College Business Students' Perceptions of Unethical Executives and Whistleblowers

Ethics in business has been a hot topic recently because more and more business leaders are accused and convicted of wrong doing. Decker and Calo (2007) contend that there needs to be more education concerning ethics in business after conducting research about the knowledge of real world behavior obtained by business students. The idea terms of an unethical business executive and a whistleblower were examined and the reactions towards those terms were correlated with reactions of both the male and female students.

The whistleblower was defined as someone who has witnessed an undesirable action or one that was unethical. The impression of whistleblowers may be seen from both sides of the fence. The unethical executive or any executive may fear the whistleblower because the news he reveals may affect their job or department. On the other hand, the average employee may see the whistleblower as either good or bad. They could be considered bad if the actions after the fact tighten down rules or cause job losses and they could be considered good if the facts brought down an tyrannical executive or improves work place conditions.

The study was conducted by questionnaire to 205 students of the undergraduate class of at Salisbury University. There were 118 males and 71 females whose average age was around 22-25. The results showed that impressions of an unethical executive were negative and impressions of a whistleblower were positive. Female respondents deemed the unethical more negatively than men. The ethical view of females may have been the cause of that statistic. The females also responded to the whistleblower more favorably and this could be accounted for where another study states the women are in percentage, more ethical than men. In a unrelated side study, three of the respondents who were male clearly made the unethical executive a hero and a person to model themselves after.