This paper investigates the relative importance of social responsibility criteria in determining organizational effectiveness. The organizational effectiveness menu was used as a questionnaire with a sample of 151 senior undergraduates. Each respondent was asked to rate the importance of the criteria from three constituent perspectives within a service organization: (1) as a manager, (2) as an investor, (3) as an employee. Later, a subsample of students (n=61) responded to the same questionnaire acting as a manager in an assigned case study. (...) The results indicated that students acting as managers, investors, or employees rate social responsibility criteria among the least important of the determinants of organizational effectiveness. Moreover, while specific situations may call for changes in the relative importance of these criteria, social responsibility criteria were not viewed, generally, as the most important determinants of organizational effectiveness. (shrink)

This paper investigates the differences in perceptions between business students and service-sector managers regarding the role that ethics and social responsibility serve in determining organizational effectiveness. An organizational effectiveness instrument containing business ethics and social responsibility items served as a questionnaire for a sample of 151 senior business undergraduates and 53 service-sector managers. The results indicated that while students acting as managers rate some social responsibility issues as more important than do managers, they also rate ethical conduct and a few (...) dimensions of social responsibility lower than do managers. The findings have direct implications for both business practitioners and educators. (shrink)

This article reports the results of a study of attitudes of future business executives towards issues of social responsibility and business ethics. The 455 respondents, who were MBA students during 1985 at one dozen schools from various regions in the United States, were asked to respond to a series of open-ended and closed-ended questions. From the responses to the questions the authors were able to conclude that future executives display considerable sensitivity, though to varying degrees, towards ethical issues in business. (...) Women, in particular, tend to evince strong feelings regarding such issues. (shrink)

Are the values of business students of today synchronized with the reality of the present business environment? Two hundred twenty-two business students rated the importance of twenty corporate goals. Moreover, the students rated the same goals as they perceived chief executive officers (CEOs) would have rated them. Significant differences were found between the two ratings, with students ranking social and employee-oriented goals as more important than they perceived CEOs would have.

Using measures developed by Singhapakdi et al. (1996, Journal of Business ethics 15, 1131–1140) the perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR) is measured among MBA students in the United States, Malaysia and Ukraine revealing a stockholder view and two stakeholder views. Relativism and Idealism are also measured. The scores of MBA students are compared among each other and with those of the U.S. managers who were part of the original study. Managers'' scores tend to be significantly higher on (...) the Stockholder and Stakeholder II views, and much lower on Relativism than the MBA students. The Malaysian MBA students scored higher than did the American MBA students on Relativism, Idealism and the Stockholder view. The Ukrainian MBA students'' scores on the three PRESOR factors are generally similar to those of the American MBAs, while they had the highest scores of any group on the Relativism scale. Overall, the patterns of responses, as much as the significant differences on specific scales, support the notion that culture, however defined, affects both values and ethics. Several directions for future research are identified.''. (shrink)

Integrating personality, behavioral, and cognitive theories of change, the author examines the operations, measurement, and evolution of behavioral and ethical standards that distinguish capitalism from other ideologies.