Dr Debbie Holley

Anglia Ruskin University

email: debbie.holley@anglia.ac.uk

 

* Ethics and the ‘facebook’ generation student: a two institution comparison

Murat Gulmez

Cag University , Turkey

email: mgulmez@cag.edu.tr

*About our collaboration

*This paper compares the attitudes to CSR of two groups of students studying in Business Schools, one in Turkey, one in England.

*We met at the CSR conference in Zagreb; and have been developing the work since

*We would welcome comments and volunteers to work with us to expand our study with colleagues in other Business School settings

*Facebook statistics

• Facebook is now used by 1 in every 13 people on earth, • 250 million of them (over 50%) who log in every day. • 48% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up

28% doing so before even getting out of bed.. • The core 18-24 year old segment is now growing the fastest

at 74% year on year. • 700 Billion minutes a month are spent on Facebook, 20 million

applications are installed per day Over • 200 million people access Facebook via their mobile phone. • 48% of young people said they now get their news through

Facebook.

Holley* Quality of references selected

by the student

* A focus on Chile and ethical issues (ie external to the UK ethical frameworks)

* The focus on ethical issues at the Royal Mint (ie internal to the UK student ethical frameworks)

Gulmez* Quality of references selected by

the student

* A focus on Facebook and ethical issues through their commentary on the setting up of the company (ie external to the Turkish ethical frameworks)

* The focus on ethical issues in terms of the students commentaries on the differences of face-to-face via social networking online communication.(ie internal to the Turkish student ethical frameworks)

* A framework developed by Holley (2011) analysing a single student cohort and their attitudes to ethics

(UK) has been adapted for local use in the Turkish context. We based

our study on comparable coursework

* All students were briefed about their work (coursework and examination) being used for analysis; asked for permission to use selected short extracts for educational purposes; and it

was explained that no piece of work would ever be identifiable and enable a reader to

know the identity of the individual student. Any student who was unwilling for their work to be used in this way was invited to email or talk to the tutor in confidence, and have their work excluded from the analysis. No student

contacted the tutor to request exclusion.

Ethics and informed consent

Both cohorts are in their third year as undergraduate students.

*The Turkish cohort of students

* E-Commerce is an elective course for 3rd year students

* 48 students in class who are registered for E-commerce course.

* 27 of the 48 students are Female and 21 of the student body are male students.

* Most of the student body consists of students who live in the same region where the university is located and comes from wealthy families.

* Even though they have common background, values and pre-education, they can differ a lot in academic success.

* The 15% of most successful students at Cag University are on full scholarships and usually that is the fact that explains this difference.

* The students who are on full scholarships uses the English language better therefore they are doing better in assignments and exams.

The UK cohort

experience Holley (2012)

Full ref at back

* From the cohort analysis, based on the quality of reference, 9% of the students failed, 13% of the students had barely passed, 74% of

the students had average score in regards to references, only 4 % of the students had quality references supporting their paperwork.

Those who failed either have no references at all or have very limited poor references only. The average students used movie critic

contents from certain websites of magazines or newspapers and even personal blogs. Even most of these sites were in Turkish

language and translated poorly and placed in their reports.

Quality ofreference

s

* For the question 1 of the assignment, the quality of answers were sufficient however 2% of the students failed and 13% of the students

had barely passed with the given answers. The majority of the students (81%) focused on the same issues which are dominantly

important for them since they are about the cultural values for Turkish society in general. The majority mentioned the main topics

related to ethics and moral values that have to be mentioned yet the quality of written answers were poor and similar since they were

translated from similar references into English. Meanwhile 4% of the students really created original and quality work by combining the

theory and the issues mentioned on “social network” movie.

A focus on Facebook and ethical issues through their

commentary on the setting up of the company(ie external to the Turkish ethical frameworks)

* For the question 2 of the assignment, 2% of the students failed and 15% of the students had barely passed with the given answers. The

majority of the students (79%) mentioned about how the communication and our social life changed and how technology

affected the way of communication. However most of these answers were superficial. Meanwhile 4% of the students really created

original and quality work. They approached the topic with original thought and gave good examples of today’s technology driven

communication and compare it to former ways of communication.

The focus on ethical issues in terms of the

students commentaries

Paper 12 &34 Paper 12 &34

*highest grades normally arise from quality

references.

Holley (2011)* “A polarisation was identified

between those students who addressed the question asked from a research perspective and covered ethical issues around the miners’ strike critically so, and those who looked up ‘ethics/CSR/corporate governance’ on wikipedia and/or the mining company website and merely copied out what was available with no thought as to the source material and its value.”

Gulmez (2011)*“The Majority used only

couple of websites as their references including blogs, wikipedia and other means of poor references. There were only couple of students who had used better quality references”

* Discussionnote similar findings with quality

of research!

Holley (2011)* “The paradox of the role of

business and wider education values such as ethics and CSR can be seen to be replicated in the small study reported in this paper. Findings suggest that students taking this business module were unclear about the terminology of corporate social responsibility, confusing CSR with ethics and sustainability, and environmental issues” Holley (2011

 

Gulmez (2011)* “The vast majority of the

students ignored the theoretical framework of Ethics mentioned in the class and they wrote about their perception of ethics with a cultural approach” Gulmez (2011).

* Similar issues in terms poor engagement with theory

Student A, Turkey* “in my opinion including the

ethics in business curricula was very useful for me, before that I never thought of ethics or moral values could play an important role for businesses, this course helped me to understand what is ethics and changed my mind set on the issue, I would like to see more inclusion of ethics in our courses” Student A, Turkey.

Student B, UK* “While I have always been

convinced that organisations should be responsible for giving something back to the societies that they operate in, but I have never really put much thought into how to actually carry out ethical business decisions, and how severe the consequences of unethical behaviour can be” Student B, UK.

*What do our students say? They value teaching

on ethics

*Concluding comments; thank you for listening

and any questions?

* To conclude, although the case study scenarios differ, in this paper we have explored the similarities and differences of students from two very different business schools and their attitudes to ethics.

*Our findings indicate that our most able students share the capability of engagement with a wide range of materials to research their coursework, and this breadth of reading enables more insightful analysis of a business case.

*Although it is disappointing that some students were not willing (or perhaps not able) to engage with a range of texts in depth, what is of interest through interviews with students after the course is the interest expressed in business ethics.

*References

*Holley, D (2012) Student attitudes to CSR: The Chilean copper workers Social Responsibility Journal, Emerald Vol 8 Issue 2 ISSN: 1747-1117

*http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011/