Does acceptance of corporate wrongdoing begin on the “training ground” of professional managers?

Business schools are a modern-day training ground for many of tomorrow's business leaders and managers. The strong emphasis on an economic ideology dominates business education and leads to the contention that business schools desensitize students to ethical issues and contribute to a moral void in the future corporate leaders. This study employed data collected from a sample of 537 graduate students in a southern state university to examine whether MBA students differed significantly from nonbusiness students in their acceptance of unethical and illegal business practices. Results revealed that business students were more likely to be tolerant of business practices with ethical issues than the comparison group. No significant difference was found in the attitudes toward illegal business practices between them. Implications of the findings are discussed.