How Indian students see ethics and society: a survey

Abstract

Over the last decade, with greater emphasis being placed on economic growth through the private sector, there has been increasing interest in the ethicality of the business practices of the Indian corporate sector. Since the deregulation process began in 1991, the country has been witness to a number of scams, particularly related to the stock market. At the same time there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of corporate governance, resulting in the addition of new reporting and oversight procedures for listed companies. In parallel, there has been a growing emphasis on business and ethics in the curricula of management institutions across the country. With less than 1% of the applicants being able to secure admission, getting into the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has become extremely competitive. In recent years, with many foreign consulting firms, investment banks and software companies recruiting IIM graduates for over- seas postings, compensation levels of the top IIM graduates are now comparable to those from the best MBA schools anywhere in the world. These changes have been given considerable publicity in the press. These events may have had an impact on the nature of the students entering our institution. In an effort to have a more empirically grounded picture of the values and beliefs of our students, which we believe will help us design our courses better and relate better to the issues that concern our students, we collaborated on a survey of our students’ perceptions of ethics and society.