Business Students’ Ethics in the Digital Age

Abstract

Business students are the future business leaders, and investigating their ethical behavior as students can be viewed as a predictor of their work ethics in the future. This paper aims at investigating business students’ ethical intentions in IT context. The study investigates whether business students handle an ethical issue within IT context in the same manner as they would handle it in a traditional context. Questionnaires were administered to university students in the Middle East, and a total of 188 usable questionnaires were returned. Furthermore, to check if this result is specific to business students, the questionnaire was distributed to IT students, and a total of 91 usable questionnaires were returned. The study found that business students have statistically significant lower ethical intention scores when addressing ethical issues in an IT context compared to a traditional non-IT context. The results show that even IT students have statistically significant lower ethical intention scores when addressing ethical issues in an IT context compared to a traditional non-IT context. Furthermore, there was no significant
difference found between Business and IT students’ ethics in IT context.