Ethical Judgement in UK Business Students: Relationship with Motivation, Self-Compassion and Mental Health

Abstract

Business ethics have come under increasing scrutiny recently due to various corporate scandals. This has prompted a need for research into the characteristics of people drawn to the business world and the education they receive. This study (i) evaluates the levels of ethical judgement, mental health, motivation, and self-compassion in 144 UK business students and (ii) assesses the relationships between these variables. A high proportion of respondents (i) believed that other students would behave unethically, whilst they themselves would not, and (ii) had a high level of anxiety, extrinsic motivation and self-compassion. Extrinsic motivation was associated with participants' belief that others would behave unethically, whilst intrinsic motivation was associated with strict ethical judgement and self-compassion. Extrinsic motivation and self-compassion were significant explanatory variables for students' ethical judgement, and self-compassion was a significant explanatory variable for mental health symptoms. This study is unique in examining the facets of ethics, mental health, self-compassion and motivation in business students. Findings have implications for both educators and practitioners since improving ethical behaviour in the future workforce may be achieved by augmenting future employees' levels of self-compassion and intrinsic motivation, rather than solely administering Bethics training^that has been found to be of limited value. Findings also indicate that such an approach may have utility for improving business students' mental health. Keywords Ethical judgement. Business students. Mental health. Self-compassion There have been an increasing number of corporate scandals in recent years (van Luttervelt 2006). For example, Volkswagen allegedly installed software into their cars that provided false environmental emissions measurements (Matthews and Gandel 2015), and Wells Fargo

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