BUSINESS STUDIES ipmi

F O A B S T R A C T To contribute to the ethics literature, this study collects data from senior business students, MBA students

. These and other abuses prompted International Journal of Business Studies Vol. 7 No. 1 (February 2023) concerns over the societal impact of corporate activities and the effectiveness of managers in overseeing the functioning and direction of the business (Chase et al., 1997;Tichy, 2001). The attention garnered by these scandals resulted in greater concern with corporate ethics and social responsibility (CESR) in both the business community (Husted and Allen, 2000) and in university education (Kurtz, 1999;Lampe, 1997).
However, the continued occurrence of corporate scandals raises questions about the effectiveness of business school education in shaping attitudes about CESR and the degree to which these attitudes are maintained once in the corporate world. The research presented here is an important step in answering these questions.
Since 1974, the main accrediting body for schools of business and accounting, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), has included ethical considerations as part of its accreditation standards (Mahoney, 2008). This commitment to insuring that business students are exposed to social responsibility issues is strengthened further in its 2013 accreditation standards in which a commitment to corporate and social responsibility must now be one of a school's core values and guiding principles (AACSB International, 2016). Having an active strategy of business ethics education would likely produce potential managers that will comply with legal, ethical and social business practices (Burcea and Marinescu, 2011;Phillips, 2004), but whether this is realized is an open question.
There are two prominent schools of thought under the perceptions of the role of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR). The classical view (Friedman, 1970), also known as the shareholder or stockholder view, posits that managers should make decisions that are in the best �inancial interest of the shareholders.
Alternatively, the stakeholder view guides managers to make decisions of the organizations multiple stakeholders including stockholders, suppliers, and community constituents (Orlitzky et al., 2011). Arguing that business students are the business professionals of the future and that many upper division undergraduate and graduate students have suf�icient education and experience to make many ethical issues personally relevant to them, understanding the development of their views during the critical formative stage in their careers while in college is important (Wurthmann, 2013). However, with a few notable exceptions (e.g., Aspen Institute, 2001;Lopez et al., 2005;Luthar and Karri, 2005;Lämsäet al., 2009), little attention has been devoted to the study of the corporate ethics and social responsibility orientation of business students and managers within the context of these two countervailing perspectives. The purpose of this study is to help �ill this void and shed light on the perceptual differences on stakeholder and stockholder perspectives between managers, senior business students, and Master of Business Administration (MBA) students, controlling for gender, age and experience. As such, we seek to assess (1) the degree to which respondents identify with either the stakeholder or stockholder's ethical viewpoint, and (2) whether differences exist between the viewpoints of senior business students, MBA students, and managers. To our knowledge, the present research is the �irst to use the PRESOR measure to compare senior business students', MBA students', and managers' viewpoints, controlling for gender, work experience and age. Thus, the present research answers calls for improved understanding of which variables are associated with PRESOR (Axinn et al. 2004;Elias, 2004;Shafer et al., 2007;Singhapakdi et al., 1996;Vitell et al., 2010).
Furthermore, this research provides additional evidence concerning the dimensionality and validity of the PRESOR scales, consistent with the notion that scale validation should be a continuous process (Churchill, 1979).
The next section presents a brief overview of the Dr. Russell Spears / Stakeholder and stockholder viewpoints of corporate ethics: A comparison among senior business students, MBA students and managers / 1 -21 stakeholder and stockholder views of the �irm. This is followed by the hypotheses to be tested.
Next, the research methods is presented, followed by the results and discussion.

STOCKHOLDER VIEWS OF THE FIRM
The stakeholder and stockholder views are alternative perspectives of how businesses should view CESR (Shafer,, 2015). The stakeholder view of the �irm has generated both substantial traction and widespread acceptance among management theorists (Clarkson, 1995;Donaldson and Preston, 1995;Mitchell et al., 1997) and ethicists alike (Evan and Freeman, 1988;Hasnas, 1998). This view suggests that "business success should embody the attainment of traditional pro�it maximization objectives, the need to attend to the interests of stockholders, customers, employees, suppliers, management, local community constituents, and the need to adopt policies and enact practices that produce an optimal balance" (Clark et al., 2014). That is, this view argues for the consideration all stakeholders' interests even if doing so reduces company pro�itability (Smith, 2003).
The stockholder view of the �irm asserts that managers should spend capital when authorized by shareholders (Friedman, 1970;Smith, 2003).
That is, aside from basic ethical obligations (e.g., engaging in honest, moral, and legal transactions), managers should make business decisions in the interest of their shareholders, generating �inancial returns and should engage in social endeavors only to the extent that doing so enhances their prospects for even greater �inancial returns.
Social objectives such as poverty reduction or protecting the environment, which are not linked to shareholder considerations, are seen as matters of personal initiative, private charities and foundations, and are more appropriately the responsibilities of government (Parnell et al., 2012). Hence, under the stockholder theory of the �irm, the only objective of businesses is to maximize pro�it (Friedman, 1970;Jensen and Meckling, 1976;Williamson, 1985;Shafer et al., 2007). Therefore, managers assume a �iduciary responsibility, irrespective of any societal bene�its or detriments (Hasnas, 1998;Smith, 2003). That is, the stockholder's interests ought to take precedence over the interests of all other groups (Hansmann and Kraakman, 2001).
In sum, the stockholder and shareholder views of the �irm are two countervailing approaches to how CESR should be approached both in the business world and in the business school curricula, with scholars from each side advocating their view as "best practice." (Boatright, 2006;Ferrero et al., 2014;Hasnas, 1998). Those who identify more closely with the stockholder view argue for serving the best interests of the stockholders to the exclusion of others (Friedman, 1962;Friedman, 1970;Smith, 2003;Jensen and Meckling, 1976;Williamson, 1985) and are less likely to support the importance of CESR (Shafer, 2015). In contrast, those with a stakeholder view would argue that the organization has a responsibility to a variety of stakeholder groups and suggest that organizations should act in an ethical and socially responsible fashion (Shafer et al., 2007Goodpaster, 1991Kay and Popkin, 1998;Orlitzky et al., 2011;Parnell et al., 2012;Clarkson, 1995;Donaldson and Preston, 1995).

HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
Several studies have examined the impact that teaching ethics has on shaping CESR attitudes and perceptions in both business professionals and students. However, the results of these studies are mixed. Luthar and Karri (2005)  Studies regarding the similarities and differences between managers and business students with respect to business ethics have produced mixed results. For example, analyzing cases that were legal but ethically questionable, Emerson et al. (2007) found that managers appeared to be more accepting of situations resulting in physical harm to individuals than were students.
In a survey of practicing accountants and accounting students, Ibrahim et al. (2006) found that students exhibited a greater concern for the ethical and discretionary components of CESR. These results were similar to an earlier study which also found that business students exhibited greater concern about ethical conduct than business professionals (Ibrahim and Angelidis, 1993). Smith et al. (1999) also found that students exhibited a greater sensitivity to the ethical dimensions of business decisionmaking when compared to managers.
In contrast to the above results, several studies have found that concern for ethics in decision making is greater in business professionals than in students. Axinn et al. (2004) and Goodwin and Goodwin (1999) are examples of research �inding that MBA students are less concerned about ethical matters than practicing managers. Dupont and Craig (1996) examined the ethical attitudes of retail sales persons, sales managers and business school students. They found that the students were less ethically oriented than the retail professionals. In a survey of college business majors and business professionals, Cole and Smith (1995) found that students responded less ethically than did those in the business community.
Based on the above arguments, we propose the following hypotheses: H4: There is no difference in the perception of the stakeholder view of CESR between managers and senior business students.

H5:
There is no difference in the perception of the stakeholder view of CESR between managers and MBA students.
H6: There is no difference in the perception of the stockholder view of CESR between managers and senior business students.
H7: There is no difference in the perception of the stockholder view of CESR between managers and MBA students.
While the research cited above focuses on the differences in ethical attitudes between students and managers, another research track examines whether there are differences among the students.
Once again the research has produced varying results. For example, Kumar (1995)  of the students showed strong orientation towards social responsibility, graduate students exhibited a stronger social responsibility orientation than undergraduate students. In contrast, in a pre-and post-test, Kathy and Curtis (2003) found statistically signi�icant differences between graduate and undergraduate business students in their perceptions of ethical issues, with graduate students having less movement toward more ethical responses in the post-test than did undergraduates. Glenn (1992) and Jones (1990) found that ethical values become less apparent in subjects with a higher level of education in most cases. Parsa and Lankford (1999)
Gender was controlled for through the use of a dummy variable, "GENDER" with 0 = "male", and 1 = "female".
Research frequently predicts the relationship between age and ethical judgments to be positive (Chiu, 2003;Peterson et al., 2001;. That is, people tend to be more ethical as they grow older. However, Ede et al. (2000) and Vitell et al. (2007) �ind that younger people tend to be more ethical than older people. Barnett and Valentine (2004) and Schepers According to Cron (1984), Vitell (1986, 1992), and Weeks et al. (1999), attitudes towards ethical issues might vary according to a person's career stage. In other words, work experience could in�luence a person's ethical judgement.

To
Therefore, H3 is rejected.
Hypotheses H4 through H9 test for differences in stakeholder and stockholder views between three separate groups, senior business students, MBA students, and managers. In order to maintain the statistical power of these tests (Levin et al., 1994  Between group differences regarding the stakeholder views are tested �irst. In Table 7 The results indicate that gender signi�icantly contributed in explaining the differences in stakeholder and stockholder views. This is in support of prior studies that a signi�icant impact of gender on ethical perceptions (Peterson et al., 2001;Harris et al., 2006;Alleyne et al., 2006;Conroy and Emerson, 2004;Devonish et al., 2009;Sidani et al., 2009;Alleyne et al., 2010;Lau, 2010). However, as in prior studies, age was not signi�icantly related to either view (Ede et al., 2000;Vitell et al., 2007). Similarly, work experience did not signi�icantly impact CESR viewpoints (Barnett and Valentine, 2004;Schepers, 2003).
The results for the within group analyses indicate that both senior students' and MBA students' mean perceived stakeholder views were signi�icantly higher than their respective mean perceived stockholder views. However, managers' mean perceived stakeholder view was signi�icantly lower than their mean perceived stakeholder view. These preliminary results indicate that while both student groups tend to believe that �irms have a moral duty to ensure the welfare of all their stakeholders (Donaldson and Preson, 1995;Freeman, 1984), managers identify more closely with organizational pro�itability as their overriding responsibility, thereby espousing the stockholder view.
The results for the between group analyses indicate that managers have a signi�icantly lower (higher) perception of the stakeholder (stockholder) view than senior and MBA students.
One interpretation is that while students may be inherently less sensitive to the economic needs of business organizations and more concerned with ethical behavior and philanthropic activities (Ibrahim et al., 2006), managers provide a greater appreciation of the business world's economic "realities." The results support Ibrahim and Angelidis (1993), Smith et al. (1999) Friedman (1970) and Levitt (1958).
A second implication is that current managers also probably lean more toward the stockholder view and act to safeguard their own "bread and butter" since their own survival is tied to corporate �inancial performance (Sethi, 1975;Cameron, 1986). A third implication is that an organization needs to use clear, enforceable codes of ethics and social responsibility guidelines and take an additional step by integrating the social responsibility and business ethics elements into its strategic planning process. As pointed out by Robin and Reidenbach (1987), it is essential to incorporate ethics and social responsibility into an organization's strategic planning process, outlining an approach for successful integration.
The results also indicate that senior business students identify more with the stakeholder view and less with the stockholder view than their MBA counterparts. This is in line with Parsa and Lankford (1999) and Kathy and Curtis (2003) who found that undergraduate students to act more ethically than MBA students. This is informative as one would think that MBA students would have been exposed to more classroom-related ethical and social responsibility issues and would thus identify more with the stakeholder view.
Several limitations of this study deserve mention. First, the data were self-reported and subject to biases, although research has found that selfreported data are not as limited as commonly expected (Spector, 1992). Second, the study suffers from the generalizability problem as the sample of students was limited to a sample of students at one business school and a speci�ic group of

Questionnaire
In this project, we are assessing your perceived attitude to corporate ethics and social responsibility.
We kindly ask you to �ill out this questionnaire. We thank you in advance for your responses. The data collected in this survey will be treated in the strictest con�idence, it will be stored in a secure place and it will be used only for this study and in related reports. Information in reports will only be discussed at the aggregate level so that information about any particular individual/organization cannot be ascertained or deduced by readers.

Part I
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