Hey Guys,
Just kind of curious besides the VW banter... What do you guys do for a living?
I'll start.
Second year student at Kwantlen.
Going into psychology or business(This semester will determine)
So you want to go into business?
You want to become a lying, cheating bastard?
From today's Province newspaper. Read on!
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/edi...9c-0762aa28a059So you think the average corporate chief is a lying cheat. Well you haven't seen anything yet.
If you view the current crop of Wall Street heavy hitters as a pack of shysters, wait until the next generation replaces them. According to a survey released this month, students are increasingly cheating during their courses.
And which class is most likely to be trying to fiddle the system? You guessed it: the business-studies mob.
That raises some questions that aren't discussed as often as they should be. Why is business so rife with dishonesty? Why is it getting worse? And what can be done to prevent the erosion of business ethics?
\"There is little social sanction for cheating when so many people are cheating that it becomes normal and routine,\" said David Callahan, author of The Cheating
Culture. \"When everybody's doing it, you don't feel bad if you do it, too.\"
The survey covered 5,331 students at 32 graduate business schools in the U.S. and Canada. Out of those, an astonishing 56 per cent of business students were willing to own up to cheating. And who knows how many of them lied about that? The real figure may be so high that it would make sewer rats feel ashamed of themselves.
The conclusion is clear. If it is honesty you are looking for, then business school isn't the place to find it.
What kind of tricks are they pulling? According to the study, business students are more likely to work with others on an assignment when they had been told to work alone. They were also more likely to cut and paste material from the Internet or from their textbooks.
It probably isn't the end of the world if a few students copy some of their assignments from the Internet. If, however, they go out into the world with the attitude that breaking the rules doesn't matter, that is more serious.
Certainly, big business gives the impression of being rife with dishonesty -- as numerous corporate and financial scandals have shown.
And it is hard to believe that students who have become used to bending the rules in college are suddenly going to start sticking to them rigidly once they get out.
After all, they aren't stupid. They got away with it in school, so why not carry on?
What does such dishonesty tell us about business?
First, never trust anyone with the words \"master of business administration\" tacked onto their name. They may well be lying about their qualification. And even if they aren't, they may have cheated their way through the exams.
Next, the barriers to cheating are falling. In school, you can copy work from the Web. In the office, there are legal disincentives, but fewer social sanctions about twisting the rules.
Third, business has developed a \"win at all costs\" culture that, at least tacitly, encourages rule-breaking. In the survey, many of the
students said they cheated on their exams because they assumed that was the normal thing to do.
That's probably true once they go to work as well.
