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The media has repeatedly reported countless incidences of leaders’ unethical behaviors, such as Enron executives. More recent reports of unethical behavior by corporate leaders include how opioid makers knowingly saturated poor communities with addictive drugs, contributing to countless atrocious outcomes such as homelessness and severe damage to family structures (Ramey, 2019). The news also reported that two former Mi Medix executives falsified corporate finance records to show company profitability (Morgenson, 2019). The escalation of unethical behavior among organizational leaders is a significant concern for leadership researchers and organizations because of its increased occurrences. Even though there is much awareness of leaders' unethical behaviors, it continues to rise, evidenced by the ethical scandals in the public, political, and private sectors (Enderle, 2018; Hrehovά, 2018). Unethical leaders in business organizations and dishonest business practices require the need to slow the progression of future business leaders’ tendency to be unethical by training them to develop ethical value systems to guide their behaviors and decision-making.
Recent studies revealed that business students were likelier to be less ethical than non-business majors. Little has changed in preparing future business leaders to avoid the generation of unethical leaders. An analysis of a sample population of over 5,000 Master of Business Administration and non-business graduates from 32 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada found that 50% of the students admitted to committing unethical conduct, such as sharing papers and examinations, indicating that business students who were unethical in college were more prone to behaving unethically in other situations (Arain et al., 2017). This high percentage of dishonest business students can add to the cadre of unethical leaders. Although this study focused on graduate students, undergraduate students have a more substantial impact in the business arena just by the sheer number of graduates each year. When 300 students enrolled in online and traditional private colleges and universities were surveyed on unethical behavior while attending college, 86% reported cheating somehow, and 54% felt cheating was acceptable and necessary to remain competitive. In contrast, only 12% stated they would not cheat because of ethics (Kessler International, 2017).
The general problem is that college students do not have the skills to become ethical leaders because they lack exposure to ethical development in the undergraduate business curriculum (Kiersch & Peters, 2017; Munro & Thanen, 2018). The business curriculum attempts to include ethics as a topic in many business classes. Still, in the process, the students need to get the whole picture of what it means to be ethical business leaders (Taylor-Bianco et al., 2017). More specifically, there is a need to identify what is missing from the undergraduate Business Administration curriculum that will support developing business students who are ethical in their behaviors and decision-making.
Understanding what is missing from the ethical development curriculum to produce ethical business students is vital. Ethical business students are essential to higher education and have implications for businesses, organizations, communities, and stakeholders, all dependent on ethical leaders to lead non-profit and for-profit organizations (Kiersch & Peters, 2017; Lawrence et al., 2018). Business schools have faltered in conveying graduates' ethics, social responsibility, and good moral habits. This oversight contributes to a global crisis of confidence in business leaders, requiring business schools to prepare future business leaders to understand their values and develop ethical value systems to guide their behavior and decision-making.