An Empirical Study on Engineers’ Professional Ethics Education Experience and Ethical Behaviors

摘要

While considerable attention has been paid in the past to engineers’ ethical education, littleempirical evidence has been found to establish the relationship between individual ethical educationexperiences and ethical attitude or behavior. This study is to discover the current situation of theprofessional ethics education of engineers in Taiwan’s construction industry and to verify which types ofethical education experiences can really shape suitable ethical attitudes for construction practitioners. 526valid samples, composed of engineers working for clients, A/E and general contractors, were collected inthis study. These engineers can be categorized into four types according to their ethical educationexperiences. The measurement tool was developed based on past research and various codes of ethics.The reliability of the Likert measurement results was quite consistent, with a high Cronbach’s α value. Theinvestigation showed only 13% of the engineers took courses related to professional ethics at school.Through the questionnaire survey, factor analysis and reliability analysis, this study explored the factorsof professional beliefs and ethical behaviors of construction industry engineers. According to the three ttestson the three engineer types with different ethical education experiences and those without anyethical education experiences, it is found ethical education experiences from on-job training and the strictregulations of organizations have a significantly more positive effect on ethical attitude development. Thisstudy found suitable on-job ethical training and ethical codes can have a positive effect on engineers’professional beliefs and ethical behaviors. Based on the findings of this study, a general increase in thequantity and quality of ethics education or trainings can facilitate the promotion of professional ethicalcodes to a significant level and it is noteworthy for the construction industry.