Right and Wrong and Cultural Diversity: Replication of the 2002 NAS/Zogby Poll on Business Ethics

Abstract

In April 2002, a NAS/Zogby poll found that only a quarter of sampled students perceived uniform standards of "right and wrong" and that most students felt that ethical behavior depends on cultural diversity. In this effort to replicate those findings in a larger sample of American college students, the authors obtained results that contradict the findings of the NAS/Zogby poll. Comparing their results across six demographic student subsets (gender, stockholder, smoker, major, year in school, and business ethics student), the authors found significant differences between some of the groups. The results suggest that students are concerned with business ethics and that their opinions are likely to influence their future employment decisions.