Abstract
The present study investigates how business ethics are related to vocational interest. Special attention has been paid to
the relationship between business ethics and the interest in ‘enterprising’ and ‘social’ oriented professions. The results
show that business ethics is only significantly correlated in a negative way, to enterprising vocational preferences. Moreover,
the negative contribution of business ethics to the preference for entrepreneurial and managerial professions remains after
controlling for personality and work values. Some work values also predict the entrepreneurial interest: Earnings, Influence,
Competition, Innovation and Creativity. The personality traits Extraversion (positive) and Agreeableness (negative) have predictive
validity, but this effect disappears after controlling for work values. In the ‘Discussion’ section, we pay attention to possible consequences of the negative relationship between business ethics and Entrepreneurial
interest for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We argue that efforts concerning realistic job previews will only be meaningful
if they are completed with efforts to make people more sensitive for ethics in two other domains, namely education and business.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 1-11
- DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0999-2
- Authors
- Dries Berings, Human Relations Research Group (HRRG), Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Stormstraat 2, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
- Stef Adriaenssens, Human Relations Research Group (HRRG), Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Stormstraat 2, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
- Journal Journal of Business Ethics
- Online ISSN 1573-0697
- Print ISSN 0167-4544
