An investigation of moral reasoning in undergraduate business students at public and private institutions

Businesses today are concerned with the ethics of their current employees and potential employees. The purpose of this study was to investigate moral reasoning in undergraduate, senior-level business students at private and public institutions.; The study looked for significant differences in moral reasoning ability, as measured by Rest's Defining Issues Test, version 2 (DIT-2), between students attending public and private institutions in North Dakota and Minnesota. Differing requirement for ethics content in business curricula was investigated as specified by three business program accrediting bodies: The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), The Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), and the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE). Differing perceptions between business instructors and students in regard to the extent business ethics were incorporated into the curricula were studied.; The Narcissistic Personality Index (NPI) was used to measure levels of narcissistic personality tendencies of students to analyze for differences between students from the two types of institutions, and to look for relationships among the NPI scores, the DIT-2 scores, and demographic and textual variables.; The study did not find significant differences in moral reasoning ability between the private school and public school participants; however, private school students scored significantly higher on the NPI. Significant relationships with the DIT-2 scores noted were G.P.A., participation in academic groups prior to college and the total number of college activities in which a student participated. No significant relationship was found between the DIT-2 and NPI scores. Items with significant relationships to NPI scores included age, gender, school type, community type, family type, income level, participation in prior college athletics, participation in college athletics, total number of college activities, the number of business ethics courses taken and the student's self-assessment of preparedness for real-world ethical dilemmas. The results of the findings were analyzed and compared to prior research with recommendations for further research.