The Business Ethics Blog

Here’s an interesting, well, sort-of-story. Actually, kind of an interesting non-story: Poll: Most students think biz ethics optional (Francine Knowles, Chicago Sun-Times)

Most Chicago area high school students queried in a business survey revealed they have a dim view of the need for high ethical standards.

The survey, conducted by the Illinois Institute for Entrepreneurship Education and the Chicago area chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, found a wide gulf between the ethical perspectives of high school students and those of business owners.

More than 96 percent of business owners surveyed said they believed that having others view them as a person of integrity is very important, while only 37 percent of high school students surveyed shared that view.

When asked whether it was better to bend the rules and win or play by the rules and lose, 79.2 percent of business owners said the latter was better, compared with 41.7 percent of students.

The survey posed several ethical questions to more than 70 high school students and 80 women business owners in the Chicago metropolitan area.

First, question, class: who can tell me what the Margin of Error is on a study of 70 students? (If you don’t know what margin of error is, look it up before you try to read any more news stories that cite surveys. It’s important.) OK, a hint: the margin of error (roughly the amount by which a study with a sample of this size — 70 — might be wrong, just by chance) is huge. So, the title of this story is pretty misleading. It should read, “Tiny Poll: Majority of Notoriously-Rebellious Highschool Students in One City Gave Anti-Social Answers to Ambiguous Questions.” OK, that’s not very catchy though, is it?

Second, who is supposed to be surprised that a significant proportion of adolescents (maybe) have immature, antisocial attitudes?

OK, so, snippy comments about this survey aside, there is a serious issue here, related to the role-models young folks see in media & pop-culture portrayals of the world of business, and the long-term effect that has on their thinking and their values. That’s a serious topic. If anyone knows of good empirical research on that topic, e-mail me, and I’ll blog about it.

(Thanks to Laura Hartman for the heads-up.)