A Model for Assessing the Ethical Environment in Academic Dentistry

Abstract

Weber's "Institutional Ethics Audit" model was designed as a tool for assessment of an organization's effort to institutionalize ethics into its operations. In this model, the overall ethical environment of an organization is evaluated through an assessment of its 1) ethical cultures, 2) ethics policy, 3) enforcement mechanisms, and 4) ethical training. Assessment of these components allows the organization to be placed along a continuum that spans aethical firms, compliance firms, emerging firms, and integrity firms. This paper presents the conceptual framework for this model. We propose that application of this model to academic institutions, including dental schools, could provide appropriate information to improve the ethical climate of the institution.

The academic environment: the students’ perspective

“…Honesty has always been an issue in education. Students’ cheating in exams has been a common observation, and several reasons have been given to explain this phenomenon (63). What is more important than detecting or penalizing cheating, is creating an environment that discourages it or makes it meaningless; this has mainly to do with assessment methods used and also with a spirit of collaboration and non‐competitiveness among peers.…”

Perceptions of ethical practices in Hong Kong public hospitals: inter- and intra-professional similarities and differences

“…A 50‐item questionnaire was developed based on Western reports (Olson 1995, 1998, Joseph & Deshpande 1997, Ells et al. 2002, Bahcecik & Oztürk 2003, Whitehead & Novak 2003, Ulrich et al. 2007) The six point Likert‐style scale ranged from ‘strongly sgree’ = 1; ‘generally agree’ = 2; ‘neutral’ = N; ‘generally disagree’ = 3; ‘strongly disagree’ = 4 and ‘don’t know’ = D. The answers were re‐coded to facilitate data analysis as follows: respondents’ scores 4 or 5 were combined to represent ‘agree’; scores 1 or 2 were combined to represent ‘disagree’ and score 3 was coded to represent ‘neutral’.…”