Convicts and MBA grads have similar ethics
By Marc Ransford Communications Manager
When it comes to ethical standards, convicts and MBA students rate about even, says a Ball State University researcher.A survey of a group of convicts found their ethical standards compare favorably to those of MBA students. But, when it comes to loyalty, convicted felons may have the edge, said Shaheen Borna, a marketing professor.
A survey found that inmates were more loyal to their employers, placed higher priority on customer service and worked better in groups.
The survey's participants were from three minimum security prisons located in three Midwestern states. Participants were mostly male (90 percent), white (80 percent), and young (48 percent were between 20-25 and 32 percent between 25-30). The average sentence served by respondents was 4.5 years.
All respondents were convicted felons participating in some capacity in the prison education system. None were a Ball State student.
The survey found:
* About 73 percent of MBA students and 60 percent of convicts would hire, if it was legal, a competitor's employees who knew the details of a profitable discovery.
* Both groups believe their own ethical standards are about the same as or superior to peers, past supervisors and business executives.
* When it came to priorities, convicts put customers first while students favored stockholders and customers second.
* Inmates were more "loyal" than their student counterparts. Convicts were more likely to do what was asked of them in ethically difficult or ethically doubtful situations.
* Students were more likely to quit when faced with obviously unethical behavior while inmates were more likely to leave when the behavior involved a deal with the government.
* Inmates placed greater importance on group trust and loyalty.
"With respect to priorities, little difference was found between the two groups," Borna said. "The differences that were found in response to questions had to do with inmates' loyalty or with inmates' high priority for customers -- hardly undesirable characteristics for a potential employee."
Despite public perception, many convicts have the potential to become productive members of society if business executives are willing to provide opportunities, he said.
"If a potential employer believes that the values and ethics of inmates in the prison education system are not that different from the values and ethics of students in graduate higher education, that manager might be much more willing to take a chance on an ex-con," Borna said.
The research provides some evidence that organizations are missing out on the dual opportunity to lessen the correctional burden on society and add a valuable and loyal source of productivity, he said.
The survey also emphasizes that university faculty should increase awareness of ethics in business decisions by having students participate in live situations instead of learn them from books or lectures.
"Most groups, including convicted felons, know ethics and will usually do the right thing," Borna said. "The key issue in education may be getting students to recognize that most decisions have a moral dimension."
It's an old piece, but I ran into a reference to this in a book and googled it up. I found the stats it came out with to be very amusing...
"Prodesse Non Nocere." "It's all about popularity really, if your invisible friend that tells you to invade places is called Napoleon, you're a loony, if he's called Jesus then you're the president." "I'd drive more people insane, but I'd have to double back and pick them up first..." "All it takes for bullshit to thrive is for rational men to do nothing." - Kevin Farrell, B.A. Journalism. BOTM - EBC - Horseman - G&C - Vampire
Colour me surprised. I, as a philosophy student with a focus on ethics and social and political theory, have always been scornful of business majors in general and their take on ethics in specific. Honestly I'm surprised that the business students didn't do considerably worse on ethics questions than the convicts.
There are actually a number of fairly funny stories about business students that go around the phil dept. at my uni, most of them true and most of them from grad students teaching our 300 level Business Ethics course (an applied ethics course required for business students to graduate). For instance, one grad student notes that the first thing she has to do when teaching that course is to convince her students that there's something more important than money. This is the same woman who once failed almost an entire Business Ethics class because she caught them cheating on a paper. She actually got a letter of thanks from the Business College for that one. There was talk of framing it and putting it up in the grad student offices, although I don't think that ever actually happened.
*coughs* I'm not anti-business, I'm anti-stupid and dishonest! Really! Those two things just happen to be often correlated.
All respondents were convicted felons participating in some capacity in the prison education system. None were a Ball State student.
So, MBA students are not being compared to the average felon, but rather to a self-selected group of the most intelligent and self-motivated convicts in minimum-security prisons.
Also, I notice that the article only mentions the convicts who participated in the survey; nowhere is it mentioned which MBA students the convicts were compared to. That is rather an important bit of information.
A recent study by James Steams of Miami University and Shaheen Borna of Ball State University found that prison inmates and MBAstudents have comparable ethics.
The authors chose to study ex-convicts since they are a group whose ethics are traditionally considered unsuited to business. "The general public's perception of convicted felons is that they adhere to a different set of values, are generally untrustworthy, and constitute a great risk for employers," the study report reads. Stearns and Borna attempted to show that inmates do not operate with significantly different morals, they said.
"I've been a little dismayed" about the press coverage, Stearns said in response to the fact that some news sources and others interpret the study to mean that MBA students are unusually sleazy. "We didn't find that MBA's are unethical. Every major newspaper gives a different twist" to our research, said Borna.
Assistant Director of Under-graduate Programs and Assistant Director of Educational Services for the Sloan School Heather Madnick found the question of MBA students' ethics "curious." "We have a great group of students," Madnick said. Sloan offers two classes which focus on ethics, and use many case studies with ethical questions in other classes. "It's definitely a topic stressed here."
The MBA students' data was used only as a control for the inmates' response. The data was taken from another study a few years old, which asked MBA students in various schools ethical questions. "We used their mechanics, and applied it" to the felons, Borna said.
She did not answer, which is the damnedest way of winning an argument I know of.
