Can Ethics Be Taught? Examining The Impact Of Distributed Ethical Training And Individual Characteristics On Ethical Decision-Making

In this study we examine multiple antecedents of business students' ethical decision-making. We first describe, and examine the effectiveness of, an ethical training program in which ethical reasoning skills are taught across the undergraduate curriculum in multiple courses and via extracurricular and cocurricular activities. We find that exposure to this distributed method of ethical training is significantly related to improvements in ethical decision-making among graduating seniors. Second, we examine the impact of personality traits and personal values on ethical decision-making, and find that conscientiousness and universalism values are positively related to ethical decision-making while power values are negatively related. Finally, we examine whether personality interacts with training, and find that more conscientious students benefit more from ethical training. Our results suggest that ethical training programs can have beneficial impacts on ethical decision-making, and that individual characteristics-both traits and values-also influence ethical decision-making.