Acting Ethically: Moral Reasoning and Business School Student Behavior

摘要

Among specific individuals in high-profile, U.S. corporations involved in illegal or unethical activities in the past decade, a number were business school graduates. Are the schools failing to instill ethics, or do students arrive predisposed toward immoral or illegal behavior? Adapting Kohlberg's theory of moral development, a defining issues test (DIT-2) was developed to measure the ethical reasoning of 52 freshmen, while ethical behavior was tested through a trading room simulation. Two dozen of the students had the opportunity to trade on insider information. Results showed that higher scorers on the DIT-2 were less likely to accept and use insider information.