The Role of the University in Building an Ethical Culture from the Students’ Perspective

Abstract

This article aimed to explore the perceptions of the students in the Faculty of Management Sciences of an institution in the region in relation to the role of the university in the construction of an ethical culture. An exploratory study with a qualitative approach was carried out, in which, based on the literature review, a semi-structured interview tool was developed and applied to 15 students from different careers related to administrative areas. The results show that the participants consider that the university can have a positive impact on the promotion of ethical culture and suggest strategies that could contribute to this purpose. It is concluded that universities, and in particular the degree courses that train students in administrative fields, should not focus their efforts only on the development of technical skills and hard skills, as they have an undeniable role as promoters of reflection and analysis of social problems and the responsibility of businessmen to generate value in society.

1. Introduction

The formation of the human being includes the personal and the professional, as well as the formal and the informal; therefore, it is relevant to be aware of the impact of formal education and, with it, the commitment of higher education institutions to the holistic formation of citizens, based on ethical reflection.

The term ethics refers to customs as well as to character, good living, and coexistence. In general terms, it is the branch of philosophy that studies the good; therefore, ethics is responsible for the foundation of those actions that come from the human will and have an impact on the well-being of oneself and others. Thus, Cortina recognises that ethics as a philosophical theory has the task of directing actions, as she expresses it in the following terms:

“The ethical task consists, then, in my opinion, in accepting the moral world in its specificity and giving a reflexive reason for it, so that people may grow in knowledge about themselves and, thus, in freedom. Such a task does not have an immediate impact on everyday life, but it has that enlightening power proper to philosophy that is irreplaceable on the road to freedom” [1].

Corruption levels in the country where the study was carried out are high; in the Transparency International publication, Ecuador is ranked 105th out of 180 countries in terms of perception of corruption, with a score of 36/100. This publication highlights the need for a systemic approach to corruption because “while the fight against corruption stagnates and deteriorates, human rights and democracy are under attack” [2].

Koris and his colleagues [3] question the approach of business schools oriented exclusively from a business perspective, without considering the propositional criteria of new professionals aimed at the common good. Employees of institutions should develop ethical knowledge, behaviours, and skills that help organisations compete in their markets [4]. Thus, American universities have implemented specialised centres for teaching business ethics, believing that these courses should prepare students for moral decisions and not just for making profits, ignoring the undeniable role of companies as co-responsible actor in social issues [5].

Shah et al. [6] argue that, despite repeated calls for reflection in business schools and business education, the narrative of responsible business has been muted and overshadowed by the prominence given to issues of employability and profit maximisation. With these objectives in mind, priority is given to the development of hard skills, minimising in the curriculum those subjects that contribute to an integral education. Consequently, it is necessary for managers and teachers in institutions that train managers to focus their efforts on developing these other types of skills. In this context, it makes sense to reflect on the ethical aspects of the profession and, therefore, the importance of analysing this issue in university classrooms. For this reason, the study focuses on the ethical culture of students in degree courses related to the field of business.

Ethical culture is understood as the way things are done in an organisation and refers to integrity and honest behaviour. Ultimately, this concept can be thought of as a set of unrelated systems, the complexity of which lies in the fact that these systems need to be aligned to promote honour and integrity [7]. According to Julian Pitt-Rivers [8], honour is both a feeling and an objective social fact that prevents unworthy actions, while integrity is defined by Cortina as a match between what a person does and the values he or she claims to uphold, as long as those values are universally upheld [9]. Maintaining a culture of honour and integrity is a challenge, particularly in higher education, where the community is made up of students, faculty, and staff. The student body, the largest part of the community, changes from semester to semester and year to year. On the other hand, it is not easy to maintain the momentum of these efforts in the midst of changes in the leadership of the institution.

Through their educational work, universities could contribute to the promotion of ethical culture. Studies such as those by Ohreen [10] and Kreismann and colleagues [11] show the effectiveness of ethics training and suggest an active learning approach, especially with interaction between participants through discussion of ethical dilemmas and case studies. In addition, peer discussion can improve most students’ moral reasoning by exposing them to multiple perspectives. Decisions can be modified or validated after being discussed and debated, a process that benefits even shy students who participate in these discussions [11].

2. Methodology

Against this background, the aim of this study was to find out the perceptions of students in the Faculty of Management Sciences of a regional university regarding to the role of their institution in strengthening their ethical culture. An exploratory study with a qualitative approach was carried out with the participation of 15 male and female students from different courses, aged between 20 and 25 years, who were interviewed using a semi-structured interview based on a literature review.

In the first phase, a literature review was carried out in relation to ethical culture and the role of higher education institutions, in particular, the management programmes. Based on the findings of this review, an information-gathering tool was constructed (Annex 1), in which the following categories were considered: the lack of ethics in the global context, the impact of the lack of ethics at the individual and community level, the role of the university in strengthening the ethical culture, academic experiences that have influenced students’ behaviour, methodological strategies that have influenced or could influence students’ ethical behaviour, and some subcategories were considered in each of these, as shown in Table 1.

Category	Subcategory
Lack of ethics in the global context	Perception of the lack of ethics in the country.
Impact of misconduct at the individual and community level	Affecting misconduct at the individual and community level.
The role of the university in strengthening ethical culture	University as an instance of strengthening ethical culture.
Academic experiences that have an impact on students’ ethical behaviour	Pedagogical experiences that have had a positive impact on the ethical behaviour of students.
	Pedagogical experiences that have had a negative impact on the ethical behaviour of students.
	Academic experiences that could contribute to the strengthening of the ethical culture at the University.
Ethics and academic curriculum	Subjects and contents of the curriculum strengthen the approach to ethics.
Ethics and business relationship	Ethical business.

Table 1.

Categories and sub-categories of the study.

The interviews were conducted face-to-face and virtually, in the first case through voice notes and, in the second, through the recording of the session. After the application of the interview, the information obtained was systematised by transcribing the audio of the interviews using Sonix software. The researchers then analysed the narrative content of the interviews, identified recurring patterns in the responses, and organised the findings.

3. Results

The first interview question sought to understand the participants’ perceptions of the lack of ethics in the national context. The results of the interviews indicate that all participants felt that there was a high level of ethical deprivation, with eight of the 15 interviewees explicitly associating it with the word corruption. Terms related to political power, such as leaders, government, and state, among others, were mentioned by 33% of the participants. Lack of education was mentioned by 27% as having a direct impact on a lack of ethics. Three out of 15 respondents identified the lack of ethics as a major problem in the country, manifesting itself in several areas, including the academic and professional fields. Forty per cent believe that it is a matter of individual behaviour, which, as such, is strongly influenced by subjectivity and the tendency to relativize ethics, which leads to great complexity in its analysis, in line with Cortina’s perspective [1] that there is a moral diversity from which reflection is necessary to motivate, from freedom; however, Rawls considers that society is well ordered not only when it is organised to promote the well-being of its members but also when it is effectively regulated by a public conception of justice [12], consequently, it is of vital importance to recognise that the criteria of justice and the common good far exceed individualistic bias.

In reference to the impact generated by the lack of ethics at the individual and community level, all the participants mentioned some kind of affectation; for example, they perceive that in the professional sphere, situations that violate ethics are evident and have become naturalised. On the other hand, 33% mentioned some kind of impact on the country’s development caused by wrong political decisions. In relation to the above, Kliksberg [13] addresses the harmful effect of the lack of ethics in organisations as well as in public management, seeking to relocate, through the exemplification of real cases that show the relationship between corruption and the deterioration of the living conditions of society in general.

The interviewees believe that the situation would improve with a change at the individual level, which reaffirms ethics as a reflection and analysis of what is considered good and valuable in a given society, with individual well-being and the common good as a reference, and which requires “minimums” for human beings to develop with dignity. In Cortina and Martnez’s terms, “the ethics of justice or ethics of minimums deal only with the universalisable dimension of the moral phenomenon, that is, with those duties of justice that are demandable of any rational being and which, in short, only make up minimum requirements” ([14], p. 117). Framed within this conception, we can mention certain discourses that show that the authors’ aspiration is not fully internalised by two of the participants in this study. We refer to expressions such as “It is not something that is very important for people, myself included” and “I grew up thinking that certain situations were ethical, but in reality they were not”, from which we cannot approach ethics from a static perspective but rather recognise its dynamism and systemic character.

The issue of corruption has been identified as a situation with which we have become familiar, to the point of behaviour that could be considered negligent, associating it with extreme individualism and laissez-faire thinking. It is necessary to raise awareness of the need to understand that there is a gap between “want” and “duty”, and that it is essential to deepen and strengthen duty in order to ensure a good life in the community, as one of the interviewees stated, “what is right is not necessarily what you want to do”.

Another category investigated was the perception in relation to the role of the university in the strengthening of ethical culture, taking as a premise that ethical training begins in the family. One of the 15 interviewees considers that, due to the age at which one enters university, when there is already some degree of maturity, it is very difficult to modify behaviour. They also maintain that reflection on ethics should start at school or college, recognising that it is strengthened in the workplace. 87% of the participants consider that the university can strengthen the practise of ethics through experiences of an academic nature (related to the subjects) and also of a relational nature (student–teacher interaction). This perception coincides with the moral development theory of psychologist Kohlberg, who, based on Piaget’s theory of evolutionary development, maintains that the development of moral conscience runs parallel to evolutionary development, with the post-conventional stage being the pinnacle of the development of moral conscience, in which social norms have been assumed to be beneficial for good living, strengthening a sense of otherness.

Regarding positive pedagogical experiences related to ethical reflection described by the students, 27% stated that they had not had this type of experience in their academic life, indicating that teaching concentrates on technical aspects and hard skills. 47% indicated that the approach of certain teachers in their subjects lent itself to this type of experience; for example, one student commented “I got more out of a simple lecture from my teacher talking directly to me about what should be ethical rather than a lecture on ethics in the auditorium”. Another student mentioned as positive the analysis of ethical cases at the end of the chapters of his textbook, together with the teacher, and the use of anti-plagiarism software for the assessment of assignments. Seven of the 15 students said that they had not had any negative experiences, but one of them mentioned virtual classes as a negative experience since virtual assessment facilitates copying; on the other hand, two students referred to the negative effect of their lecturers’ attitudes, such as unequal treatment of students or tolerance of academic dishonesty.

These assertions coincide with the thinking of Vallaeys, who refers to the responsibility of the university in terms of training the leaders of society, with the consequent need for the academy to reflect on itself in a contextualised manner, with a holistic vision being indispensable as it is immersed in the chronic problems of society, which is why the university’s commitment requires articulating the various parts of the institution in the promotion of ethical principles, equitable development, and sustainable development [15].

The students also emphasise the importance of articulating ethics in the decision-making processes that are evident in research, thesis development, and projects—spaces that allow them to demonstrate this dimension of behaviour by putting their knowledge into practice through practice and their relationship with society. Ford and Richardson [16] consider that the ethical decision-making process is of an individual and internal nature, while Porter and Córdoba argue that decision-making from a social responsibility perspective occurs at the organisational level [17].

In reference to the questions that sought to identify academic experiences that could contribute to strengthening the ethical culture among students, all the interviewees stated that it is of vital importance to link theory with reality, for which they suggested, on the one hand, active learning practises such as talks focused on their career, debates, conversations, and testimonies of professionals, and, on the other hand, activities that contribute to the development of critical thinking such as case studies, workshops, and contents that lend themselves to reflection in their subjects.

In the relational sphere, five students highlighted the role of the teacher in situations of informal education, understood according to Sarramona [18] as a continuous process through which people acquire and accumulate knowledge, skills, attitudes, and ways of discerning through daily experiences and their relationship with the environment; they mentioned the need for teachers to be more rigorous in copying, to promote teamwork, equal treatment, and incentives for student contribution, as well as the teacher’s example.

At the curricular level, the participants mentioned subjects such as accounting, entrepreneurship, legislation, administration, computer security, and networking as the subjects within their curriculum that strengthen the approach to ethics. In addition, 93% of the students stated that ethics training should be worked on in all subjects in a cross-cutting manner, from the beginning to the end of university education, through related ethical issues. Finally, 100% of students believe that it is possible to do ethical business.

In this sense, it should be acknowledged that what was stated by the interviewees coincides to a large extent with what Kliksberg [19] said in relation to the fundamental role of universities, a responsibility that requires going beyond the implementation of a subject that addresses ethics in degree courses but rather the urgent need to mainstream its teaching through the discussion of ethical dilemmas linked to the contents, based on reality.

Based on the urgency expressed by Kliksberg regarding the revaluation of ethics and its potential in the university, as it is responsible for professional and citizen training, as well as the implicit and explicit message of the students interviewed, it is appropriate to review pedagogical proposals that promote ethical dialogue, duly contextualised, in such a way that professional training and its subsequent exercise are inspired by an ethical position. Thus, Eurasqun [20] states that dialogic ethics calls upon the responsibility we have in relation to the world in which our children will live and to the improvement of the quality of life for all through a consensus that does not avoid conflicts but rather faces them from involvement and commitment rather than from regulations or prescription.

A summary of the results of the interviews by category can be found in Table 2.

Category	Subcategory	Findings
Lack of ethics in the global context	Perception of the lack of ethics in the country.	Subjective – relative behaviour.
		Complex approach.
		There is a perceived lack of ethics, which manifests itself professionally and academically.
Impact of misconduct at the individual and community level	Affecting misconduct at the individual and community level.	Lack of ethics in business and other areas has become naturalised.
		Divorce ethics and business.
		Corruption – power relationship.
		Negligent attitude towards corruption, manifested in laissez-faire.
The role of the university in strengthening ethical culture	University as an instance of strengthening ethical culture.	Based on academic experiences and teacher examples.
		Objective application of rules.
		The importance of professional ethics.
		Methodological strategies that motivate curiosity.
		Promoting reflective, critical, and questioning thinking.
Academic experiences that have an impact on students’ ethical behaviour	Pedagogical experiences that have had a positive impact on the ethical behaviour of students.	There is no clear association of any experience, apart from the use of the anti-plagiarism software, with any revised content in any subject or any lecture.
	Pedagogical experiences that have had a negative impact on the ethical behaviour of students.	Online education led to copying.
	Academic experiences that could contribute to the strengthening of ethical culture in the university.	Linking theory and practice.
		Experiential experiences, which highlight the ethical implications of professional practice.
		The teacher’s behaviour must be rigorous, e.g. with regard to copying.
		Teacher example.
		Ethical training should be cross-cutting in all subjects; and throughout the degree course.
		Focusing on the specific area of each career.
Ethics and academic curriculum	Subjects and contents of the curriculum strengthen the approach to ethics.	Contents, talks on general subjects. Not specifically identified.
Ethics and business relationship	Ethical business.	A divorce between these areas is recognised.

Table 2.

Categories, subcategories, and study findings.

4. Conclusions

The research allows us to conclude that, from the students’ point of view, the university can indeed promote the ethical culture of future professionals in administrative areas. The participants recognise that corruption in the public and private spheres is closely related to a lack of ethics and undermines the common good, a situation that they consider to have become naturalised.

The participants’ suggestions as to how the university could foster an ethical culture involve incorporating the approach and reflection of ethical issues in the subjects that make up the curricula of the degree programmes. They consider it important to study ethical dilemmas related to their profession through experiential reflections and experiences based on the day-to-day reality of business people.

The results of this research pose a challenge for universities that focus their efforts on the development of hard skills and technical abilities, neglecting the treatment of key aspects such as ethics, which contribute not only to the formation of the individual as a professional but also to his or her development as a whole person. Both the theory and the opinions of the participants in this study indicate that universities, and particularly the degrees that train in administrative areas, cannot ignore the obligation to train entrepreneurs and leaders who are capable of proposing solutions to economic and market problems, as well as those of a social nature.