Attitudes of management students towards workplace ethics: A comparative study between South Africa and Cyprus

Abstract

In order to understand attitudes towards work-related ethics and the teaching of business ethics in management programmes at universities, a survey was conducted with management students at two universities, one in the Republic of Cyprus (hereafter referred to as Cyprus) and the other in the Republic of South Africa (hereafter referred to as South Africa). An attempt was also made to investigate whether such differences, if any, were linked to differences in national culture. The findings indicate that no significant differences between the two samples exist on four of the five dimensions of national culture (Hofstede, 1994) and, accordingly, differences in attitudes towards workplace ethical issues cannot be said to be linked to this variable. Significant differences were found between the two samples on certain questionnaire items that related to workplace practices with the Cypriot sample, more so than the South African sample, appearing to be willing to engage in certain workplace practices that would be deemed unethical in society. It is recommended that ethics education be integral to a business curriculum and that teaching methodologies explore ways in which to develop moral reasoning in students.