Associations among Civil Engineer's Ethical Education Experiences, Ethical Beliefs, Ethical Perceptions and Ethical Behaviour

摘要

This study is to discover the current situation of the professional ethics education of engineers in Taiwan's construction industry and also to discover which types of ethical education experiences can really shape suitable ethical attitudes and behaviours for construction practitioners. These engineers can be categorized into three types according to their ethical education experiences. This study included 526 civil engineers, and it showed that only 13% of the engineers studied ethics at school. Factor analysis and reliability analysis were employed in this study to explore the factors of ethical beliefs, perceptions and behaviour of construction industry engineers. According to the three t-tests on the three types of engineers with different ethical education experiences and those without any ethical education experiences, it was found that ethical education experiences from on-the-job training and the strict regulations of organizations have a significantly more positive effect on ethical attitude development. It was also found that civil engineers' ethical behaviour is subject to the influences of their ethical beliefs and ethical perceptions, particularly their ethical perceptions of interpersonal relationships. Therefore, it is suggested that construction organizations and employers should emphasize teamwork and respect between employees so as to achieve more effective results in boosting engineers' ethical behaviour.