The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind: Exploring Environmental Factors in the Icelandic Business Ethics Education

In close connection with the last global crisis, public debate on business ethics has intensified worldwide, particularly in apparently ethics-friendly environments such as Iceland because of political and corruption scandals. In this context, concern is increasing for enhancing business ethics in higher education curricula to improve ethical behavior of future business people. In this study, from a sample of 138 students of several Masters in Business Administration in an Icelandic university, the importance of Business Ethics is investigated. The aim of this paper is examining students’ overall perceptions of business ethics in friendly environments and, specifically, their views on the importance and objectives of Business Ethics Education. Our results show no significant (or weak) differences among students depending on individual and organizational factors. In comparison to the academic literature, this particularity can be due to environmental factors. Thus, ethics-friendly environments can be treated as contexts where general trends on students’ ethical attitudes are clearly visible. This fact places ethics-friendly environments as crucial research settings for further inquiring into the nuances that help explain students’ attitudes towards Business Ethics and the role of ethics courses in Masters in Business Administration curricula.