p = .000, Phi = .352), showed significant differences depending on the group variable, in the sense that non‐course students showed a

greater belief in ethics course usefulness than course students. Of the 73 students who took an ethics course, 33 (45.2%) believed it was not helpful to solve moral issues at work, only 14 (19.2%) be‐ lieved it was, and 26 (35.6%) of students were not sure. Conversely, out of the 225 students who did not take the course, 125 (55.6%) considered that such course would be helpful for them to—poten‐ tially in their professional life—solve moral issues at work, 36 (16%) thought the opposite, and 64 (28.4%) were not sure.

6.1.2 | Analysis of social desirability

As shown in Table 4, SD values are generally low (M = 4.13, SE = 2.01, asymmetry = 0.228; kurtosis = −0.474; Percentile 25 = 3, 50 = 4 and 75 = 6). Therefore, we can state that questionnaire responses are truthful and accurately reveal the actual values and beliefs of students.

Nevertheless, a correlation between the group variable and SD can be observed (r = .125 p < .05) (Table 12). Regarding possible differences between course and non‐course students. Accordingly, a Mann–Whitney U test was performed to evaluate the differences regarding SD of course versus non‐course students. The test results show that there are significant differences (U test = 6,826.5, p value = .037), in the sense that course students show higher SD values that non‐course students. However, in both cases the average values can be regarded as low, so we can consider that—generally speaking—our sample of students provided truthful responses.

Table 5 shows the correlations among SD and selected items on ethics courses. Interestingly, SD is correlated with responses on students' beliefs on the extent to which ethics courses were well designed and effective (EC2) and help solve moral issues at work (EC7).

Subsequently, we need to find out whether the differences in responses (yes vs. no in EC2 and yes/no/not sure in EC7) regarding

Variable Mean SE

Course students (n = 73)

Non‐course students (n = 223)

Mean SE Mean SE

Social desirability (n = 296)

4.13 2.01 4.57 2.09 3.99 1.97

T A B L E 4   Social desirability: Course versus non‐course students

EC2 EC3 EC5 EC7 SD

EC2. Course well designed and effec‐ tive (n = 71)

EC3. Ethics course offered at univer‐ sity (n = 304)

.154

EC5. Willingness to enrol in ethics course (n = 304)

.011 .315**

EC7. Ethics course helps solve moral issues at work (n = 304)

.142 .273** .335**

Social desirability (SD) (n = 304) .255* .094 .064 .144*

*p < .05; **p < .01.

T A B L E 5   Social desirability and selected course items: Pearson's χ2 correlation matrix

     |  515TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

these items are significant. Table 6 shows the results of a Mann– Whitney U test for EC2 responses. We can observe that there are significant SD differences in responses regarding the beliefs on course design and effectiveness (item that only course students assessed).

The average SD value for those students who said that the course was effective was higher than for those who believed the opposite, and also higher than the mean for all respondents (Table 7).

Regarding whether ethics courses help solve moral issues at work (EC7 item, assessed by the whole sample), a Kruskal‐Wallis test showed an absence of significant differences in students' responses (Table 8).

The average SD value for those students who said that the course helps solve moral issues at work was higher than for those who believed the opposite, and also higher than the mean for all re‐ spondents (Table 9). Although differences are not significant, in any case the relatively more honest answers are those that point at a negative assessment of ethics courses.

6.1.3 | Importance of general ethics issues and the objectives of business ethics education

The second section of the questionnaire evaluated students' per‐ ceived importance of ethics in four general areas, GE (business tasks, business teaching, personal decisions, and workplace decisions), and also regarding six objectives of business ethics education, OE (moral issues, ethical implications, moral obligation, tackling dilem‐ mas, tackling uncertainties, and behaviour change). Non‐parametric statistical techniques for testing group differences were applied, as severe non‐normality in the distribution of all variables was found. Specifically, the differences between course students' perceptions versus those of non‐course students were tested using Mann–Whitney U tests (Table 10). Generally speaking, students in our sample—no matter whether they took ethics courses or not—similarly believe that all four GE and three (i.e., half) of OE (OE1, OE2, and OE3) are quite important.

Table 11 shows our findings (Mean and Standard Error) for the items measuring those GE and OE that revealed no significant differ‐ ences in the assessments made by course students versus those made by non‐course students. All means are well above the scale middle point (4), and all but one are above 5 (min: 4.94, max: 5.55).

Finally, our results (Mean and Standard Error) for the items measur‐ ing those OE that revealed significant differences in the assessments made by course students versus non‐course students are included in Table 12. Where these differences were identified (items OE4, OE5, and OE6), they indicated greater ethical perceptions among students who had not taken any ethics course.

6.2 | Hypotheses testing

Hypotheses have been tested through multivariate analysis. Correlations between all the variables included in our hypotheses are presented in Table 13.

Each of the 10 items on GE and OE have been analysed through linear regressions (Table 14) in order to test H1 and H2. Gender, age, and work experience, and group (students who have taken a previous business ethics course vs. those who have not), have been the ex‐ planatory variables included in these analyses. Work experience is not included in the regression analysis, as this variable is not correlated with any of the GE and OE.

Regarding gender and age, out of the 10 sub‐variables that de‐ fine students' ethical understanding, only one of them, the need of ethical behaviour for dealing with business tasks (GE1), is significantly higher in the case of female and older students. In addition, the im‐ pact of ethics education on fostering change in ethical behaviour (OE6) is also significantly higher for female students. Considering these re‐ sults, H1 can only be partially accepted.

As for the group independent variable, the fact of taking business ethics courses could not be related to more favourable students' per‐ ceptions of business ethics and more positive assessments of busi‐ ness ethics education. However, significant differences were found, although—consistent with our prior descriptive analyses—against the impact of ethics courses on students' ethical understanding: three OE aspects are found to be significantly related to the fact of not taking ethics courses. These aspects are: developing ethical conflict‐tackling abilities (OE4), learning to deal with professional uncer‐ tainties (OE5), and fostering change in ethical behaviour (OE6). These OE aspects are same ones that, according to our previous descrip‐ tive analyses, received significantly higher ratings from non‐course students than they do from course students. As a result, H2 is fully rejected.

T A B L E 6   Social desirability and course design and effectiveness: Mann–Whitney U test

Items U test p value

EC2. Course well designed and effective

416.0 .042*

Note: N = 71. *p < .05; **p < .01.

Item Mean SE

Well designed and Effective (n = 26)

Not well designed and effective (n = 45)

Mean SE Mean SE

Social desirability (n = 71)

4.66 2.05 5.35 2.11 4.27 1.93

T A B L E 7   Social desirability and course design and effectiveness: Results

516  |     TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

H3 stated that course exposure intensiveness and time passed since completion of latest course have a positive impact on student ethical understanding. Hence, the sample here must be restricted to course students. On average, students in our sample had taken 1.6 (SD: .6) courses of business ethics, whereas the average time passed since the last one was completed was 10.28 (SD: 8.41) months. Table 15 shows the correlation matrix of all variables involved.

Regression analysis results (Table 16) are mixed. First, only three items (out of 10) of students' ethical understanding showed signif‐ icant positive links with course exposure intensiveness. Such items are business teaching including ethical issues (GE2), developing moral obligation (OE3), and fostering change in ethical behaviour (OE6). In other words, taking a higher number of ethics courses, although pos‐ itively influences some aspects of students' ethical understanding, does not affect most of these aspects. Second, four items (out of 10) of students' ethical understanding showed significant positive links with time passed since completion of latest course. These items are the same ones mentioned above for course exposure intensiveness, with the addition of recognizing ethical implications in business (OE2). All in all, H3 can be regarded as partially accepted.

7   |   D I S C U S S I O N

Our Polish sample of management students agree on considering ethical behaviour in business and business ethics education as highly important issues. Nevertheless, the extent to which management students' ethical understanding is influenced by specific business ethics courses is questionable and needs further inquiry.

From our preliminary descriptive analyses, some surprising re‐ sults need to be highlighted, especially regarding students' stand‐ points on their “willingness to enrol in an ethics course”, and also their belief that “an ethics course helps solve moral issues at work”. Basically, the evidence showed (counter‐logical) results implying that—contrary to our expectations—perceptions on ethics courses were significantly more positive among those students in our sample who did not take such courses. Particularly, among course versus non‐course students, 21.7% versus 41.8% would enrol in an ethics

course, and 31.5% versus 23.6% would not do it. These outcomes seem to indicate that those students who took the ethics course are somehow disappointed with it, and may even regret having taken it. Ultimate reasons for this situation may revolve around possible students' disappointment with too high course expectations, elec‐ tive versus compulsory nature of the course, poor course design, contents or implementation, low teacher engagement, etc. Besides, among course versus non‐course students, 21.7% versus 41.8% agreed with the belief that “an ethics course helps solve moral issues at work”, whereas did not agree with such belief. These results indi‐ cate that, perhaps, our survey respondents may have serious doubts on whether ethical demands can be effectively met by the major business actors' actual behaviours; and such doubts seem to be even reinforced (either ineffective or scepticism‐triggering) by the fact of taking ethics courses.

Our descriptive analyses also included some results on the im‐ pact of SD on the truthfulness of our data—which can also be con‐ sidered as a novel contribution from our investigation to the extant research on business ethics education. Generally speaking, SD val‐ ues were low, so we can confidently regard our data as trustworthy. Nevertheless, the relatively higher SD values for course students may be interpreted as a (further) reinforcement for the (above mentioned) negative views of the ethics courses by the students who took them. In other words, responses by course students, even after being rel‐ atively “softened” by the SD “filter” (at least to a higher extent than for non‐course students), were still very critical—and indeed honest as their responses were definitely not in line with teachers'—and researchers'—expectations. In addition, focusing on course students and their beliefs on “course design and effectiveness” (this item was only assessed by course students), SD was higher in the answers giv‐ ing a positive assessment. This result reinforces the general inter‐ pretation of data in terms of a(n) (even higher) negative perception by course students towards ethics courses. In other words, students who took an ethics course and assessed negatively course design and effectiveness were more honest that those who made a positive assessment—as in this latter case positive responses may have been influenced to please the teacher by saying what was expected to be a “right” answer.

All in all, these (preliminary) findings seem rather disappointing in terms of course effectiveness. However, they appear to fit the way students evaluated the different items related to the EC (eth‐ ics courses) items (which can be also somehow related to aspects of course effectiveness). Accordingly, the three specific OE (objectives of business ethics education) items that apparently worsen if stu‐ dents take ethics courses (ethical conflict‐tackling abilities, dealing with professional uncertainties, and change in ethical behaviour),

T A B L E 8   Social desirability and course helping solve moral issues at work: Kruskal–Wallis test

Items χ 2 (df) p value

EC7. Ethic course helps solve moral issues at work

3.770 (2) .152

*p < .05; **p < .01.

Item Mean SE

Helps (n = 144) Does not help (n = 69)

Not sure if helps (n = 91)

Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE

Social desirabil‐ ity (n = 304)

4.15 2.02 4.18 1.96 3.75 2.10 4.41 2.03

T A B L E 9   Social desirability and course helping solve moral issues at work: Results

     |  517TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

should be considered key issues to be properly addressed for ad‐ equately designing business ethics courses that are expected to be effective. Otherwise, a business ethics course runs the risk of being ineffective if it fails at influencing students on such three specific OE aspects.

Let us now focus on discussing our hypotheses. Concerning H1, focused on gender, age, and work experience as indepen‐ dent variables, it could only be partially accepted. Out of the 10

sub‐variables that define students' ethical understanding only two of them, the need of ethical behaviour for dealing with business tasks (GE1), and the impact of ethics education on fostering change in ethical behaviour (OE6), were significantly higher in the case of female students, and only the first one (GE1) in the case of older students. We can conclude that, contrary to most of the extant literature, in our Polish sample students' gender and age do not in‐ fluence their understanding of most of business ethics (education) issues. Generally speaking, prior literature mostly supported the influence of being female (Cohen et al., 2001; Dalton & Ortegren, 2011; Luthar & Karri, 2005; O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2005; Stedham et al., 2007), older (Bernardi & Bean, 2010; Kohlberg, 1969; Trevino, 1992), or both (Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Haski‐Leventhal, Pournader, & McKinnon, 2017; Nguyen et al., 2013; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016)—on students' ethical perceptions, behaviours or in‐ tentions. Some studies, however, also found lower ethical percep‐ tions among older students (Kaynama, King, & Smith, 1996; Tse & Au, 1997). This fact may be explained by perceptions among ma‐ ture students a business ethics education as being unnecessary, as it does not deliver practical, instrumental values that help rein‐ force their career path (Allen, Bacdayan, Kowalski, & Roy, 2005). In turn, work experience is not correlated to any of the (GE and OE) items that build the dependent variable—a result consistent with the recent review conducted by Lehnert et al. (2015).

Regarding H2, focused on group as the dependent variable, there were differences between students' perceptions, depending on whether they had actually taken business ethics courses or not. However, contrary to our expectations, understanding of the impor‐ tance of business ethics education was more positive among those students who had not taken business ethics courses. Specifically, those students most willing to enrol in ethics courses were the ones who had actually not taken any ethics course. These findings seem to suggest that, although students are generally interested in ethics courses (only 13.5% of the whole sample responded that they are not appropriate at all), taking these courses makes students, rather paradoxically, less inclined in the decision to take them.

In this regard, our results do not fit those of prior research (Adkins & Radtke, 2004; Crane, 2004; Graham, 2012; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). However, there are other studies that show findings closer to ours, in the sense that specific (business) ethics courses or ethics training do not influence significantly ethical perceptions, attitudes,

Items Mean SE

Ethics course (n = 73)

Non‐ethics course (n = 225)

Mean SE Mean SE

OE4. Developing ethical conflict‐tack‐ ling abilities (n = 298)

5.05 1.47 4.64 1.53 5.18 1.43

OE5. Learning to deal with professional uncertainties (n = 298)

4.62 1.50 4.22 1.56 4.75 1.46

OE6. Fostering change in ethical behav‐ iour (n = 298)

5.11 1.38 4.75 1.42 5.23 1.35

T A B L E 1 2   Results for general ethics issues (GE) and for objectives of business ethics education (OE), where there are differences between course students and non‐course students

T A B L E 1 0   Mann–Whitney U test for general ethics issues (GE) and for the objectives of business ethics education (OE)

Items U test p value

GE1. Dealing with business tasks 6,828.0 .085

GE2. Business teaching including ethical issues

7,500.0 .498

GE3. Ethics in personal decisions 7,438.0 .541

GE4. Ethics in workplace decisions 7,510.5 .584

OE1. Relating moral issues 7,013.0 .210

OE2. Recognizing ethical implications 7,675.5 .874

OE3. Developing moral obligation 7,676.0 .785

OE4. Developing ethical conflict‐tackling abilities

6,120.0 .003**

OE5. Learning to deal with professional uncertainties

6,386.0 .017*

OE6. Fostering change in ethical behaviour 6,327.5 .012*

*p < .05; **p < .01.

T A B L E 1 1   Results for general ethics issues (GE) and for objectives of business ethics education (OE), where there are no differences between course students and non‐course students

Items Mean SE

GE1. Dealing with business tasks (n = 306) 5.30 1.44

GE2. Business teaching including ethical issues (n = 306)

5.13 1.33

GE3. Ethics in personal decisions (n = 304) 5.55 1.43

GE4. Ethics in workplace decisions (n = 305) 5.34 1.36

OE1. Relating moral issues (n = 305) 5.11 1.30

OE2. Recognizing ethical implications (n = 303) 5.09 1.30

OE3. Developing moral obligation (n = 305) 4.94 1.32

518  |     TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

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.4 70

**

O E4

. D ev

el op

in g

et hi

ca l c

on fl

ic t‐

ta ck

lin g

ab ili

ti es

.1 96

** .3

8 8*

* .3

41 **

.4 65

** .3

42 **

.3 46

** .5

24 **

O E5

. L ea

rn in

g to

d ea

l w

it h

pr of

es si

on al

un

ce rt

ai nt

ie s

.2 4

3* *

.3 71

** .2

99 **

.4 07

** .3

38 **

.4 36

** .4

57 **

.5 24

**

O E6

. F os

te ri

ng c

ha ng

e in

et

hi ca

l b eh

av io

ur .2

94 **

.5 22

** .2

89 **

.3 70

** .3

57 **

.4 28

** .4

95 **

.5 23

** .4

57 **

G ro

up .0

82 .0

26 .0

32 −.

01 7

.0 59

−. 0

0 4

−. 0

0 8

−. 15

7* *

−. 15

4* *

−. 15

0* *

G en

de r

.0 79

.0 52

.0 46

.0 66

.0 13

.0 57

.0 24

.0 18

−. 0

49 .0

8 8

−. 01

7

A ge

.1 19

* .0

72 −.

01 0

−. 01

7 .0

66 .0

47 −.

02 1

−. 05

0 .0

06 −.

07 5

.5 59

** −.

46 8*

*

Fu ll

ti m

e w

or k

ex pe

ri ‐

en ce

(F T

W E)

(N =

1 28

) −.

03 7

−. 0

4 4

−. 07

0 −.

02 8

−. 07

7 −.

0 0

8 .0

51 −.

0 07

.0 50

.0 09

.1 66

−. 07

3 .4

06 **

P ar

t ti

m e

w or

k ex

pe ri

‐ en

ce (P

T W

E) (N

= 1

38 )

−. 0

09 −.

05 4

−. 10

1 −.

0 83

−. 13

4 −.

02 8

−. 06

1 −.

12 8

−. 15

4 .0

13 .2

18 *

−. 21

9* .2

0 4*

.2 68

*

So ci

al d

es ir

ab ili

ty (S

D )

.0 20

.0 3

0 .1

11 .0

72 .1

03 .0

06 .0

8 0

−. 0

06 .0

57 .0

16 .1

25 *

.0 81

.0 14

−. 4

06 −.

10 7

N ot

e: G

en de

r: 1

= m

al e;

2 =

f em

al e.

G ro

up : 0

= s

tu de

nt s

w ho

h av

e no

t pr

ev io

us ly

t ak

en a

b us

in es

s et

hi cs

c ou

rs e;

1 =

s tu

de nt

s w

ho h

av e

pr ev

io us

ly t

ak en

a b

us in

es s

et hi

cs c

ou rs

e. A

ge : c

on ti

nu ou

s va

ri ‐

ab le

. D ep

en de

nt v

ar ia

bl es

(G E1

–G E4

a nd

O E1

–O E6

): Li

ke rt

‐t yp

e sc

al e

(1 . T

ot al

ly d

is ag

re e

… 7

. T ot

al ly

a gr

ee ).

N =

3 07

. *p

≤ .0

5; *

*p ≤

.0 1;

     |  519TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

T A B L E 1 4   Multiple regression analyses for gender, age, and group

Items Constant Gender Age Group

GE1. Dealing with business tasks

n = 306 R2 = .039

B 1.727 .224 .154 −.150

SBE 1.228 .082 .056 .249

β .190** .230** −.045

GE2. Business teaching including ethical issues

n = 306 R2 = .016

B 2.824 .145 .100 −.198

SBE 1.143 .076 .052 .232

β .133 .162 −.064

GE3. Ethics in personal decisions

n = 304 R2 = .003

B 5.852 .040 −.019 .151

SBE 1.249 .083 .057 .253

β .034 −.029 .045

GE4. Ethics in workplace decisions

n = 305 R2 = .007

B 4.640 .100 .028 −.160

SBE 1.160 .078 .053 .235

β .091 .045 −.051

OE1. Relating moral issues

n = 305 R2 = .005

B 4.240 .045 .037 .075

SBE 1.119 .075 .051 .227

β .043 .061 .025

OE2. Recognizing ethical implications

n = 303 R2 = .016

B 2.917 .142 .096 −.293

SBE 1.109 .074 .051 .225

β .135 .161 −.098

OE3. Developing moral obligation

n = 305 R2 = .001

B 4.890 .025 .000 −.038

SBE 1.144 .076 .052 .232

β .023 .001 −.012

OE4. Developing ethical conflict‐tacking abilities

n = 305 R2 = .032

B 3.708 .075 .066 −.743

SBE 1.251 .084 .057 .254

β .062 .098 −.217**

OE5. Learning to deal with professional uncertainties

n = 304 R2 = .041

B 2.489 .030 .110 −.880

(Continues)

520  |     TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

or behaviour (Davis & Welton, 1991; Nguyen et al., 2013; Peppas & Diskin, 2001), or are even counterproductive (Allen et al., 2005; Gómez et al., 2010; Stachowicz‐Stanusch, 2011)—as suggested by our findings regarding some aspects of ethical perceptions. While some studies confirm the positive effect of business ethics education on moral efficacy (Lau, 2010; May, Luth, & Schwoerer, 2014), others suggest that there are students' private attitudes on consumption and employment that shape their perception and understanding of social responsibility in business (Rajah, Reifferscheid, & Borgmann, 2016). The poor assessment of business ethics courses among those students who took such a course may be also due to an instrumental perception of irrelevant marginal utility of further courses (Allen et al., 2005), which would not bring value to their future careers—for example, in comparison with other courses. Therefore, in students' opinion, further training in ethics seemed to be unnecessary. These results rather suggest that, while looking for an explanation of our results, it is necessary to acknowledge the influence of the broader cultural context, the importance of instrumental values, and their role for the self‐evaluation of students' further development.

As for H3, only three items (out of 10) of students' ethical un‐ derstanding showed significant positive links with course exposure intensiveness: business teaching including ethical issues (GE2), develop‐ ing moral obligation (OE3), and fostering change in ethical behaviour (OE6). The same aspects, and also recognizing ethical implications in business (OE2), showed positive links with time passed since com‐ pletion of latest course. On the one hand, it is noteworthy the fact that the higher the exposure to ethics courses and the longer the time passed since completion, the more convinced students are of the importance that business teaching included ethical issues (GE2). However, other general ethics issues (GE1, GE3 and GE4) are not linked to exposure to courses or an internalization process after the courses. On the other hand, such exposure to courses and internal‐ ization process after completion do influence the development of personal moral obligations (OE3). This finding seems to support the influence of ethics courses on rather general and abstract feelings of morality‐related duties. However, the lack of significance of relation‐ ships with other items generates doubts on the impact of business

ethics courses on more specific or practical attitudes and abilities. For the majority of aspects that are not connected to exposure inten‐ siveness and time, the rather discouraging results may be connected to the influence of student maturity, implying perceptions of busi‐ ness ethics education as unnecessary, non‐practical, and not deliver‐ ing career‐boosting instrumental values (Allen et al., 2005; Kaynama et al., 1996; Tse & Au, 1997). Sleeper, Schneider, Weber, and Weber (2006) propose, however, that education may change personal prin‐ ciples over time. Therefore, an alternative explanation for these re‐ sults may be found under Perry's (1998) framework: new knowledge acquired while participating in a business ethics course may break a comfortable dualism perspective, whereby cognitive diversity and uncertainty are increased among students. Although in the short term this may appear as course dissatisfaction, we identify an inter‐ esting paradox here, whereby individuals are challenged to confront their usual frameworks of reference of thinking about business with new, alternative models. The new thinking frameworks associated to these models may be, in turn, highly critical towards mainstream constructions of business ethics, precisely because business ethics courses received made students become more critical and sceptical towards the way to interpret and perceive business ethics.

The rather surprising results obtained in our study stimulate an active search for potential explanations, which in turn pose new questions and open many possibilities for further inquiry. First of all, the most obvious general explanation might lie in a poor design or implementation of business ethics courses, including—but not limited to—the specific courses contents, theoretical, and method‐ ological approaches, and the teaching skills and student orientation of the lecturers in charge of the courses. In the field of business ethics and CSR, context‐related teaching materials are crucial for effective education and shaping attitude (Crane & Matten, 2004). In particular, using “Western” approaches and cases may not fit different cultural and geographical teaching contexts and lead to confusion. Also, failure in reducing pluralistic ignorance of students (Halbesleben, Wheeler, & Buckley, 2005), with regard to their prior gathered negative attitudes regarding business ethics education and business ethics in general (caused by unfriendly environment), may

Items Constant Gender Age Group

SBE 1.273 .085 .058 .258

β .025 .158 −.252**

OE6. Fostering change in ethical behaviour

n = 305 R2 = .039

B 3.489 .161 .073 −.701

SBE 1.175 .079 .054 .238

β .143* .114 −.218**

Note: Gender: 1 = male; 2 = female. Group: 0 = students who have not previously taken a business ethics course; 1 = students who have previously taken a business ethics course. Age: continuous variable. Dependent variables (GE1–GE4 and OE1–OE6): Likert‐type scale (1. Totally disagree … 7. Totally agree). *p < .05; **p < .01.

T A B L E 1 4   (Continued)

     |  521TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

T A

B L

E 1

5  

P ea

rs on

's χ

2 co

rr el

at io

n m

at ri

x fo

r in

de pe

nd en

t va

ri ab

le s

ap pl

ic ab

le t

o co

ur se

s tu

de nt

s

G

E1 G

E2 G

E3 G

E4 O

E1 O

E2 O

E3 O

E4 O

E5 O

E6 C

EI Ti

m e

SD

G E1

. D ea

lin g

w it

h bu

si ne

ss

ta sk

s

G E2

. B us

in es

s te

ac hi

ng in

cl ud

‐ in

g et

hi ca

l i ss

ue s

.5 01

**

G E3

. E th

ic s

in p

er so

na l

de ci

si on

s .3

19 **

.4 85

**

G E4

. E th

ic s

in w

or kp

la ce

de

ci si

on s

.4 15

** .5

45 **

.6 6

4* *

O E1

. R el

at in

g m

or al

is su

es .4

05 **

.6 02

** .5

17 **

.4 86

**

O E2

. R ec

og ni

zi ng

e th

ic al

im

pl ic

at io

ns .3

59 **

.7 59

** .4

8 8*

* .4

98 **

.4 94

**

O E3

. D ev

el op

in g

m or

al

ob lig

at io

n .2

07 **

.5 77

** .6

66 **

.5 53

** .4

4 0*

* .5

74 **

O E4

. D ev

el op

in g

et hi

ca l c

on ‐

fl ic

t‐ ta

ck lin

g ab

ili ti

es .2

06 *

.4 50

** .5

77 **

.5 93

** .3

55 **

.4 6

0* *

.6 98

**

O E5

. L ea

rn in

g to

d ea

l w it

h pr

of es

si on

al u

nc er

ta in

ti es

.2 6

4* .5

28 **

.6 50

** .6

27 **

.3 68

** .5

50 **

.6 24

** .7

15 **

O E6

. F os

te ri

ng c

ha ng

e in

e th

i‐ ca

l b eh

av io

ur .3

32 **

.4 95

** .3

82 **

.3 57

** .2

58 *

.5 67

** .5

66 **

.6 10

** .6

0 8*

*

C ou

rs e

ex po

su re

in te

ns iv

en es

s (C

EI )

.1 49

.2 92

* .0

47 .0

85 .2

19 .2

5 4*

.2 07

.1 23

.1 79

.3 61

**

T im

e si

nc e

la te

st c

ou rs

e co

m ‐

pl et

ed (T

im e)

−. 02

5 .2

91 *

.2 4

0 .2

66 *

.2 39

.2 36

.2 63

* .2

38 .2

12 .2

09 −.

18 5

So ci

al d

es ir

ab ili

ty (S

D )

−. 13

7 −.

0 8

4 .0

61 .0

53 .1

37 −.

09 1

−. 0

41 .0

0 8

−. 02

2 .0

4 4

.0 02

.0 17

N ot

e: C

EI a

nd T

im e:

c on

ti nu

ou s

va ri

ab le

s. D

ep en

de nt

v ar

ia bl

es (G

E1 –G

E4 a

nd O

E1 –O

E6 ):

Li ke

rt ‐t

yp e

sc al

e (1

. T ot

al ly

d is

ag re

e …

7 . T

ot al

ly a

gr ee

). N

= 7

3. *p

≤ .0

5; *

*p ≤

.0 1;

522  |     TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

T A B L E 1 6   Multiple regression analyses for independent variables applicable to course students

Items Constant CEI Time

GE1. Dealing with business tasks

n = 48 R2 = .012

B 5.166 .265 −.005

SBE .823 .373 .043

β .107 −.017

GE2. Business teaching including ethical issues

n = 48 R2 = .170* 

B 2.916 .802 .104

SBE .804 .364 .042

β .304*  .340* 

GE3. Ethics in personal decisions

n = 48 R2 = .060

B 4.360 .308 .080

SBE .926 .420 .049

β .108 .240

GE4. Ethics in workplace decisions

n = 48 R2 = .078

B 4.200 .133 .084

SBE .810 .367 .043

β .053 .285

OE1. Relating moral issues

n = 47 R2 = .102

B 3.504 .585 .082

SBE .833 .377 .044

β .225 .268

OE2. Recognizing ethical implications

n = 48 R2 = .115* 

B 3.472 .618 .088

SBE .823 .373 .043

β .236 .291* 

OE3. Developing moral obligation

n = 48 R2 = .139* 

B 2.806 .685 .088

SBE .765 .347 .040

β .279*  .306* 

OE4. Developing ethical conflict‐tacking abilities

n = 48 R2 = .069

B 2.947 .412 .088

SBE .968 .439 .051

β .138 .520

OE5. Learning to deal with professional uncertainties

n = 48 R2 = .334

B 2.918 .313 .068

(Continues)

     |  523TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

help to explain the results of our study. Further research is, thus, necessary, in order to inquire more deeply into the nuances of how business ethics course design and implementation can affect course effectiveness.

Second, we mixed in our sample students who took business eth‐ ics courses as elective modules, with other students who had these courses as compulsory modules—and we did not control for this fact. It is reasonable to expect that students who took the ethics courses as elective modules may be more motivated and happier with them (as with any elective module). Conversely, the fact of being obliged to take an ethics course might over‐counterbalance an expected im‐ provement of ethical awareness (as a direct influence of the course), due to the negative feelings which may be associated to compulsory courses (Hurtt & Thomas, 2008; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016).

Third, we suggest that the particular sociocultural and religious background of Poland may be considered as an important factor for understanding our results. Actually, the role of culture, nationality and religion has been stressed as a potentially critical factor for under‐ standing differences in ethical inclinations, and therefore recently pro‐ posed as key issues to consider for future research in ethical decision making (Lehnert et al., 2015). Findings from other studies in Poland (Nguyen et al., 2013; Stachowicz‐Stanusch, 2011) with similarly criti‐ cal outcomes as ours, encourage us to deepen into this type of expla‐ nations, including a cultural perspective and the importance of values. The Polish sample was highly homogeneous from an ethnic point of view, and this situation might help shed light on the fact that students' self‐perceptions of ethical understanding were rather positive, and at the same time such perceptions worsened when ethics courses were taken. A number of scholars agree that moral standards are shaped at the initial stages of personal development through parents, schools, social institutions (e.g., Church and scouting), and individual experi‐ ences (Lewicka‐Strzałecka, 2010; Piper, Gentile, & Parks, 1993). As the moral character is formed early in life, the role played by parents and family is essential. Besides, Poland is a country with quite a homoge‐ nous background according to religion—up to 90% of Poles declare catholic faith, 80% among young people (CBOS, 2015).1  The Catholic Church is a well‐recognized institution that provides moral education from the primary school. Some scholars also agree that teaching adults how to behave right at academic institutions may have little sense (Beggs & Dean, 2006; Kristol, 1987; Levin, 1989). This notion is also

supported by empirical studies, showing that formal education has a minimal effect on raising students' awareness of ethical issues (Cohen et al., 2001). Moral decisions are made based on individuals' hierarchy of values, sensitivity and needs, and are not the result of theoretical reflections (Lewicka‐Strzałecka, 2010). Therefore, young people may feel confused by ethics education offered at universities, the role of which may be perceived rather as providing knowledge on specific issues and not about shaping moral attitudes. Additionally, the homo‐ geneity of our sample according to the nationality and religious back‐ ground provides a challenge to business ethics education. Regardless of ethics courses, students already hold to their moral beliefs (Siipi, 2006). The catholic morality is deontological in nature, whereas in business a more utilitarian ethical reasoning is often deemed as more appropriate. According to Callahan (1980), in relatively homogenous cultural settings not everything needs to be questioned, therefore both students and teacher may struggle with understanding a “foreign way of reasoning”, considering in this case the Polish context as a cul‐ tural environment based upon given and widely shared assumptions (“If everybody agrees why should it be discussed?”).

Hence, students with strong, prior moral beliefs may perceive the diversity of ethical approaches (often taught in business ethics courses) as unnecessary or even misleading, a situation that may in‐ fluence their (negative) attitudes towards business ethics classes. Furthermore, good abilities in moral reasoning may imply less sta‐ bility and more inconsistence in ethical decision making (Marnburg, 2001). The homogenous ethnical and cultural background of Polish students may therefore strengthen their pre‐existing moral prin‐ ciples, so that they may find it difficult to analyse ethical dilemmas according to unfamiliar schemas, theoretical reasoning frameworks, or ethical approaches. As noticed by Siipi (2006), teaching ethics in non‐pluralistic (homogenous) environments may cause a range of chal‐ lenges regarding teaching methods and teacher attitudes. For exam‐ ple, students may be confused and assume that the variety of ethical paradigms presented by the teacher are linked to his/her own world view, rather than to (more general) abstract/theoretical perspectives. In turn, teachers presenting opposing views should use methods that help ensure that students understand that the teacher is playing an “opponent role” and not defending his/her own ideas. All in all, stu‐ dents with strong, pre‐existing moral principles, may find it difficult to analyse ethical dilemmas according to given schemas, theoretical

Items Constant CEI Time

SBE .914 .414 .048

β .112 .209

OE6. Fostering change in ethical behaviour

n = 48 R2 = .195** 

B 2.475 .990 .080

SBE .744 .337 .039

β .400**  .276* 

Note: CEI and Time: continuous variables. Dependent variables (GE1–GE4 and OE1–OE6): Likert‐type scale (1. Totally disagree … 7. Totally agree). *p < .05; **p < .01.

T A B L E 1 6   (Continued)

524  |     TORMO‐CARBÓ eT Al.

reasoning frameworks, or ethical approaches. Consequently, the case is quite strong for assuming that the Polish culture may play an import‐ ant role in explaining the divergence between our results and those of prior studies in different cultural settings (e.g., Adkins &Radtke, 2004; Tormo‐Carbó et al., 2016). However, further inquiry is necessary in order to deepen into these topics.

8 | CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

All in all, our investigation adds value to the literature regarding inquiry on students' perceptions of business ethics education, exploring the so far neglected Polish context. Moreover, our investigation has explic‐ itly taken into account the potential influence of SD, considered as a control variable. Research methods that rely on self‐reported behav‐ iour are prone to SD bias (Chung & Monroe, 2003), which can be espe‐ cially relevant when ethical issues are considered (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). As SD has been found to be rather low in our data, our results can be considered as highly trustworthy. Besides, the few significant differences in SD related to sample characteristics reinforce the gener‐ ally negative perceptions of business ethics courses by those students who took such courses (vis‐à‐vis those who did not).

Some limitations of our investigation must be acknowledged. For instance, the nature of the students' sample, from a single Polish uni‐ versity, constrains the potential of generalizing results to other uni‐ versities and contexts. Interesting further inquiry opportunities also emerge, especially, on the one hand, the role of historical, sociocultural or religious contexts (Lehnert et al., 2015), and, on the other hand, the role of the type (compulsory vs. elective), contents, design, methods of business ethics courses. Also, new studies, including several Polish universities, would help strengthen result generalization. Moreover, international and cross‐cultural studies, such as comparing findings in different types of unfriendly environments for business ethics based on similar research designs, might also shed relevant light on many questions that remain open. Finally, longitudinal approaches might also be worth considering—for example, assessing past students' (cur‐ rent business professionals') ethical understanding and comparing it with previous results.

O R C I D

Guillermina Tormo‐Carbó https://orcid.org/0000‐0001‐5865‐9631

Victor Oltra https://orcid.org/0000‐0002‐5009‐4127

Katarzyna Klimkiewicz https://orcid.org/0000‐0003‐2927‐8308

Elies Seguí‐Mas https://orcid.org/0000‐0001‐6985‐4758

E N D N O T E 1 Up to 70% of Poles trust in the Catholic Church, similar to their degree of

trust in police (65%) and local government (64%), and much higher than trust in national government (38%), big companies (37%) and newspapers (30%) (CBOS, 2016).

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How to cite this article: Tormo‐Carbó G, Oltra V, Klimkiewicz K, Seguí‐Mas E. “Don't try to teach me, I got nothing to learn”: Management students' perceptions of business ethics teaching. Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2019;28:506–528. https ://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12236

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A P P E N D I X : Q U E S T I O N N A I R E I T E M S

Section 1. Questions on ethics courses

1. Does your university offer any ethics course(s)? (please interpret “course” as a whole subject/module on business ethics) (yes/no/ not sure) (If the answer is “no”, please go directly to question 2.)

1.a. Is/are such (a) course(s) compulsory in your degree curriculum? (yes/no/not sure)

2. Have you had any ethics course(s) at university? (yes/no) (If the answer is “no”, please go directly to question 3.) 2.a. How many ethics course(s) did you take? 2.b. How long ago did the latest one finish? (years and/or months,

approx.) 2.c. Do you think these classes were well designed and effective?

(yes/no) 3. Do you believe it is appropriate to have ethics course(s) offered in

your degree? (yes/no/not sure) 4. If a business ethics course were offered as an elective course,

would you enrol in it? (yes/no/not sure) 5. Do you think that having an ethics course at university would help

you solve moral and ethics issues related to your professional life? (yes/no/not sure)

Note. Items (questions) correspondences: EC1(2), EC2(2.c), EC3(1), EC4(1.a), EC5(4), EC6(3), and EC7(5).

Section 2. Perceptions of general (business) ethics issues (GE) and of the objectives of business ethics education (OE). (7‐point scale: 1. Totally disagree—7. Totally agree)

1. Dealing with business tasks requires ethical behaviour. 2. Education in business ethics relates business education to moral

issues. 3. Teaching business requires including ethical issues. 4. Education in business ethics helps recognize issues in business

that have ethical implications. 5. I consider ethical issues in my personal decisions 6. Education in business ethics helps develop personal moral

obligations. 7. Education in business ethics helps develop the abilities needed to

deal with ethical conflicts or dilemmas. 8. I consider ethical issues in my workplace decisions 9. Education in business ethics helps dealing with the uncertainties

related to the professional life. 10. Education in business ethics fosters change in ethical behaviour.

Note. Items (questions) correspondences: GE1(1), GE2(3), GE3(5), GE4(8), OE1(2), OE2(4), OE3(6), OE4(7), OE5(9), and OE6(10).

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