IJMB Journal – Abstracts
International Journal of Management and Business
IJMB Volume VI, Issue 1
Ethical Decision Making, Social Desirability Bias and Ethics Training of Vietnamese Banking and Finance Postgraduate and Undergraduate Students
Ngo Thai Phuong1*, Greg Fisher2, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba3
12Flinders University at Adelaide, 1Currently The State Bank of Vietnam, Hanoi,Vietnam, 3Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
1ngothaiphuong@gmail.com or phuong.ngothai@sbv.gov.vn
ABSTRACT
The evidence from the recent global financial crisis indicates the importance of ethical decision making in the banking and finance industry. This study surveyed 90 banking and finance postgraduate and undergraduate students in Vietnam to examine the differences in their ethical decision making and social desirability bias. The questionnaire consisted of eight banking specific vignettes developed for this study. We found significant differences in ethical decision making between these two groups in their overall ethical scores and in four out of eight vignettes. We also conducted a three-hour ethics training program for these postgraduate and undergraduate students and found that teaching ethics was more effective for undergraduate students than postgraduate students in the banking and finance industry. However, the short length of ethics training may not help to reduce social desirability bias of both postgraduate and undergraduate students. These findings are important as they show how banking universities and institutions can make workplace environments more conducive to ethical decision making by enhancing ethics education.
Keywords: ethical decision making, social desirability bias, ethics education, banking and finance.
Click for full manuscript (PDF) or back to Volume 6-1, Table of Content.