BUSINESS ETHICS SURVEY: A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE RETAIL INDUSTRY Developments In Business Simulation & Experiential Learning, Volume 24, 1997 BUSINESS ETHICS SURVEY: A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE RETAIL INDUSTRY Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Nova Southeastern University ABSTRACT There is an increasing demand on corporations to develop and conduct various awareness ethical programs for their employees. These programs educate associates to become more effective, efficient, and valuable individuals, not only to the company, but to the community as well. Ethical training programs and corporate emphasis on fairness and morality are important elements of a successful campaign aimed at increasing ethical awareness and behavior in the workplace. A survey of 602 individuals from the retail industry in a Fortune Five Hundred company, shows that today people are better prepared to deal with ethical issues and are less tolerant of questionable practices in their firms. INTRODUCTION Ethics training should be emphasized and conducted continuously to help people rationally determine right from wrong, good from bad, and just from unjust actions, conducts, and behaviors. An increasing amount of companies are recognizing the complexities of making tough decisions in today’s business environment and are creating some type of corporate codes, corporate constitutions or corporate credos because such documents can serve as guide that people can follow. Most corporations are currently conducting training programs for their entry-level employees all the way to their managers. This training may include ethical workshops and other ethics related issues as well. These programs can range from memos, handouts, training workshops, and other college based classes geared toward developing management and leadership skills. A major part of any ethics program is the dedication and commitment of top level executives to the program and exemplifying their teachings by their actions. It has been proven that actions of role models and superiors at work play a crucial role in influencing the behavior of their associates. Most immoral acts are created by external factors, bad role models, and selfishness. General Collin Powel said “the greatest thing 1 learned is that soldiers watch what their superiors do. You can lecture them and give them classes, but it is your personal example they will follow.” This is true in organizations as well: so the executives and managers need to become the greatest models, which their associates can replicate as ethical behavior. There are headlines about top executives who are stealing, reporting fake profits, and are operating their businesses only to maximize profits and satisfy their shareholders. Today’s global business community requires businesses and its leaders to make decisions that satisfy the needs of the community as well as the company shareholders. In order to make educated decisions that are good for the company and the society, decision-makers need to go beyond short-term benefits and realize the impact of their decisions from a Long-term perspective. Academic researchers and practitioners need each other’s input to better serve their stakeholders. Practitioners search for and use the tools available to operate in the present or what some call “the real world”; but, academic researchers must look beyond that in order to foresee the benefits and externalities associated with each alternative. The information and literature of ethics training should be designed to stimulate participant’s thinking and feelings regarding their moral standards. This also will help the participants to become aware of their personal ethics as well as their moral behavior in their work settings. The maxim of "good ethics is good business” should 186 Developments In Business Simulation & Experiential Learning, Volume 24, 1997 be emphasized, reinforced, and explored. Leadership should come before management because doing the wrong things efficiently will not be very competitive. The same principle applies to ethics training and education. The leaders and managers should learn, live, and then apply the material before expecting others to learn it. Traditionally, managers have been attempting to get the most done in a given period of time without much concern for the quality because quantity has been rewarded. Methodology The study herein, based on a doctoral dissertation, used John W. Clark’s (1966) instrument to compare the results of Personal Business Ethics Scores (PBES) of managers and workers in the retail industry. This research was based on the variables of age, management experience, education, and gender. The research question was whether age, gender, education, and management experience affect the moral development of individuals. This study used ANOVA with the alpha at .05 to determine if the results were statistically significant. Results and Conclusion In general, the PBES means of this study seem to be higher than most studies conducted previously using Clark’s instrument. Clark’s instrument was created in 1966; and since then many researchers have been using this instrument to evaluate the ethical values of individuals in different industries. The study, herein, shows that age and management experiences are positively correlated in the group of retail respondents. The current study herein supports previous findings of researchers, using Clark’s (1966) instrument, by concluding that age, management experience, and gender are factors in moral development. The current study herein shows that today people are less tolerant of immoral behavior than they were three decades ago in 1966. The managers of this study have a mean PBES of 45.25 and Clark’s executives in 1966 had a PBES mean of 43.28. Approximately 97 percent of Clark’s (1966) sample of 103 business executives were in managerial positions - 43 percent were in top management, 38 percent middle management, and 14 percent was composed of the front-line supervisors. Clark’s sample were all men; and that may also be an explanation for his sample’s lower score, because the current sample of 165 retail managers with six or more years of management experience includes 19 females whose PBES mean was slightly higher than that of their male counterparts. The results of the survey herein have positive implications and suggest that people, in general, are more able and willing to make just and socially responsible decisions. The results suggest that management experience, age, and gender makes a difference in the moral judgment of individuals. One implication of this research is the role of females in the retail industry with regard to gender, particularly that females had a higher PBES mean than males. Since more females are now entering the management sector of this industry, their higher level of moral maturity should have a positive influence on the level of ethics in this industry. Attaining progress and improvement are impossible ends with ignorant, ineffective, immoral or unimprovable people as the means. The best way to promote integrity, fairness, and cooperation, and to improve and empower people, is to educate, inspire, and liberate people so they can take proper responsibility for their own moral choices in life, whether personal, professional, or business. One must become ethically effective individually, that is privately and personally, before one can be ethically effective with others, which is an essential ingredient for success in this inter-dependent world. One must learn, therefore, not only how to create value for oneself, but also for others; and to do so in a legal, ethical, socially responsible, and efficacious manner. 187 Table of Contents Volume 24, 1997 Incorporating Computer Telephony into the MIS Course A Learner Oriented Infrastructure for videoconferencing Based Distance Education Courses The Identification of Temporally Related Structural Elements of the Experiential Component of Electronic Spreadsheet Tasks Does Involvement Influence Learning from Simulation Participation? Some Relationships with Helpfulness and Performance Outcomes Musings on Business Garne Performance Evaluation Performance on a TE Simulation: What does it represent? The Business Policy Game: An International Simulation - An Assessment Tool Students in Free Enterprise as Experiential Learning The Role of Computer Models in Wargames: A Practitioner's view Using Focus Groups as a Tool to Research Learning: A Demonstration and a Discussion Using Medical Simulations to Teach Multi-Cultural Diversity Using the World Game to Internationalize International Exchange Game Community Services Needs Assessment: An Innovative Approach Introducing Students to Potential Total Quality Management Ethical Dilemmas Privacy in the Workplace: A Situational Analysis Antecedents of Learning in Simulations Demonstrating the Learning Effectiveness of Simulation: Where we are and Where we need to go The Use of Computer Simulations as a Pedagogical Aid in Teaching Management Information Systems Evaluating Simulation Learning in a Distant Learning Instructional Model Financial Engineering of Global Investments The Labor History Game: Playing with the Past Perks Participation Assessing Negotiator's Proficiency with a Negotiation role-play The Art of Negotiating Enhancing Learning and Employee Development through the Assessment of Learning Pedagogy Preferences across selected Dimensions of Culture: A Preliminary Investigation Cooperative Learning: What are we Learning? Effective Use of Mastery Based Experiential learning in a Project Course to improve skills in system analysis and Design Simulations and Learning: Can we prove a relationship? (Seminar) Predicting and Reviewing NYSE Stock Prices by use of Basic Statistical Analysis and Logic Toy Car Depreciation Exercise ABSEL as Home Community: An Interactive Exploration Service Learning: Linking Academic Study to Community Development and Business Enhancement Ability of Efficient Evaluation of Knowledge-Based Management Strategies Corporate Ethics Training Programs Modeling Attributes in Demand Functions of Computerized Business Simulations: An Extension of Teach's Gravity Flow Algorithm Expert Systems Combined with Neutral Networks: Tools to Benefit the Marketing Researcher Computer Game Design: New Directions for Intercultural Simulation Game Designers Consistency in Simulation Performance over Time and Across Simulation Games The Impact of an Artificial Market Leader on Simulation Competitor's Strategies Business Plans, Case Studies, and Total Enterprise Simulations: A Natural Co-existence An Exploration into the Non-Use of Business Simulations The Market Game: Interactive Learning Through Market Simulation Plotting Brand Trajectories with the COMPLETE PPM package: A Market Segmentation Analysis and Positioning Tool Me and Mine Inc: An Exercise in Management Theory Learning to Differentiate Leadership from Managerial Position Business Ethics Survey: A Perspective from the Retail Industry Experiential Learning in Demand Analysis for an Agricultural Commodity Marketing on the Internet: A Pedagogical Exercise College Students Need Simple Computer Simulations, Especially for International Business Courses An Analysis of Student Attitudes, Performance, and Strategies in a Simulation Competition Based on a Controlled Product-Market-Entry Game Structure The Crystal Enterprise: Application of a Non-Computerized Simulation Model in a Process of Organizational Change Threshold: A Windows-Based Behaviorally Oriented Total Enterprise Simulation Coaching Business Game Teams Using a Decision Variable Optimizer Rock and Roll is here to Stay: Enhancing Experiential Pedagogy with Musical Exercises An Example of Business Process Analysis Simulation for Customer Software Support The Use of Business Gaming in Hong Kong Academic Institutions Using the Integrative International Simulation INTOPIA Mark 2000 in a Concentrated MBA Curriculum A Group Experience as an Integrated Part of the Core Management Course Empowered Learning in the Classroom The Inter-Group Interaction: An Innovative Approach to Cooperative Learning Courses that Utilize Student Team: An Approach to enhancing their Effectiveness Thoughts about the Measurement of Learning: The Case for Guided Learning and Associated Measurement Issues Measuring Student Learning Using Business Simulations: A Theory Based Perspective On the Use of PC Fingame in an Undergraduate Finance Course How Managers get Things Done: A Virtual Soundbite Internet Experiential learning in the Principals of Marketing Classroom: A Pedagogical Approach Current Student Perceptions Relative to Business Simulations Beyond Capitalism: Designing Business Policy and Social Justice The Use of Boards of Directors to Evaluate Reports and Presentations in an Undergraduate Business Policy Course Beacon Lumber: An Experiential Introduction to Financial Accounting The Application of Organizational Motivation Principles: The Experiential Business Simulation Motus Manufacturing Avoiding a Bogey: Grading Case Discussions Scientifically Communicating Consumer Behavior II: A Modified Exercise Using Personal Consumption Journals in Condensed Courses Designing Instruments for Assessing the Effectiveness of Simulations, (Seminar) 360º Performance Feedback: Appraisal vs. Assessment The Cafeteria Approach to Managing an Academic Career: Remaining Non-Perishable while Doing Your Own Thing An Experiential Exercise Related to Person-Organization Fit and it's Consequences For Today's Dynamic and Changing World, Business Simulations need to be expanded to encompass Much Greater Complexity: A Demonstration The Incident Process: A Case in Reverse Contextually-Anchored Business Simulations The Energy Factor: Building Motivation in the Simulation Gaming Environment The Design of an Internet Game