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The Influence of Business Ethics Education on Moral Efficacy, Moral Meaningfulness, and Moral Courage: A Quasi-experimental Study

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Abstract

The research described here contributes to the extant empirical research on business ethics education by examining outcomes drawn from the literature on positive organizational scholarship (POS). The general research question explored is whether a course on ethical decision-making in business could positively influence students’ confidence in their abilities to handle ethical problems at work (i.e., moral efficacy), boost the relative importance of ethics in their work lives (i.e., moral meaningfulness), and encourage them to be more courageous in raising ethical problems at work even if it is unpopular (i.e., moral courage). Specifically, the study used a rigorous quasi-experimental pretest–posttest research design with a treatment (N = 30) and control group (N = 30) to investigate whether a graduate-level course in business ethics could influence students’ levels of moral efficacy, meaningfulness, and courage. Findings revealed that participants in the business ethics treatment course experienced significant positive increases in each of the three outcome variables as compared to the control group. The largest increase was in moral efficacy, followed by moral courage, and finally, moral meaningfulness. These findings are discussed in the context of the current research on business ethics education and POS. Implications for future research are discussed.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) N2 index provides an indication of the extent to which an individual is acquiring more sophisticated moral reasoning and gaining clarity about ideas that should be rejected due to their simplistic or biased solutions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the individuals who participated in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Center for Ethics in Business, The University of Kansas, 330 Summerfield Hall; 1300 Sunnyside Ave., Lawrence, KS, 66045-7585, USA

    Douglas R. May

  2. School of Business, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, 98447-0003, USA

    Matthew T. Luth

  3. School of Business, The University of Kansas, 350-L Summerfield Hall; 1300 Sunnyside Ave., Lawrence, KS, 66045-7585, USA

    Catherine E. Schwoerer

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May, D.R., Luth, M.T. & Schwoerer, C.E. The Influence of Business Ethics Education on Moral Efficacy, Moral Meaningfulness, and Moral Courage: A Quasi-experimental Study. J Bus Ethics 124, 67–80 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1860-6

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